What finish for food use?

[Dale Gregory]

Just finishing sanding my first decent size bowl, finished at 10" diameter, 3-1/4" deep, 1/4" thick, Ohio Buckeye with a tiny bit of flame and spalting (Rikon turned at 11-1/2" before drying, quite a lot of warping took place over about 4 months). My lovely wife likes it and said she would like to use it for food (salads, I guess).

-What is the best finish for food contact. We have veg. oil and mineral oil in the house will they work?

- What about Danish oil, is it bad for food contact?

- I don't have a buffer yet, so I'm guessing it will be a dull finish whatever I choose.

Dale

[Bernie Weishapl]

Dale all finish pretty basically are food safe after 72 hrs. Do not use veggie oil as it will go rank on you real quick. My preference is these 3 and it is just my preference. I use Mike Mahoney's walnut oil and his walnut oil/wax mixture. It works real well. I also have used Behlens Salad Bowl finish. The one I really like and it seems to be holding up pretty well on the kid's salad bowl set is General Finishes Seal-A-Cell and Arm-R-Seal. I have used the walnut plates that I have put this on also for 4 or 5 months now and it is holding fine. My sisters bowls I gave her last Oct. with walnut oil are fine also. She bought some walnut oil from the health food store and said she is going to give them a coat next washing.

[Robert McGowen]

I use Behlens Salad Bowl finish quite a bit on cutting boards and have had no problems with it. Good luck....

[Dale Gregory]

Bernie, thanks for letting me know about veggie oil going bad, if I understand you correctly, your saying "all finishes are food safe after 72 hrs." Does this include Polyurethane and Danish Oil finishes? I have those two already but thought they shouldn't be used with food?

I'm just checking twice before using them to be safe, I don't want someone to get sick or have the food taste like the finish.

Anyone use mineral oil?

Thanks, Dale

[William Bachtel]

Use mineral oil, on all cutting boards and bowls that are going to be used around food all the time. Mineral oil can be reapplied weekly or after several uses.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I am like you Dale just leary. I haven't used Mineral Oil but a lot of people do. Yes they do say after 72 hrs. all finishes are food safe. General Finishes Salad Bowl Finish, Behlens Salad Bowl finish and General Finishes Seal-A-Cell and Arm-R-Seal plus walnut oil are all I have I have used. I am just a little leary of some of the others. Don't know just me I guess. I hope others will chime in here.

[George Tokarev]

Curing oils and resins are generally regarded as safe for incidental contact with food. Non-curing oils like mineral and some vegetable types are emulsified and washed away by detergents, so they're really not finishes. For those with the desire http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/w...1cfrv3_03.html gives guidance.

I like finishes which slow the uptake of other liquids for food containers. Urethane is a good choice, whether you let it sink in or build. Alkyd or phenolic resins encountered in other finishes are also indigestible, and so "safe" for use with food.

Vegetable oils are subject to partial curing - rancidity - when deprived of access to air. So if you nest your bowls or keep your cutting boards close-stacked, you can get rancidity. If open to the air, not. I tell people to wipe the surface with vinegar for bacterial control before and after making their salads.

[Dennis Sneed]

Timely post for me as I just finished my first large 14" salad bowl. I used several coats of Walnut oil and it looks fine. I do have the 3 stage buffing system - will this be food safe?

Also, what foods might damage the finished bowl? Vinegar? Italian pasta sauce? My wife wants to know. Thx Denny

[Brian Poor]

I would caution not to use anything with phenolic resins in it for a finish with food contact.

Nut oils on the other hand, are great food safe finishes.

See this article:
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworki....aspx?id=26893

[robert hainstock]

Bob Flexner in his book "Understanding Wood Finishing", adresses this issue. Too paraphrase, If it cures for 72 hrs, it is safe. I would point out that many of the oils mentioned here. Never cure.
Bob

[Bill Bolen]

I'm a bog proponet of mineral oild. I use it on all bowls that "may" contain any type of food. Been around for a long time, cheap and easy to find, provides a nice finish, and the wife says it makes my hands as soft as when we were 17! Now that is a long time ago! I put it on bare handed and rub it in bare handed too. ..Bill...

[David Walser]

In the most recent copy of the American Woodturner, Bob addresses which clear finishes are food-safe. It's an interesting read. Bob traces the history of the controversy over food-safe finishes. Some finishes, such as mineral oil and walnut oil, are safe to eat off right away. Mineral oil is sold for human consumption (as a laxative) and walnut oil is sold for use as a food (in salad dressings and such). So, it's no surprise that these would produce food-safe finishes.

Other clear finishes are only safe to eat off after they cure. Among these are the salad bowl finishes (which are nothing more than thinned varnishes). All these finishes cure to a solid film that protects the wood underneath. To make this curing possible, the finishes contain "hardeners" that are made from metallic salts. (The salad bowl finishes also contain these metallic salts. That's why their instructions say it's safe to eat off the finish after 72 hours -- after they have cured.) Once cured, these salts are en-capsulized within the film. If the film flakes off are eaten, the salts will pass through the digestive system without harm.

This is where people start to disagree. The metallic salts have scary sounding names. Why not be safe rather than sorry and just avoid using film finishes containing the salts? That's a viable option. Just remember, that eliminates the salad bowl finishes that are advertised as being food-safe. Stick with mineral oil, un-boiled linseed oil, and walnut oil, and you'll be fine.

Or, you can take Bob's advice and note that the scare about food safe finishes was not raised by the government or any food scientist. It was raised in an article in Fine Woodworking in the 1970s. The author was a woodworker, not a food scientist. In essence, the author's argument was: If lead is bad for you (and it's being eliminated from paint and gasoline), wouldn't these metallic salts be bad for you too? Therefore, wouldn't it be prudent to avoid them? Since then, other articles have argued for the better-safe-than-sorry approach. None of the articles point to government studies or warnings about clear film finishes being anything but food-safe. None of the articles explain why we need to avoid finishes containing metallic salts but we can use the salad bowl finishes that DO contain metallic salts.

Personally, I like to use lacquer on most of my bowls. It's a nice looking finish and it's easy to repair. For bowls that will see a lot of use with metal forks, I use walnut oil. Lacquer will not stand up under such abuse and, while it's easy to repair, I don't want to be refinishing my working bowls every Saturday.

YMMV.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I talked with Ernie Conover about food safe finishes. He says he uses Antique Oil because it is easy to repair after a few years. He also said General Finishes Seal-A-Cell and Arm-R-Seal is another good one but has stuck with Antique Oil. I made a set of mahogany salad bowls with the General Finishes above. They are now almost 2 yrs old and still look good. He also said he doesn't like Salad Bowl finishes because after 2 yrs or so they turn yellow and will get gummy. The ones I have did with this are starting to turn yellow. I still use Mike Mahoney's walnut oil at times.

[Allen Neighbors]

I used to use Mineral Oil and Paraffin mixtures on all my utility bowls. Now my Utility Bowls are unfinished. Sanded through 600grit and then buffed. They are beautiful and clean.
I read a test that was done in some university study, and they said that bacteria died when smeared on bare wood of all types. But the same types of bacteria lived on and on when they were smeared onto wood with a Mineral Oil coating. The article says that the oil helps the bacteria to thrive. I don't know if this is true and scientifically accurate, but it was enough for me.
On bowls that we use at home, we use soap and hot water to clean (never leaving food to sit after the meal). Cloth dry, then air dry. When it seems to need a little more smoothing inside, I add a teaspoon of salt and scour gently -gently - with a paper towel. The salt also helps to purify the wood. They are all smooth, clean, and a joy to use.

[Ken M Nelsen]

We also use some wood tableware and I don't finish any of it. I sand to P400 grit, reverse rotation and resand, back to forward and sand again. As I'm the official "automatic dishwasher", I can attest that washing in the sink - no mechanical automatic dishwasher - with the rest of the dishes (no overnight sitting on the counter) and air drying is all they need and we have never experienced warping, cracking or growing "fur". How many wooden spoons do we all have in that crock on the counter? I've never seen one pick up anything other than the patina of use. The same goes for treen. If health is the concern: no finish, no concern.

From my experience, I thought that the key idea in the AWW article was that a buyer might buy a oil or varnish finished piece before an unfinished one.

Good Luck,

Ken