Metal dust/shavings in food from knife wear?
I've been wondering about this for a while, since getting interested in knife sharpening.
When using a knife, it will get duller. One (the primary) reason being that you "bend" the edge. You fix this using a honing steel.
After a while though, you need to sharpen the knife again. Another setting: If you have a brittle knife and/or mistreat your knife you will chip it.
As far as I can tell, this should mean that small pieces of metal (dust, shavings, etc.) come lose, and then likely get in the food.
Is this correct? Are there no health considerations when digesting small pieces of very sharp metal?
Best Answer
At a microscopic level metal is malleable, and so the edge tends to bend rather than spall or break off. Still, it is probably technically true to a certain extent, and based on many many years of metal knife usage by millions or billions of people through history, completely irrelevant. Whatever effect it may have is vanishingly small.
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Answer 2
Microscopic metal particles won't hurt you. The iron in fortified breakfast cereal is just food-grade iron particles. You can collect them with a magnet.
Answer 3
Sure, microscopic bits of metal go into your food when you use knives. It's just a bit more iron in your diet. When you consider that the average person eats 100mg of dirt per day the nanograms of metal you eat per year is pretty insignificant.
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