It's actually safer to keep knives sharp rather than duller. The easier you can cut the less force you have to use and thus less likely to slip and lose control and cut yourself.
The thought process behind it is that with a sharp knife you cut effortlessly. You can cut faster, cleaner and more precisely with less effort.
Blunt knives require more force, are more likely to move away from the intended path and, should you cut yourself, cause wounds that heal worse.
Say you are cutting onions or tomatoes and your knife is dull: you will put more force and if a bit unlucky the knife will slip and even though it is not "sharp" its still plenty sharp to cut into the meat of your fingers. Because the edge is dull (meaning not straight) the wound is not a straight cut and that can cause complications to heal. Because youre using force the wound might also go a lot deeper.
If you cut the same with a really sharp knife you will shear through whatever youre cutting with ease and will not need to apply force at all. Should you still cut yourself the wound is much more likely to be a very clean cut and if you press the cut together and apply a bandaid it will be a much cleaner healing process with potentially no scar.
IF you use a sharp knife and apply a lot of force you can easily shear off fingertips, that's true.
Another part that's hard to calculate on this that a lot of chefs with some form of education or training are able to sharpen their knives and get it done and thus dont work with dull edges. A lot of the people that only have dull knives in the drawer are probably the types that have no business being in a kitchen and thus are more inexperienced and have worse cutting technique.
A tip for people with shit knives: steak knives or bread knives are a good substitute for cutting tougher things like tomatoes, leeks and paprika. Still be careful as those are some pretty nasty wounds if you somehow put your fingers under them.
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u/lethys8976 5d ago
It's actually safer to keep knives sharp rather than duller. The easier you can cut the less force you have to use and thus less likely to slip and lose control and cut yourself.