Tung oil and nut allergies

[FlightlessDuck]

Hey, y'all. This is an allergy question but not Disney related.

My niece is allergic to tree nuts. She will come over to our house a lot, especially for holidays. So, lots of food being eaten.

We are, as I type this, getting a new butcher block countertop. The contractor says we should look into how we are are going to finish it (we will have a scrap we can use to test). As far as I understand, the two go-to mediums for foodsafe butch block countertop finishing are mineral oil and tung oil.

Tung oil is apparently derived from the seed of a tung nut. It is not technically a nut., it's a tree seed Kinda like peach pit, I guess? Should I avoid using this on our countertops anyway, just to be safe? Has anyone with a nut allergy family member had to deal with this?

 

[Starwind]

This does not answer your question, but do note that many of what are considered "tree nuts" for food allergy labelling purposes are not actually botanically a "tree nut". Almonds are one example, they are a drupe, not a tree nut. But they are considered a part of the "tree nut" category for allergy purposes. [see https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/n...monds-arent-technically-nuts-so-what-are-they ]

Hopefully someone has some answers about tung nut oil.

And, as someone with multiple food allergies, thank you for caring enough to recognize a potential issue and ASK !!

 

[mamabunny]

Hey, y'all. This is an allergy question but not Disney related.

My niece is allergic to tree nuts. She will come over to our house a lot, especially for holidays. So, lots of food being eaten.

We are, as I type this, getting a new butcher block countertop. The contractor says we should look into how we are are going to finish it (we will have a scrap we can use to test). As far as I understand, the two go-to mediums for foodsafe butch block countertop finishing are mineral oil and tung oil.

Tung oil is apparently derived from the seed of a tung nut. It is not technically a nut., it's a tree seed Kinda like peach pit, I guess? Should I avoid using this on our countertops anyway, just to be safe? Has anyone with a nut allergy family member had to deal with this?

Did your contractor favor tung oil over mineral oil? And if so, did they give a reason?

I know that certain oils can get rancid over time, and when applied to wood, they become kind of... sticky (ewwww)

Our contractor gave us a small bottle of something called "Boos Block Board Cream" that we have used for years that has mineral oil in it; we don't have the concern of the allergy, but I do like that it's easy to find and work with.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Did your contractor favor tung oil over mineral oil? And if so, did they give a reason?

He did not, no.

For safety's sake and just to make things easier (we've made a lot of decisions on this project and we are kind of worn out), we just chose mineral oil instead of trying multiple options and seeing which we like.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Our contractor gave us a small bottle of something called "Boos Block Board Cream"

We went with Howard's Butcher Block Mineral Oil (which we already use on our cutting boards) and their conditioner too

 

[cobright]

Hey, y'all. This is an allergy question but not Disney related.

My niece is allergic to tree nuts. She will come over to our house a lot, especially for holidays. So, lots of food being eaten.

We are, as I type this, getting a new butcher block countertop. The contractor says we should look into how we are are going to finish it (we will have a scrap we can use to test). As far as I understand, the two go-to mediums for foodsafe butch block countertop finishing are mineral oil and tung oil.

Tung oil is apparently derived from the seed of a tung nut. It is not technically a nut., it's a tree seed Kinda like peach pit, I guess? Should I avoid using this on our countertops anyway, just to be safe? Has anyone with a nut allergy family member had to deal with this?

This has come up from time to time in woodworking forums and of course no one is going to say one way or another for risk of liability.

For a whole bunch of reasons it seems unlikely to trigger an allergic response. The one that stands out for me is that tung oil is a 'drying oil' which means, counterintuitively, that it doesn't dry out in the traditional sense but it cures and hardens over time more like an epoxy would. This means any available proteins (the part that triggers allergies) would get encapsulated.

Here's the thing though ... I'm not a fan of tung oil. That's sacrilege in classic woodworking circles. But it doesn't really get the penetration that a wearing surface really needs, I don't like the smell, and the end result is a wood that just sort of looks ... wet, like all the time.

I finish most of my woodworking with simple beeswax applied to a warmed surface then buffed to a shine. For food bearing products, gently heat up a volume of mineral oil to 200F or so and then increase that volume by maybe 5-10% with shredded beeswax. Stir till liquidy then it should remain liquid at room temperature. Or buy Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner. Either will work just as well as tung (IMO) and then there's no worry about anyone catching an allergy death.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Or buy Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner. Either will work just as well as tung (IMO) and then there's no worry about anyone catching an allergy death.

We went with something I've seen a lot of people do online: a few coats of just mineral oil and then a final coat of the Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner

Thanks, everybody!