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

*Kind of.*

What’s happening on a microscopic level is that all knife blades are sort of serrated, even if on a human-eye level they look like a flat blade. “dull” knives have those microscope teeth *bent* out of line from each other. So when a chef uses a steel (that rough metal tube thing they rub against the knife blade) they aren’t *removing* those microscopic bent teeth, they are bending them back into a straight line. So long story short, the chefs aren’t making as much as you think they are.

Secondly, sure, they are kind of making some metal dust, it’s not horrible for you to each some metal dust and certainly not large enough to, like, cut you up inside or anything like that.