using the same knife for work-related dirty tasks and also for food prep?

chemistguy said:
using the same knife for work-related dirty tasks and also for food prep?
I find myself doing this but it's a pain to scrub the knife really clean every time. what do you do?
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I don't use my pocket knife for food. For pretty much that reason.

The exception is that I do carry a small knife at work for peeling apples, but I don't use that one for grungy jobs. (I work in a cube farm.)
 
It all depends how dirty my knife is or what the knife has been used for in the past. I have some knives I've killed rodents with and wouldn't use them to cut food.
 
Clean the knife. Don't go pivot deep when cutting meat & stuff. (I don't have edges on my bolsters anyway). Most fixed knives will always be easier to clean, and a dedicated kitchen/eatin' knife gives one the opportunity to have another knife (joy!) Simple sanitation and avoidance of cross-contamination between raw, cooked, and unclean items will take care of most badness. Eat a little dirt. Keep your immunity up! WASH YOUR HANDS! You'll probably get sicker from people than anything else. Don't eat paint; look what it did to VanGogh.
 
what about when backpacking/hiking? I guess wood and resin on a pocket knife aren't so bad compared to most work-related tasks. but then again, when I go out in the woods I have a fixed blade and a pocket knife (which I can try to keep pretty clean).
 
I only use my pocket knife for food at work, and only if I've carefully wiped it off on my dirty shirt first.
 
I use my EDC for food prep all the time and on top of that, if I'm in the kitchen and I need a knife I will often to and get one of my folders specifically for the job at hand, I don't think twice. Now I do use mineral oil as lube/ rust prevention just so its food safe, only a very few of my folders are strictly never used on food and those use a non-food safe synthetic lube.
Having said that I never use a good knife to actually eat (unless camping), porcelain plates wreck edges, in the kitchen on the cutting bored it fine but never on plates.

paulhilborn said:
Honestly I use my knife for cutting tasks that are non food and food related on a daily basis. Obviously if the media I cut is rancid then no it wont be used to prep lunch. I eat on the job site that's ever changing. But day in and day out it cuts cardboard, opens qwikrete bags, cuts zip ties etc... and preps lunch with just a wipe of my shirt in between uses.

I think there's something to be said for a little bacteria/germs and ones immune system---it ain't all bad ;)

Paul
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Use your shirt 'eh, must be near sterile after than in depth cleaning process.
 
I don't do a ton of food prep with pocket knives. If I'm at home, I'll use one of the dozens of kitchen knives we have. At work, I might be cutting (not peeling) the occasional apple or pear.

I carry slipjoint knives and most of them have multiple blades, so it's usually not a problem. In any case I keep an extra knife in my work bag that I pretty much only use for food slicing. It's stainless steel so I can just rinse it off when done.
 
My mother grew up with my grandmother owning and using one single wooden cutting board, for all food prep, meat and vegetables and whatever else.

It was rinsed off in the sink and put back in the cupboard after use. Nobody ever got sick from it.



I'd rather eat something that touched the blade of my pocket knife, than some food from Burger King that the guy on work-release packaged up after dropping it 3 times and not washing his hands after taking a number 2.


Of course, at home, I have a drawer full of kitchen knives to use.
 
I work in a clinical lab, my edcs don't go anywhere near food unless I wipe them down with 70% alcohol or a non-bleach enzyme wash. Touching them isn't a issue as good lab practice, precludes most issues.
 
Its a very easy fix. Buy a Cold Steel Kudu for less than $9.00 and let that ride with your other EDC knife. Keep the Kudu for food prep only. It weighs next to nothing.
 
Cut up food all the time with one of my EDC's. Namely as of right now I have a Case Sodbuster CV handy coupled with a few other blades that does a very fine job at on the fly food prep. Sorry 9/10 knives at restaurants or otherwise just dont cut the mustard ;) Plus with kiddos you always have to cut up food for them, whether you are out on the town or on an outdoors walk. Have carried a dedicated blade for this in a bag, but a quick wipe with a wet wipe if necessary and you are good to go. Guess the long and short of it is yes, use an EDC blade for food prep all the time, not sick or dead. Been doing it for a long time now but have other blades on me I may reach for if I have a more "dirty task." BUT my grandfather carried a stockman that he used for everything no matter where we were. It was also his everything else blade, now he has passed but because of a non-related using his EDC knife for food prep issue.
 
No, thats why I carry multiblades slipjoints. One for clean and one for dirty work. All in a beautiful package.
 
paulhilborn said:
But day in and day out it cuts cardboard, opens qwikrete bags, cuts zip ties etc... and preps lunch with just a wipe of my shirt in between uses.
I think there's something to be said for a little bacteria/germs and ones immune system---it ain't all bad ;)
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Remember those cheesy beer commercials several years ago? "That's just flavor to a High-Life man." :thumbup:

Tripton said:
I'd rather eat something that touched the blade of my pocket knife, than some food from Burger King that the guy on work-release packaged up after dropping it 3 times and not washing his hands after taking a number 2.
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Right on. As for gunking up your pivot and stuff... I carry a small fixed blade. Among other advantages, it's stoopid easy to clean.
 
Blades are metal. Clean them and you are good. Its not like dirt on a sticky lollipop.
Worked in a lab before and we did spectrometry for tiny amounts of all kinds of stuff. Also tested if our metal spatulas introduce contaminants. They didnt as long as we rinsed them and rubbed and dried them with clean tissues.

What is really nasty is school toilets in preschool. The little ones are sitting on the seats because they don't know who to squat over them without touching or how to put some paper ring on the seat.. The teachers are also not cleaning after every kid so that lots of kids sit in the pee of the previous kids. Most kids are fine and don't have any diseases but some do and I wouldnt want to sit in their feces. But yeah always make sure you sneeze into your elbow and not your hand ...:thumbup:
 
Since I'm a chef, I wipe EVERY knife after use, no matter what. Habit.

However I really don't use my sebenza for food... unless I'm on a hike and need to cut my sandwich open.

Still, my blades are all super clean. Even after cutting box tape, I wipe off with wet towel or alcohol wipe. I'm OCD with it.
 
I don't own any kitchen knives, so my EDC is usually used. I wash it before and after use, so I really don't worry to much.
 
And you call yourself knife nuts?

Jk!

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Get a few of these, you'll want to carry them lol.
Just for fun I cut steak with a folder.
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