[Cherryville Chuck]

Marble is somewhat porous and is very hard on knife edges Bob. Marble also lacks the tannins in wood that can kill bacteria. Porosity of Stone I value the sharp edges on my knives so I would only use wood or plastic, never something as hard as marble or granite.

Any softwood would not make a good choice. Some woods are toxic to some extent with yew being very toxic but also being an unlikely candidate for a cutting board. There are wood properties charts that can be googled which would give you a good idea which ones are good and which ones to avoid.

 

[Cherryville Chuck]

I was listening to the radio one day headed home from work when a news item about a study done at a US university on wooden cutting boards came on. The study had concluded that wooden cutting boards were far more sanitary that they had been given credit for because of the tannin content in the wood, the same thing that preserves leather and wine. Neither marble nor plastic have tannins so unless you use bleach you aren't getting them clean. I would never carve directly on a counter top, particularly marble since it will also scratch and the scratches, besides being hard to get rid of, also are a trap for food matter than can go rotten.