As somebody from Atlanta, I share his sentiment. Every day on these roads are a damned battlefield against drag racers and crazy people who think you merging in front of them is the same as if you're cutting them in line.
I too have complained about people rushing to a red light for as long as I've been driving, but one day on the way to work I saw something that gave me an epiphany. Although, I believe the majority of people speeding to a red light do it out of habit, I think there are some actual reasons people do this. I don't agree with some of these, but I do think in the driver's mind they think they are legitimate. So, the main reason to rush to a red light is....to have a couple of more seconds to accomplish a task. The task could be finishing putting on makeup, using an electric razor, reading an email or text, replying to an email or text, reading anything actually, or even just taking a moment to center yourself in the middle of rush hour. I would much rather people do those activities while stopped and safe than while driving and distracted.
As my dad says: "Race you to the red light!" Also, can confirm the claw saves fingers. I work in a kitchen and have been bumped into during cutting and had the knife jump. I've skinned my knuckles, never sliced a fingertip off. I've also seen people cut fingertips off, and they're always cutting with flat hands while running with the knife. I agree with the idea that cutting slow negates the need to claw. And the other times an injury occured involved either a dull knife or someone forgot to secure their produce. Wonderful video as always :)
I've never been able to get the claw down and I've been working in kitchens for almost 20 years. I just feel like I have zero control with the claw. The only times I've ever really cut myself have been trying to awkwardly place my knuckles around an onion or something.
izzy4bitney I agree with you as well as the fact that his videos are for home cooks mostly and most home cooks have dull knives. Claw saves fingers. Drink more water if you get hand cramps.
@@jimmason8502 I think a big issue for a lot of folks is that they grew up cutting with flat hands and have ingrained that muscle memory so thoroughly that re-learning another way can be extremely difficult. Those people DO need to practice a lot more than someone that learned properly the first time and it can be disheartening. I understand why a lot of home cooks don't even bother at that point, I grew up cutting flat and the transition was slow and clumsy.
One of the things I try to keep in mind is "where is that cutting energy going to go if something slips?" If the answer is that I am likely to get hurt then I set up the cutting operation differently. This goes for boxes and avocadoes.
It's also worth noting that when you're cutting 50 (or more) onions a day, the risk of cutting yourself is much greater simply because you're exposed the the danger far more often - therefore extra precautions like the claw grip are reasonable. If you dice one vegetable a day and cut yourself once every two years, a chef with the same technique would cut themselves once a week.
And on the off-chance you do cut yourself at home, you're fine to just let the injury heal assuming it's not horribly grievous. A chef has to stay on the line for several hours, and keep coming back night after night, you can't AFFORD an injury.
@@FabbrizioPlays Depends on the country, and the work place. My former boss injuried his hand, and wore a glove the rest of the shift. Wasn't a big injury though. Think it might have been a burn, which are far more freqent than cuts. I belive I spilled warm gravey/sauce on my arm once. Took a break and applied some gel. Felt fine, so I put on a glove and kept working (if I remember right, happend a couple of years back).
I am a private detective and have investigated workplace injuries for attorneys representing claimants in New Orleans for 10 years. Lots of restaurants here, and lots of restaurant workers. Your take on the prevalence of knife injuries is sound. While I have not done a scientific analysis of this, the issue of "the claw" technique comes up often in knife injury cases. Part of the claw technique includes the condition that the "cutting edge" of the knife does not rise above the proximal interphalangeal joint between cuts. It invariably will in the "walk-don''t-run" scenario. The second issue is that the knife is supposed to stay in one place and rock back and forth on the cutting edge as the thumb of the clawed hand is supposed to push the onion or whatever under the knife. Synchronising this is part of the skill. The knife does not move toward the hand, and the clawed hand does not move toward the knife. Only the thumb pushing the veggie being cut moves along the X axis, and the thumb should hit between the pads of the ring and middle fingers as a signal that you are at the end. This actually allows kitchen workers to safely look away from what they are doing as they are cutting, such as to watch a timer, or a pot coming to a boil. The third issue involves how one holds the knife. You are supposed wrap your middle, ring, and pinkie finger around the handle, and the thumb and index finger are supposed to pinch the blade on at the top of the blade faces just ahead of the bolster. Often people will put their index finger on the spine of the knife blade instead. This is much less stable. Almost everyone I have ever encountered with knife injuries sustained at work just started working in kitchens, or may be bartenders cutting garnish fruit, with a wider range of experience.
I seriously doubt that a restaurant owner is mandating that a chef use a certain cutting method to do their job. The knuckles thing is more of a learned technique from classes or yeah "on the job" or lack thereof. But legally any injury in a workplace has to be reported regardless. I worked at a copy center for a few years way back when tons of printed copies were a thing and we were technically supposed to report every single papercut (literally the side edge of the paper cutting us ass we were handling reams and reams of paper - and it happened a lot) we got but never did. If some moron was lawyering up because they cut themselves on the job that is more often than not the result of that employee just wanting a quick payday for a low paying job than actually receiving a serious enough injury that would warrent a lawyer+investigation+court appearance.
My culinary teacher once said "to cook, you dont need fancy knife skills. What you need is, to know how to handle a knife. Those skills are only needed when you turn your food into art"
Oh god, seeing "avocado" in that little graph reminded me of when a coworker wound up with a knife going all the way through her hand somehow when cutting an avocado.
As a trained chef myself, when I'm feeling lazy I just throw my onion and garlic in a blender, lol. Ive also never really been able to get the "claw" technique right, it can be pretty fumbly
I'm not trained but I've worked in a restaurant for 14 years. Almost never do the claw technic, it just feels awkward and hurts my hand after too long. I have cut myself less than 5 times in the entire 14 years. Just go fast at the start and slow down as you get closer to your fingers.
@@RikiazGaming haven't worked as anything in regards to food except as a dishwasher, but at home, that's how I do it. Cut fast and just slow down when I get close to my fingers
I’ve been cooking for me and my mom since I was about 15. I use the claw technique. I wouldn’t say I mastered it, but I can use it. And I do so simply because I noticed I can cut significantly more finely than other techniques. Because I can use my knuckles to press against the side of the knife to adjust thickness more accurately than you would from the handle.
THANK GOD! The claw grip has always felt so awkward to me and it felt like I couldn't get a firm grasp on foods. I thought I was just bad at cutting foods or something even though I cut myself a tiny bit once every 2 years
I'm an ordinary kitchen cook and I've used the claw technique for years but I've just, watching this video, learnt that it's called the "claw technique". I just like that keeping the knife in contact with my left hand knuckles means I have more control over what the blade is doing. I'm teaching my teenage boys to do it too because I just can't bear to watch the knife getting closer to their fingertips and TBH I found watching Adam's chopping pretty hard to do as well!
Sharpness has to matter with safety too. With a sharp knife, you can afford to move slower and with less force, meaning that knife slipping is less likely than with a dull one. My mother got me a decent knife set this last Christmas, and I’ve noticed that it’s sharper than the knives that most other people have. The same is likely the case with chef knives. There’s no way even my now-decent knife set could make matchsticks like the chef in the video, and the knives that I had before that could barely cut onions. When I swing my knife into an avocado seed, I do it with little force and with plenty of control. A worse knife means more force means worse control means a knife to the palm or fingertips.
It seems that a lot of people don't sharpen knives. I've picked up a couple of really nice knives from a thrift store, because apparently the previous owner used it until it got too dull to cut warm butter, then donated it. A few minutes with a stone and those knives were good as new.
@@russlehman2070 This! You don't even really need a quality sharpening stone and sharpening skills. Just those cheap little "V" sharpeners often do good enough for home cooking. Though I will say that I put a convex edge on one of my chef's knives and it nearly turned into one of those "drop a tomato on it and it falls in half" knives. It was a dream use, and it was just a bog-standard $10 knife from my grocery store.
you said it all, i've never cut myself *chopping*, only while doing dumb fancy things with dull knives... but i tend to "walk" it with my fingertips to get as much out of my produce as i can. my fingernails have caught the knife a time or two and i once had to wash a lost scrap of fingernail out of some veggies. pop-top can lids, however, are expletiving frightening and should probably be opened with gloves, because the back end sometimes gets gummed up, and then the edge snaps into one's thumb when it comes loose. i'm eagerly awaiting the can opener review video, i'm on a binge and i'm sure it's around here somewhere.
Decent and Chef Knives still go dull over time and need to be resharpened. That being said yes it is night and day difference between a $200 chef knife and a $10 special at Target. But that's like any product really - at a certain point quality always make for better high perfomance over low quality+quantity regardless - cars > computers > clothing > billiards cues > lawn mowers etc ...
@@uberfu what would you say is different? Not doubting you, I just haven’t ever laid hands on a knife that nice. My main issue with them is that you’d need to sharpen them with a whetstone and I don’t know any services nearby that do that. People talk about v sharpeners, but I’ve never had a knife come out all that sharp after using one
It's not all about speed. I appreciate the intent of the video, but the claw technique is the better option for one simple reason: you don't have to be attentive. The issue with the "walk, don't run" method is that slowing down doesn't make it that much safer if you aren't being attentive. You have to watch where your fingers are, make sure it aligns with your perspective etc. If you simply slow down, you can still make mistakes. The claw takes that aspect out - if your blade is dull and the object slips, you still won't cut yourself, because your fingers are simply out of the way. I have never seen anyone cut themselves with the claw, while I know plenty of people with this knife technique that have gotten nicked before. More than that, my mother cut her hand open with this exact kind of technique once. I don't think this one is about gatekeeping, and I also think speed is a very very small part of it. It simply is safer to have your fingers out of the way. Eventually, something is going to slip - whether that's the knife, you start speeding up, you're distracted, or you just misjudge angle or distance. I have to admit, it just seems like the entire premise of the video is dependent upon an assumption of malice on the part of thousands of gatekeeping chefs. There may be little research on this, but there are a lot of safety tips that I have never researched that I feel confident in. In fact, most safety tips are simply precautions against human error - and the claw technique really is nothing more than that. The walk, don't run method is...not a precaution. It's just a statement to be cautious. It's like letting kids play with guns, but just make sure you're watching them the whole time. Or lighting a bonfire indoors, just make sure the area is clear. Eventually, something slips up - the claw minimises the damage when it does, going slow just reduces the frequency. Really, you should do both.
I was waiting for the sign that said "video stopped here because Adam stabbed himself"...made me anxious...much more so than his lack of knife skills (which actually don't matter as long as you keep your fingers).
I once had this home economics teacher who waved her knife around when teacher, gave me a mini stroke because she was around 30 children. She also like to throw the knife into the air and catch it.
@@sandyliao1394 depends on how close she was to the students. Knives aren't exactly long range, if you wave a knife around like a dumbass by yourself then you only risk personal injury. If she was standing up at the front of the class with the students back behind their tables, well, whatever who cares. If she was next to a kid then hopefully she _did_ lose her job over that. However the scholastic cartels a.k.a. teachers' unions in the US seem singlemindedly dedicated to protecting only the absolute worst and most rotten of educators, so I somewhat doubt it.
there's only 3 type of people who are bothered by someone waving a knife around like this on camera. 1) people who never cook for themselves so never even need to use a knife 2) people who have been attacked by a knife before 3) people who have seen someone been cut severely before
Adam, I’ve been watching a lot of your videos lately and I absolutely love what you’re doing. You inspire passion for cooking while very deliberately cutting out and dispelling the gatekeeping BS. I haven’t been this into a food show since good eats.
After watching the video it didn't really seem like it was about gatekeeping that much, more like a guy trying to prove that he can cook without following advice from professionals.
I don't understand why everyone who dislike your content points this video as the trigger of their disliking, a lot of people (mainly in social media) scoffs about someone 'cooking skills' not being as perfect as someone else, and you never said "don't use a knife" or "don't try to learn knife skills", all this video is about is you don't need if you want to, you are cooking for you. Dunning-Kruger effect in cooking is really strong.
Hey Adam. I am a chef for nearly 14 years now. I don't really comment on youtube ever, but I feel i'd let you know that you are really good in explaining things at a level that everyone can understand and / or relate towards. Your level of understanding is deff that of an professional chef. It is often not how to cook/prepare/cut/make something. But why doing it, the way you do. :) Great work. Great video's. Keep it up
When I worked in a kitchen as a soup cook, the most common food that I prepped were roma tomatoes. You'd have to slice them in half, then run them through the dicer. I could dice through about 85-100 tomato halves per minute. I built so much speed through repetition, that the dicer block was coming down almost immediately after I placed the tomato half down on the blades. Not even once had I cut myself with the dicer. But slicing the tomatoes... even with a repetitive speed, I must have cut myself a dozen times. Your round fruits and vegetables finding holds water.
Adam, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the time and effort you put into your videos. They help people like me overcome my fears in the kitchen and just get to cooking. Thanks for boosting my confidence in my culinary skills!
In my limited professional opinion as a chef: Cut slow. Do not try to cut fast to show off. Speed comes with years of practice of cutting slow. The knuckle technique is not just for safety, but also for consistency. It is very important in a restaurant to cut all the slices at the exact same size and do it in a timely manner. This obviously is irrelevant in home cooking. There is a LOT to be said on how to handle a knife safely in a kitchen, and the "claw" is only a very small part of it.
Also with what he said about coming to the end of whatever you cut I personally agree but over time I've discovered something quite effective: turn your hand sideways and use the side of your index to hold whatever it is you are cutting instead of using the fingers, this prevents its from sliding back and also is very safe. Of course, running is always gonna be more dangerous than walking but if you want to do it effectively I would have to say the claw is simply superior and safer and easier.
@Robert Taylor I understand that the way a Chef treats their staff can be frustrating sometimes. I dont want to be the kind of Chef that I had dealings with as a young cook. However there does need to be pressure. Would you ask a drill instructor to be more kind to thier recruits? Do you think that will serve them well on the battlefield?
I mean, its a knife, a gun can go off and kill someone a hundreds of feet away, a knife is just a knife... like... don't stab yourself with it... worst case scenario is you like accidentally nick yourself and you got a tiny little cut
@@the_inquisitive_inquisitor I believe that's the point, a few more ways things can be more seriously harmful, so not following good safety on such a channel is essentially condoning poor safety
He's put on both muscle and fat which makes him look big. He's hiding a stomach paunch and his pecs are flabby. The man needs to cut before bulking more as he's going to go full butterball if he doesn't.
@@leodaly2310 cut after bulking? Is that that water retention thing bodybuilders do, and Olympic weightlifters don't do? Or is it some other more basic thing about altering your food in cycles?
One on hand, very good points! On the other hand, this video is mostly reminding me how much I desperately want to be a professional cook and am, instead, living those dreams out in my home kitchen.
I always feels like Adam makes these videos in response to something that happens to him. Like say, someone called his knife skills nooby, then he goes on to make these superbly researched video to put them in their place 😂😂 That's the kind of expression he always gives in his videos. Love the channel by the way!
As someone who's currently in culinary school the first part of this video felt like projection for sure. Obviously knife skills aren't and shouldn't be as important to a home cook than a chef, but learning how to do something like a professional would will always help you. I'm not gonna say everyone should learn how to tourne cut (A cut that looks like a football and is only for style points), but chopping things correctly makes a better mouthfeel and takes cooking from good to great.
And ends up with a rant with a subjective anecdote on a case like it wouldn't be safer if regular people learned to do things slowly and carefully, and that even though most cuts happen on top of your fingers when unsupported knife lands on them (possibly dull knife as well since mostly professionals bother to keep their knives in good check, excuse me though none of this is researched data), guiding the blade with knuckles and having fingers tucked away in case it slips is not researched so it's not clear if it's safer. Definitely agree with the notion that the video seems like someone criticized and hit the ego so had to spend a while to try and come up with serious arguments why someone's insult was not to be taken seriously. Nobody actually thinks you're supposed to cut veggies lightning fast if you haven't learned to do so (saying nobody with the assumption you're not a person who takes anything anybody says to heart without further thinking).
I really appreciate this. My husband has been a certified culinary chef since 2006, and I am just a humble cook who did learn a lot of knife skills just by proxy. I do believe some basic skills are good for making sure you are a little safer even when cutting slow, but I do agree a lot of it is mostly about just becoming comfortable with the knife in the first place, keeping it sharp (slipping knives can cause injuries from both cutting and just well... arthritis and carpel tunnel is a b*tch.) and generally over-all knowing WHERE your blade is. Distractions are probably what really causes the most injury and that is why chefs are taught things like the bear claw. It minimizes risk of accidental injury through distractions and thus saves both the chef and the company a lot of money and time. If you happen to do a lot of canning, jarring, cooking from scratch (especially if you have kids and are on a real time crunch) it really does help to learn knife skills to help speed things up a little in the long run, but I do agree they are not absolutely necessary. Just get the basics down. Slowly. Learn at your own pace. I'm still not as fast as my husband and never will be, and that's okay!
The reason for a lack of data regarding knife injuries in professional kitchens is likely due to the fact that cooks usually just power through injuries. Most just wash whatever small cuts they get, bandage them, and get back to work. It's not just an unspoken rule either, I took the Serve-Sarvsafe test in high school and there was a section/question that addressed what to do when you get a cut in the kitchen, and the official stance was to just bandage the cut and keep on going. There would be no sense in reporting any of these cuts, hence, the lack of any studies. It'd be like a study regarding stubbed toes or splinters on a construction site.
Plus cooks risk losing their jobs if they report their injuries so that the restaurant has to report it, and worse, pay for medical treatment. So, unless they lose a limb, cooks power through cuts and burns, including serious burns.
Even though I'm "just" a home-kitchen enthusiast, I've gotta say that the claw method is gold. I always use it, without discomfort, and I've literally never ever cut myself with my kitchen knife.
I started cooking from a very young age and I’ve always been interested in watching how everyone else does things. Now, I cook professionally and I still respect others and don’t consider myself a cut above anyone else. I’ve learned loads in my job and I’ve also taught my boss some things too. You never stop learning. I never shout at people, even when I’m stressed and being interrupted by someone, I just answer them calmly and carry on. As far as chopping goes, if YOU want it chopped faster, there’s the knife, crack on. I’ll get on with something else. Makes no odds to me.
A friend of mine sent this to me. I'll just add a few thoughts. I learned to cook at a very high end restaurant and your cutting math to save time makes a lot of sense. But also remember resturants need to plate foods. Sometimes you need a specific cutting technique to make it look visually appealing. Also the restaurants I cook in didn't have kitchen gadgets. So garlic for example would need to be cut in a specific manner to be safe and fast. A lot of inexperienced people may not be able to safely mince garlic sort of holding it how they please. Otherwise you'd have big chunks until they get more comfortable with the knife and how it works, speaking from personal experience. But the home cook has grating tools and garlic presses. Lastly I want to point out your thought about hard round stuff. I actually agree with you that people don't need to know knife skills. But they need to know how their knives work. Often people get hurt because of dull knives. That's the number one injury in any kitchen. Or maybe they use the wrong knife. I see far too many inexperienced people just reach for a chef or french chef knife and leave the rest on their block alone. Cutting specific things requires specific tools.
This was quite an odd comment, im not sure what you're trying to point out in relation to those who cook at home. He mentioned restaraunts but his focus was on home cooking.
@@jayyavid5363 Because you can still hurt yourself using a dull knife at home. Maintaining your tools is not something you only do at work. Sometimes you don't always want to dirty an extra utensil while you're preparing vegetables, so being able to cut it finely is helpful. Different knives are also better at different tasks. You can cut an onion, a cabbage, or a garlic clove with a bread knife or fillet knife instead of a chefs knife, just as you can hammer in a nail with a drill instead of a hammer, but one is easier to use. "Skills" are not necessary, but it does reduce waste, both in time, resources, and injuries.
Dull knives are dangerous? I can't remember I ever cut myself with a dull knife. I do remember cutting my self several times with a really sharp knife, but always only once per knife, except when I was working in a factory where I was using crazy sharp knives to cut smoked salmon, I cut myself two or three times the first two weeks I was working there. So, that's why I think it's just a myth that dull knives would be more dangerous than sharp ones.
@@fukpoeslaw3613 try to cut a tomato or onion with a dull knive. you most likely will need a lot more force and are still likely to just slip of. and this combination is what makes dull knives dangerous, the slipping of with force. also, a cut with a sharp knive is less damaging as less cells are ruptured than with a dull knive.
@@philippaltrogge3731 I admit, for tomatoes I use a special knive, with a sharp point and a cutting edge like a bread knife. otherwise I'll destroy my tomatoes. for onions I just use my chefs knife that I got like 5 years ago, never sharpened it, never cut myself with it.
honestly theres one thing absolutely more important than technique. hell, more important than anything in the kitchen. and thats an incredibly well kept and extremely sharp knife.
I don't think that having "knife skills", especially "the claw" technique are necessary, and I know what you mean when you say it's awkward and feels unnatural.. but I think that when you use it and get used to it, you feel the benefit to it.. I personally (although not that good at it but kinda comfortable with it) I feel like when I started to feel comfortable with it, it gave me more control and felt safer using a big sharp knife.
Osama Qasho' I agree mate. Once I started paying attention to learning knife skills over the period of a few weeks, my cooking experience definitely became more enjoyable. It’s a great feeling to work safely and not spend 3 business days chopping up your ingredients.
@@benresenberger880 Definitely. But that's not to say that I disagree with the point of the video.. it's absolutely not necessary (although it's a nice skill to have) for a home cook. With that being said, I still hope to improve my knife skills lol
I agree. A sharp knife is a pretty dangerous thing to use. And when there are dangerous tools, there should be a "proper" way to use them. The rest is just comfort, with the knife and the way you do things.
@@karu6111 the only thing more dangerous is a dull knife, those 'small hard round thing' injuries at the end of the vid sound a lot like dull knives slipping rather than cutting into the food. Once you have the cut established and the blade even an eighth of an inch (a few mils, like 2.6mm or something) into whatever you're cutting it becomes much more difficult to injure yourself. Starting the cut is the only hard part, and a dull knife takes *exponentially* more force to start the cut.
@@KingHalbatorix Not all of us agree with that dull knife crap. It's kinda like that lifting with your legs crap employers bombard us with. -You're just supposed to bend at the knees slightly because it prepares your back for a load (and why the deadlift still exists).
After watching your video, I also took a look at the reactions to it over at the culinary space of the internet and boy. you weren't lying about the chefs.
he looks good but his head always throws me off. idk why but his head screams "intellectual nerd" but everything from the neck down says "mindless gym rat", like someone saved Steven Hawking's life by transplanting his head onto Terry Crews' freshly decapitated body
I like how Adam is becoming the Anti-Joshua Weissman. Adam makes cooking way more accessible and way less about asthetic and more about enjoying the process of making the food as well as the food itself
He seems to enjoy the process pretty well considering he does most things from scratch... which also makes it very accessible because you know how to make everything and can substitute shortcuts where you want. Cooking is also far more enjoyable with a sharp knife and proper knife skills. It seems to be that dull knives go alongside bad knife skills pretty often. Doesnt mean you need them to cook, but honestly if youre a home cook and you cook regularly youd benefit greatly from slowly improving your knife skills overtime rather than eternally sticking to a "walk not run" technique.
RE: "Scale matters" In programming, one must always check which parts of a program actually needs improvement. Say you made loading a file twice as fast, but that feature is barely used. That's a lot more inefficient than improving, say, the startup time if people continuously shut down and restart the program often. I'm pretty sure you're an honorary programmer now
@@superpcstation JS can keel over and die. It has its good parts (I like closures - being able to define and use a function within another function) but it's terrible parts are horrendous! I just don't get how we're stuck with such a shitty language! Typescript is an improvement, but then npm and it's disastrous ecology keeps it in "don't touch that" territory. I thought webassembly was going to be our Savior, but it can't manipulate the DOM and thus can't change the HTML :( At least, not without JS.
