# Iroko chopping boards



## LyNx (12 Feb 2007)

Just spending a few minutes searching for kitchen knives and found a nice site selling bits and bobs. One thing they are selling is Iroko chopping boards. Surely this timber isn't suitable for this application? 

I remember many years ago, i made my first chopping board from a scrap of wenge. After a few months of use, the splinters started to appear. Hmm, nice steak and Wenge


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## Scrit (12 Feb 2007)

Generally only "blonde" fine grained timbers such as beech, sycamore and maple are suitable. Judging from the extremely peppery dust given off when you saw iroko and combined with it's naturally oily nature I'd say there's a good chance it would taint delicately-flavoured foodstuffs

Scrit


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## Johnboy (12 Feb 2007)

If it is an end grain board then you don't get any splinters. I made an end grain board from an assortment of wood scraps including Iroko about 4 years ago and it has stood up very well. Not noticed any problems with odd tastes either. The dark wood in the picture is iroko.






John


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## Chris Knight (12 Feb 2007)

I really wouldn't use iroko for this purpose. People vary in their response to this wood but it can start nasty allergies..

"Chlorophora excelsa Benth. & Hook. f.
Iroko, Kambala, African Teak, Moreira, Moule

The timber is strong, durable and weather resistant and is much used for outdoor and indoor constructional work, including boat building.

The alkaloid chlorophorin is an allergic sensitiser (Schulz 1957, 1960, 1962, 1967). The molecule is composed of a four-fold oxidized stilbene nucleus and an aliphatic side chain, and is chemically related to the allergenic compounds of Toxicodendron (King and Grundon 1949, 1950).

Dermatitis affects carpenters, joiners and other wood workers, rather than those felling the trees. The sawdust was recognized as causing dermatitis of eyelids and genitalia, in Breslau over 60 years ago (Czimatis and Hagemann 1910). Iroko is amongst the six commonest causes of dermatitis from woods in France (Zafiropoulo et al. 1968). However the latex oozing from the freshly felled timber appears to be irritant and has caused acute, followed by chronic, dermatitis in East African workers (Piorkowski 1944).

There are numerous reports of dermatitis in wood workers; taken together the reports provide a graphic picture of a severe dermatitis, sometimes associated with ocular and respiratory symptoms, and assuming almost epidemic proportions particularly where high temperature and humidity favour eccrine sweating.

The earliest clinical and chemical studies were made in Germany and France (Hubinot 1928, Frei 1931, 1932, Loro 1923). In an outbreak of dermatitis in a joiners' workshop Jung (1967) noted positive patch test reactions to the sawdust. Goessens (1936) reported a case of generalized dermatitis caused by the sawdust. Frei (1932) obtained positive patch test reactions with sawdust and Ragot and Brun (1948) with an aqueous extract. Thienemann (1941) noted the development of dermatitis in a proportion of workers approximately ten weeks after this wood was first introduced. He gave a good description of the distribution of the dermatitis, which involved the arms, the face and chest and the scrotum. The incidence of dermatitis in some workshops has been very high: in one machine shop all of the more than 50 workers were affected in some degree, though only 9 had severe dermatitis, sometimes accompanied by upper and lower respiratory tract symptoms (Davidson 1941). This variation in the clinical picture was noted also by Langelez (1950); some workers developed only a mild papular prurigo of exposed or covered skin, a few developed dermatitis particularly of the neck and ears, and some in each group had conjunctivitis and asthma.

This variation suggests that the sawdust both irritates and sensitises, and the investigation of a case of dermatitis in a machinist supported this assumption. Patch tests with the dry dust were positive in the patient and in 4 of 5 control subjects, but tests with 0.1% chlorophorin in soft paraffin were positive only in this patient (Beer 1970).

Respiratory symptoms may be severe. Obstructive rhinitis without asthma occurred in men handling iroko and bé té and both rhinitis and asthma in another who worked with iroko, obèche, Triplochiton and framiré (Zafiropoulo et al. 1968). In reporting 11 cases of asthma in men exposed to the dust of iroko and teak (Tectona), Van Ganse (1968) noted that only a proportion of these patients gave positive scratch test reactions and that inhalation tests were sometimes positive when these were negative. It is not established whether the respiratory symptoms are purely irritant in origin or whether a reaginic antibody is implicated.

For patch testing, 1% chlorophorin in soft paraffin is probably suitable, unless this concentration is proved to sensitise some subjects (Maibach 1970). In one patient patch tests with 0.1% chlorophorin were negative, whilst tests to 0.5% and 1.0% were positive (Wilkinson 1969).

Thiel (1960) reported contact sensitivity to the wood.

Kambala was listed by Hublet et al. (1972) and by Oleffe et al. (1975a) as a cause of dermatitis in the Belgian timber industry."


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## CHJ (12 Feb 2007)

You nailed it there Chris, I can confirm that if you develope a sensitivity don't be surprised if you end up in hospital.

A lot of preparation boards supplied to fit sink units are made with Iroko, it was an old one of these that had me in for emergency treatment when I turned it.


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## woodbloke (12 Feb 2007)

I wouldn't use iroko anywhere near foodstuffs, its a nasty horrible timber only suitable for outside uses where its almost indestructible - Rob


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## Anonymous (12 Feb 2007)

woodbloke":qkqvdxet said:


> I wouldn't use iroko anywhere near foodstuffs, its a nasty horrible timber only suitable for outside uses where its almost indestructible - Rob



Well someone should tell all the kitchen manufactures, its one of the most popular woods for solid worktops, I use iroko worktops all the time, as do Smallbone, Mark wilkinson etc.


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## Scrit (12 Feb 2007)

But surely people use chopping boards, trivets and the like to keep their expensive iroko worktops looking pristine, don't they? :roll: Despite iroko's general availability since the 19th century it's use as a worktop material is relatively recent, isn't it? Maybe the Victorians _et al_ who used sycamore and beech for working surfaces in places like butchers (at least up here they did) knew something that the modern kitchen designer has forgotten - or never learned to start with. That said I think iroko tops do look the dog's danglies

Scrit


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## CHJ (12 Feb 2007)

senior":z2d3r1rh said:


> Well someone should tell all the kitchen manufactures, its one of the most popular woods for solid worktops,



Source Price wouldn't have anything to do with that would it?


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## woodbloke (12 Feb 2007)

senior":i61a0rsy said:


> woodbloke":i61a0rsy said:
> 
> 
> > I wouldn't use iroko anywhere near foodstuffs, its a nasty horrible timber only suitable for outside uses where its almost indestructible - Rob
> ...



It does have some redeeming qualities in that its _cheap_ (compared to teak which it often trys to imitate), is available in largish sizes and is resistant to almost all chemicals (which is why its the favoured timber for school lab bench tops....I know as I've 'salvaged' enough when I was teaching) I still maintain that its an unpleasant and difficult timber to work with when better alternatives are available - Rob


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## engineer one (13 Feb 2007)

although i think scrit is right about the victorians, part of it was also cost, in that local woods were cheaper than imported woods.

reminds me of the recent discussions about the plastic boards compared to wood. after years the eu commissioners suddenly realised that the natural enzymes in wood were more effective at killing germs than washing plastic boards.

if my understanding of the way that early industrial revolution products became mass produced is true, then various woods were tested and the ones that didnot kill too many stayed in prodcution the others did not :roll: 

so it seems that for sure the victorians did know more, by experience than many of our commissars do from science :twisted: 

paul :wink:


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## Anonymous (13 Feb 2007)

I'll tell my customers it has to be teak next time :lol:


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## Scrit (13 Feb 2007)

senior":11etjxf6 said:


> I'll tell my customers it has to be teak next time :lol:


Just make sure that you get them to sit down before you tell them the price - I was quoted £400/cube (that's a cubic _foot_) yesterday :shock: 

Scrit


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