Any non-stainless steel knife blade is not food safe! - Jay Fisher

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David Mary

David Mary

pass the mustard - after you cut it
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He makes some pretty solid arguments against unfinished flats, and rough surfaces on a food contact blade, and I generally feel I learn a lot whenever I read his site, but this time I am having a hard time swallowing his assertion that carbon steels are not food safe. Not because I don't respect the man's work, or his opinions, but because I am pretty sure that humanity has survived for thousands of years with only carbon steels to cut food with. So what gives?

Do we have arguments against this? Or is he in fact spot on and I am just late to the party? I ask because I am about to make a couple more chef knives, and was thinking to use 1080 steel from old sawmill blades.

https://www.jayfisher.com/Food_Safety_Kitchen_Chefs_Knives.htm

It's a long article, but here is one of his main points in this regard:

Jay Fisher said:
Patina (Oxidation)
Not Food Safe
Knifemakers and manufacturers who use carbon steels for their knife blades realize that they can't leave a bare steel surface on their blades. Whether carbon steels are used completely and uniformly for the blade, or the blades are made of layered pattern-welded damascus, the carbon steel cannot be simply left bare and unprotected. If it is, it will immediately rust in the presence of moisture and oxygen. The moisture in the air alone is enough to start uncontrolled darkening, rusting and pitting. Since this is the case, why would anyone suggest a carbon steel knife blade be used in any application where moisture is a component of the cutting task?

Man has known for millennia that "pre-corroding" steels can create a surface that improves corrosion resistance. Early steels were darkened, oxidized with solutions and chemistry, and this practice eventually led to bluing.

Bluing is the process of exposing the steel to chemistry that causes a reaction of the surface that creates a penetrating layer of darkened, corrosion-resisting steel. Bluing, at its very best, can slow corrosion slightly in carbon steels, but it is not a corrosion preventer. For instance, even the very best blued firearms must be oiled or waxed and protected from exposure to any moisture, since they will readily rust!

A patina is even less protection than bluing. Many metalworkers call patinas in carbon steel "poor man's bluing." The reason I emphasize the word "patina" is that actual patinas on metal surfaces like bronze (the accepted standard of the word) are created with strong surface chemical reactions and heat, creating a completely passive and long-lasting surface that resists corrosion—even in outside exposures—for centuries. These patinas bond fiercely with the metal surface, dramatically changing the entire chemical makeup of the bronze surface. Ask any patineur, and you'll find this is an entire science to itself, and can be quite complicated and detailed. This is far and away from a knifemaker's poor man's patina which is usually created with acidic or caustic foodstuffs (coffee, mustard, ferric chloride, etc.) slathered on the bare steel to darken it.

This is not corrosion protection. Carbon steel knife blades treated this way will easily corrode, and that is why all knifemakers and manufacturers who offer this type of blade insist that the blades be oiled, waxed, or protected in some additional way. As I referred to on my Chef's Knives page at this bookmark, these blades so quickly and readily rust that makers blame the knife owner, and then peddle kits with sandpaper and oil to maintain their inferior blades!

Even if the very best blotchy, dark, so-called patina is applied to the blade, it inhibits corrosion very little. Beyond that, the cutting edge, which offers bare, exposed metal every time the knife is sharpened or used is never, ever protected from corrosion.

Clearly, mill scale or fake mill scale (burned oil residue and forging oxides), patinas, and darkened oxidized surfaces of carbon steel are not corrosion preventers in any way and may actually harbor bacteria and harmful pathogens due to their roughened surface and unhygienic nature. Why would anyone expose themselves and their family to this?

Again, the fact that any surface treatment of a steel surface to darken it or inhibit corrosion means that it's not a stainless steel and is not food-safe! The only exception would be true stainless steels that are in the list below that have been hardened and tempered, and are blackened for appearance only. In my own work, I only offer this on tactical combat knives, and never on kitchen knives since they need to be clean and as smooth as possible. No stainless requires any patina or scale or any coating to resist corrosion. Stainless steels don't need to be painted, coated, coddled, waxed, oiled, or preserved in any way; only non-food contact safe steels need this.
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BS ! We survived thousands of years with them so far , we will survive thousands more ...............
WtxgkBx.jpg
 
Hes right and hes wrong at the same time. He throws around a lot of regulations and then states his own conclusions when the regulations don't actually state what he says they do. He is correct in that an irregularly finished (pitted, hammered) blade can be difficult to clean and can harbour bacteria. He is incorrect when he says corrosion resistant means stainless and that everything in a kitchen should be stainless. That cant happen, it would be too expensive to outfit a restaurant or industrial kitchen in all stainless for everything that touched food. Think about all the equipment in a kitchen (I worked in kitchens for many years and safety and sanitation was my biggest push), most people think just knives but grinders, mixers, slicers, etc., while the blades or main food contact parts are usually stainless, the housings and feed portions often aren't.. they cant be, the price would double on each piece. As for the talk of carbon migration/taste test.. try it. I used a german steel blade for cutting steaks for years and never changed the taste of the steak. Keep the blades clean (properly) and there is no issue. He makes stainless knives, he pushes it in a way he thinks people will listen. Notice he brings up handle material as well and goes to stone as the best? Some of the stone he uses are less hard than steel and are porous. He also provides no stats.
Not sure why he picks on sharpening stones though, nothing wrong with them if you know how to use them.
Common sense should prevail in any kitchen and if you have a multi dollar handmade knife, you will take care of it yourself and not leave it to cleaning staff who may or may not care at all. IMHO anyway.
 
David Mary said:
He makes some pretty solid arguments against unfinished flats, and rough surfaces on a food contact blade, and I generally feel I learn a lot whenever I read his site, but this time I am having a hard time swallowing his assertion that carbon steels are not food safe. Not because I don't respect the man's work, or his opinions, but because I am pretty sure that humanity has survived for thousands of years with only carbon steels to cut food with. So what gives?

Do we have arguments against this? Or is he in fact spot on and I am just late to the party? I ask because I am about to make a couple more chef knives, and was thinking to use 1080 steel from old sawmill blades.

https://www.jayfisher.com/Food_Safety_Kitchen_Chefs_Knives.htm

It's a long article, but here is one of his main points in this regard:
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Yuck. Don't listen to stupid drivel that is easily disproven.

Nathan the Machinist said:
man, and I have been eating meat grilled on cast iron and food fried in cast iron and exposing myself to all of this harmful iron. I'll probably die soon...
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Are you sure you aren't dead already and this is the afterlife?
 
Stainless is more cleanable because of the generally smoother surface due to lack of rust or patina, but I wouldn't call carbon steel unsafe for a food contact surface. Stainless is easier to keep food safe and why we use it so much in the food industry. But this doesn't make carbon steel uncleanable or unsafe for food or food contact surfaces. Just make sure you clean it.

Rust does pose a very hard to clean surface because of niches, but this is pretty obvious to spot on a handheld tool that should be inspected regularly (like when you're cleaning it). There are some easy ways to minimize this in a food service industry with chemical sanitizers or heat (hot water) but it's really a non-issue if you run a reasonably sanitary kitchen.

In reality, there aren't too many cases of knives causing foodborne illnesses because of cross contamination. It's more associated with dirty hands or work surfaces. Knife blades, even carbon steel ones, are quite easy to clean compared to other surfaces or utensils.
 
tattooedfreak said:
Hes right and hes wrong at the same time. He throws around a lot of regulations and then states his own conclusions when the regulations don't actually state what he says they do. He is correct in that an irregularly finished (pitted, hammered) blade can be difficult to clean and can harbour bacteria. He is incorrect when he says corrosion resistant means stainless and that everything in a kitchen should be stainless. That cant happen, it would be too expensive to outfit a restaurant or industrial kitchen in all stainless for everything that touched food. Think about all the equipment in a kitchen (I worked in kitchens for many years and safety and sanitation was my biggest push), most people think just knives but grinders, mixers, slicers, etc., while the blades or main food contact parts are usually stainless, the housings and feed portions often aren't.. they cant be, the price would double on each piece. As for the talk of carbon migration/taste test.. try it. I used a german steel blade for cutting steaks for years and never changed the taste of the steak. Keep the blades clean (properly) and there is no issue. He makes stainless knives, he pushes it in a way he thinks people will listen. Notice he brings up handle material as well and goes to stone as the best? Some of the stone he uses are less hard than steel and are porous. He also provides no stats.
Not sure why he picks on sharpening stones though, nothing wrong with them if you know how to use them.
Common sense should prevail in any kitchen and if you have a multi dollar handmade knife, you will take care of it yourself and not leave it to cleaning staff who may or may not care at all. IMHO anyway.
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Great points.

I was a professional chef for 25 years and in the food business for more than 40. The health department in San Diego used my kitchens to show trainees what a clean, well maintained food preparation establishment should look like to meet their high standards. I began using disposable surgical gloves years before they were a requirement under most health department codes. But worrying about high carbon blades never factored into kitchen cleanliness. What the article claims borders on nonsense. The hand wringing about safety and cleanliness these days seems like hysteria.

High carbon steel knives, like all knives, are used constantly in a kitchen. If clean to start with, they never, I repeat, never rust during the course of a day. All chefs and cooks that I worked with cleaned and dried their knives after work. They are our tools. Even in a knife drawer our knives didn't rust from one day to the next. My knives developed a patina, but did not rust when cared for. Even so rust, in and of itself, is not harmful and a minute amount of it, if it should happen occasionally, would neither be noticed nor deleterious. I'd say rust from knives is far less of a worry than the small amounts of residual dirt and debris you get from from "cleaned" vegetables. Having said that, the human body is not so delicate that it can't tolerate all manner of disagreeable things in small quantities. Just ask your young kids after they've eaten a handful of dirt.

I worked at a 3 Star Michelin restaurant in Mougins, France on the Cote d'Azur. We bought fresh local butter and cream , fresh picked mushrooms, truffles, cleaned our own chickens and ducks from start to finish, worked on ancient wood chopping blocks with old tools and yet the patrons didn't stagger out the front door after a meal clutching their guts and into a waiting ambulance.

Cross contamination, dirty hands, or machinery, as has been mentioned, is much more likely to introduce harmful bacteria to food. Let's not forget that wooden butcher blocks, which are porous and made of biodegradable material are considered in some studies to be superior to plastic NSF and FDA approved cutting boards:
https://commonsensehome.com/wooden-cutting-boards/

Of course, knives decoratively stippled or with rough textured blades can capture and breed bacteria. But that has to do with stupid design, not carbon vs stainless steel.

And as a coda:

I'll add that my favorite work knives were high carbon. Kitchen knives typically cut soft foods. Dulling usually comes from hitting a counter top or a piece of bone. When that happens, a couple of quick strops on a butcher steel brings back a fine edge to a carbon blade much more easily than it does to a stainless one. It's simply more convenient and effective when you're working at breakneck speed for 10 hours straight.
 
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I could use the extra insignificant amount of iron ingested from carbon blade use. He makes good points regarding BPAs and other contaminants.
 
Someone better tell the 5 billion people in the world who use carbon steel knives every day.

Yeah, Jay keeps himself isolated from other knife makers and doesn’t seem to care much about what goes on elsewhere. He is a very prolific writer of his own gibberish meant to promote his way of knife making. People read that stuff and buy into it for some reason. He also aggressively defends his position against anyone who disagrees with him.

Other than that, he is a very good knife maker. Most of what he makes don’t look like they are meant to be used.

Hoss
 
lol he lost me on the list when he says D2 is safe because it is stainless LOL. But just above that he lists a few steels that are not safe because the alloy has cobalt in it. Is he aware of how steel alloys work? Cobalt is not just leaking out of it. Hell I should be dead then from my mercury/silver Amalgam fillings.
 
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