Butter boards are the new charcuterie on TikTok. But the trend makes experts queasy
TikTok’s recent butter board creations could have stomach-churning consequences, experts fear. Here’s what to know before you start spreading.
The butter board trend has exploded on TikTok, with the hashtag #butterboard receiving over 240.3 million views and hundreds of videos of creators’ unique boards.
It’s similar to charcuterie but instead of slices of meat, cheese and fruit, people will lather up heaps of butter onto their charcuterie board and garnish it with other flavors like spices, jams and fruits. Then, everyone digs in — usually with bread — to enjoy the board.
@themodernnonna A Butter Board IS THE MOST BRILLIANT IDEA I Have Ever Come Across IB: @justine_snacks #butter #butterboard #fyp ♬ original sound - THEMODERNNONNA
“Dear reader, it’s good,” a reviewer from Insider wrote after making their own board. “Despite whatever reservations we had — including questions over whether it was in fact at all dangerous to eat that much saturated fat — we finished it quickly.”
But copious amounts of saturated fat are just one point of concern that experts have about butter boards. It also has to do with what you’re putting it on.
While wooden charcuterie boards look beautiful, food safety expert Darin Detwiler told Northeastern University that
“You can’t really clean it. You have these microbe cracks, areas where little bugs can hide. By bugs I mean E.coli and salmonella,” Detwiler said. “I never ever use a wooden cutting board.”
Forbes digital health expert Bruce Lee expressed similar concerns.
“Scooping up butter out of the cracks of a wooden board could in turn be scooping up a bunch of board bacteria that won’t be so bored once they get into your gastrointestinal tract,” Lee wrote in a review of the butter board trend.
Not everyone on social media is on board with the trend, either. Several people have come out to oppose the butter board — or said they would even leave a gathering if someone offered it.
the butter, peanut butter, etc boards have got to stop. all i can think about is dust and hair.
— Meena Harris (@meena) October 5, 2022
if you want to serve butter to people at a party, just put it in a proper butter dish. the idea of smearing butter over cutting board that's been used for who knows what is gross
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) October 6, 2022
if i went to someone's house and they presented the group with a butter board i would be leaving someone's house immediately
— miccaeli ️ (@renegadeapostle) October 5, 2022
If you are considering making a butter board for your next get-together, you should take precautions, experts say.
Plastic boards are easier to sanitize and help avoid cross-contamination, food industry experts from Wasserstrom, a restaurant supply company, said in a blog post. Even if you do use plastic boards, keep an eye out for scratches and wear in the plastic, which will make them more difficult to properly clean, according to Wasserstrom.
“I would recommend using a plastic board. Something that can be sanitized in the dishwasher,” Detwiler substantiated to Northeastern University, adding that he would serve a butter board as soon as possible in the hosting process.
Lee recommends in the review that guests use clean utensils to spread the butter instead of dipping, and to be careful how much you eat.
“On the heels of a few pandemic years spent fixated on germs, sliding bread around a shared spread isn’t something we’d be excited to do with strangers. For that, we’d prefer a charcuterie,” Insider’s Butter Board reviewer said. “Given the polarizing responses a butter board can elicit, we would think twice before bringing it as an offering to a housewarming.”
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