So far the score is Tung Oil: 2 Mineral Oil: 2 Tung and mineral will give you two different types of finishes. Tung a film finish, oil a non-film, penetrating finish. 100% PURE Tung oil, once FULLY CURED, is indeed foodsafe. Make sure that it is 100% pure tung, though. Advertising and labeling can be deceptive. For mineral oil, use food safe mineral oil. You can find it in the health/beauty section of most stores. Back to the question at hand. For a food prep area that will not see any cutting, you can use either a penetrating (mineral) oil or a food-safe lacquer or varnish. The film finish will provide a more durable finish, however, note the curing times required for it to be "food safe". The best food-safe lacquer is shellac. In flake form, it is free of water, wax and preservatives, and can easily be mixed as needed. It is easy to apply, protects well against moisture, and makes a wonderful shiny surface. Small blemishes can be easily repaired, however heat spots and alcohol spills are damaging and require work to fix. The best food-safe varnish is natural tung oil. It is easy to apply, protects well against moisture, blemishes can be easily repaired, and lasts much longer than shellac. It takes more coats than shellac, and more work to get a shiny surface, a longer drying time, and is more expensive. Other products are available, but those are the two leading ones in their most basic forms. Realize that they are film finishes. Knife edges will damage the integrity of that film. While both can be easily repaired, again, you have the curing time that follows for the product to be considered "food safe". Mineral oil? Wipe on, wipe off, as needed. It's essentially a non-curing oil. Since it's non-film, knife edges will not damage the finish. It can easily be renewed with a oil-dampened cloth. You can sip it from the bottle and it won;t hurt you. You may spend s bit of time doing the crossword puzzle while sitting on the commode the next morning, but mineral oil is foodsafe right out of the bottle. From the "health inspector" point-of-view, a damaged film finish can harbor microorganisms more easily. Laquers and varnishes can add beauty to wood surfaces. But for a cutting board that will see a lot of knife edges and subsequent wipe-downs, my personal preference for a wood cutting board would be for mineral oil. It's less expensive, less laborious, and less worry. Mongo

Recommendations? Don't do it. If you don't sand out all of the existing scratches very thoroughly before staining, then more pigment will lodge inextricably in the remaining scratches. This will look bad. If you manage to refinish the counter successfully and then start using it as a cutting board, you will soon cut through the stained wood in places. This will also look bad. Even setting food safety aside, a cutting board is just the wrong place for stain.

Thanks, casey and bobs, for your responses. I think I will stop at 150 grit and then apply mineral oil. Yes, it will be a working board, so it'll get sliced and diced daily. Today I looked at new cutting boards being sold at Williams-Sonoma, and they were quite rough--certainly no smoother than mine is now. Their display tables, on the other hand, had sealed butcher block tops that had been sanded, as Casey describes, to a silky sheen. Thanks again!

New butcher block typically gets passed thru a thickness planer after glue-up so I don't think you can sand it too smooth. There's lots of detailed info in the attached article on refinishing & caring for BB cutting boards. I'm glad you asked this question because it reminded me that I need to hunt down the mineral oil for my cutting board. Here is a link that might be useful: Refinishing Butcher Block