Knife Safety
Here are some tricks that will help you keep from being hurt when you work with your kitchen knives and the other sharp edges around the kitchen..
- Keep your knives sharp. If your knife is sharp, it will slide easily through what you are cutting, with little force involved. If the knife is dull, you have to force it to do the cutting, and if you slip a little, there is all that force that makes the knife glance off anything in its way, and often cut the heck out of it.
- When you are using a knife, don't cut with the edge toward you or your fingers. If you slip, the blade keeps going toward you, and can easily get you. Pay a lot of attention to where the edge of your sharp blade is pointing, and make sure it can not get you if you slip a bit.
- Don't leave sharp knives loose in a drawer. Not only will banging around in a drawer ruin the good sharp edge you have on your knives, someone for sure will reach in the drawer and come out with a handful of knife, and it will probably be you.
- If you are working with or handling a knife, and you drop it, stand back and let it fall, don't try to catch it. This sounds elementary, but lots of instincts say catch it, and that can really hurt.
- If you have a dirty knife, don't toss it in the dishwater. There is a good chance the dishwasher, which may be you, will come up with a handful of sharp knife edge. Banging around in the dishwater will also ruin a good edge. Wash the knives separately.
- When you are working with a knife, and you lay it down, don't lay it down with the edge pointing up. It is hard to see the edge, and someone will put their hand down on it, making lots of blood.
- Any kind of broken glass is incredibly sharp and dangerous. Clean it carefully up, and make sure you don't leave pieces of it in the sponge for the next guy who grabs the sponge to find. Don't just toss broken glass in the trash bag to bite the guy who picks up the bag, wrap it in old newspaper or something, and if there is a lot of it, warn all concerned. Don't ever break glass on purpose and toss it in the trash bag you are going to throw over your hip, as did my old dishwasher, S. Chavez.
|
