I’ve been told often enough that sharp knives are safer than dull ones. And I even believed it. Sure, it makes sense. The duller the knife, the harder you have to press; and the harder you press, the more likely the knife is to slip. Consequently, I keep my kitchen knives scrupulously sharp. But I’ve never seen proof that it’s true.
Tonight I cut my thumb (no major damage). The raw potato I was slicing was softer than I expected. As a result, the knife went through the spud and into my thumb when I applied only a little pressure.
So it appears there are cases when sharper is not better. The real question is which is safer overall, sharp or dull. Or is there an optimal level of sharpness? Has there ever been a scientific study to investigate it?
Before anyone else beats me to it, I admit it wasn’t very sharp of me to have my thumb in the path of the knife. :wally
I’d say it depends on the user. If the knife wielder is skilled with knives, then he’d want a sharp one, just as any experienced tool user wants a well-made tool in good condition. A dull knife or other tool in bad condition causes you to have to use it incorrectly and unnaturally, increasing the chances of a mistake.
If the knife wielder is inexperienced, all bets are off, but a dull knife is probably safer. Of course, using a dull knife doesn’t let the user gain any experience with the correct tool, so you wouldn’t want to start out a beginning knife wielder with it.
I used to sell knives. It depends on your definition of ‘sharp’ and ‘dull’. Given the same knife, say a sharp ‘Commercial Sabtier’ or a ‘J. A. Heinkles’, or a dull (used) one, the dull one is much safer because even a “dull” Sabatier is a dangerous cutting tool. A sharp one scarily so.
Coming from someone who handles knives on a very regular basis (culinary school student) a sharp knife cut is by far, the better of the two. When you have a sharp knife edge, the cut is going to be a very clean cut, and Trout was right about them also healing quicker and being less painful. The sharp blade will go straight through flesh like butter–but there is actually less damage, as a dull knife edge will sort of roll around in the flesh.
The worst cut I recieved was with my bread knife, with its very serrated edge. That one took the longest to heal. (Of course, I got the cut when I was putting it in its protective sleeve, so I wouldn’t get cut when reaching into my kit.)
To specically answer the OP, If by safer you mean which will cut you (unitentionally) easiest, It’s the sharper knife (which I understood the OP to mean).
If you mean which wound heals faster, I’ll defer to Java who apparently has more experience in that area and I’m guessing Dan does, too.
See, that’s the trick. If you’re working with a dull knife, you have to use more pressure to cut. When the knife is sharp, you use less pressure, hence, less pressure going into your flesh. When we’re talking about dull knives, we’re not talking about butter knives, but things like French knives that are used for chopping large amounts of food. You do want these items to be as sharp as possible because it does make the task far easier.
I see your point, but if you are using a knife correctly you won’t be cutting towards a bodypart. But you knew that.
At least not for the average Joe. Now in culinary school you guys might get fancy, but again I don’t think that was the OP’s intent…
I’m just wondering–when you cut a potato, don’t you hold it down on your cutting board while you’re cutting it–or do you put it on the counter and whack at it à la *John-Belushi-Samurai-*Style?
But, seriously, fingers do sometimes get in the way when you’re holding items that you’re chopping. In that case, I’d rather it be sharp.
Research has shown that obsidian makes the most efficient, hence safest, cutting edge. It can take a sharper edge tha anything else. It can get down to single atoms. The cuts made into flesh with obsidian blades will heal faster than anything, with no scar at all.
Goes to show that pre-Columbian American Indian surgeons with their obsidian knives were on to something that the white man has only recently discovered.
I don’t know why I didn’t mention this in my last post to this thread, but I took a class in prehistoric technology when I was in college, and one of the things we learned how to do was make tools out of obsidian. I cut myself a couple of times on obsidian fragments and most of the time it hurt barely at all – once I didn’t even realize I’d cut myself till I looked down and saw the blood oozing down my hand.
While a fresh obsidian blade is much sharper than even the best surgical scalpels, obsidian can’t hold an edge nearly as long as, say, steel. You’re only able to get a few uses out of a blade before you either have to re-flake the edge or throw it away.
People seem to be hitting all around this topic, without actually getting to the answer. The reason that dull knives are dangerous is that you have to use more force when cutting with them. More force means that it’s just that much more likely you’ll slip and cut yourself with the knife. A sharp knife, USED CORRECTLY, will therefore be safer.
Bibliphage, I have to assume that you were holding the spud incorrectly when cutting it. If your thumb was in such a position that cutting through the spud brought it into contact with the knife, you would have cut yourself no matter how dull or sharp the blade.
All I know about kitchen knives I learned from the Frugal Gourmet.
i’m just going to throw this out there:
a sharp knife is obviously a better tool than a dull knife (surgery, slicing tomatoes).
but safer? the sharper the edge, the more likely you’ll get cut by incidental contact.
i guess it depends on how dull the blade is and how insistent you are on using it in that condition.
for me, a dull knife isn’t all that dangerous because i won’t use it to cut anything that requires the extra pressure.
once i sharpen it though, i’ll have a useful, albeit more dangerous, tool.
if a butter knife fell off the counter onto my bare foot, it would probably bounce off.
if my favorite utility knife did that, there would definitely be a lot of blood.
True for knives, and doubly true for axes. A dull axe will bounce out of the wood when you hit it, and land who-knows-where (but likely a leg or foot). One of the guys from my scout troop still has a very ugly, jagged scar on his right foot from a dull axe. So sayeth the Boy Scout Handbook, which is never wrong on such matters.
