KNIFE SAFETY IN THE KITCHEN AND CORRECT KNIFE CARE

To start using your Global knives you will need a wooden chopping board, there are plastic boards you can use but often their surface can become less smooth. Cutting on wood has a nice weight to it and is less likely to slide. You will also need a small damp cloth to place under your board which will prevent it from moving and causing injury. 

If it is possible for you, it is preferable to have at least three chopping boards, one reserved for vegetables, the second is reserved for raw meat. Once your meat is cooked, never put it back on the board that handled the raw meat, but rather on the third board, reserved for cooked meat. This goes a long way to both keeping your food safe and uncontaminated and also maintaining the longevity of your knives. You do not want to be using a glass or metal or marble board, these surfaces are the proverbial nails to the chalkboard that is your knife. It does not like them. These surfaces chip away at your knife edge making them blunt and the miniscule jags created in the metal will take a lot of work to straighten or sharpen out. 

The type of knife you use is dependent on the food you are chopping and the technique you wish to achieve. In general, the bigger the food, the bigger the knife. When it comes to vegetables, trying to cut up a whole butternut with a paring knife will take you far too long, be inaccurate, but more importantly, be unsafe. When cutting large vegetables like butternut, which is bulky, slippery, and oddly shaped, the safest way to handle it is to cut off a section, so that what was once round and unsteady, is now a stable base to work from and use a large knife to cut it. 

Knife care and safety:

The simple (if cliché) truth is if you take care of your knife, it will take care of you. If you take good care of your knives, they will genuinely last for a lifetime. There is something that your knives all have in common – they should all be really sharp, and they should all be washed and dried by hand immediately after use. Often people are afraid of sharp knives as a common perception is the sharper the knife the easier it will cut you. This is untrue. In fact, the sharper your knife, the easier it is to cut the food, requiring less pressure or force as well as limiting the possibility of the knife sliding and cutting you. 

Even in the worst case scenario, which is highly unlikely if you follow normal knife safety and don’t try juggle them, you would get a clean cut, a clean cut will hurt less, and heal remarkably quickly, and you wouldn’t have the bruising or jagged edge of a cut made by putting too much pressure on a blunt knife.

The other thing all knives have in common – they should never, and I am saying never as in ever, be put in the dishwasher. They should be washed by hand, but not dumped in the sink and left for later when you can cut yourself trying to fish it out of murky dish water. You wash your knife, while holding it (by the handle), without putting it down anywhere it can fall or slip, with dishwashing liquid and water. Clean your knife from the back and the sides to get any food off it. Do not clean the sharp blade of your knife directly, by placing a sponge of cloth on it and sliding it across. This will cut clean through the sponge or cloth and the hand underneath. 

Then you dry it with a drying cloth immediately. Do not leave it to dry (fight your lazy instincts) as this causes water marks, rust and safety issues of knives sitting blade up in a drying rack waiting for an unsuspecting victim just innocently searching for a dry teaspoon. They just wanted tea, but now they have stitches. 

Knife guards

It’s dangerous to store knives in your kitchen drawers without protecting the blades — knives are sharp, after all — and it can dull or damage them over time, too. That’s why the best knife guards are designed to cover up the blade, keeping both you and your knives safe. Get yours here.