When chefs sharpen a knife before cutting into veggies and meat, shouldn’t we be concerned of eating microscopic metal shaving residue from the sharpening process?

Question

I always watch cooking shows where the chefs sharpen the knives and then immediately go to cutting the vegetables or meat without first rinsing/washing the knife. Wouldn’t microscopic metal shavings be everywhere and get on the food and eventually be eaten?

In: 5225

Answer 1

Most of what you see isn’t “sharpening “ as you’d expect. It’s honing, they’re rubbing their blade on a similar strength metal to straighten the blade thus allowing it to cut more smoothly. They’re not shearing metal off.

Typically they would sharpen in a wet stone. Which does rub fine metal off. But they’d clean the blade afterwards, and that’s not something that regularly happens inside the restaurant.