Think Twice Before Sharpening Your Knife With An Egg

Your kitchen knives are some of the most important tools you have in your culinary arsenal. As the saying goes, if you take care of your tools, your tools will take care of you. This means keeping them sharp so they can do all the chopping, slicing, dicing, and julienning when you are practicing your skills so the cooking experience is as enjoyable as it is successful. But if you have been reading articles about how to keep your blades sharp with an egg, you might want to think twice.

Just as there is a myth about eggshells keeping the blades of your garbage disposal razor sharp, so too is there folklore about running the blade of a knife on the exterior eggshell to keep knives in tip-top shape. Neither technique has any veracity and in the case of using an egg to sharpen your knife, it can actually be dangerous.

Eggs are neither hard nor abrasive. In fact, an eggshell is kind of delicate, and when you are moving a knife swiftly across its surface to sharpen it as you would a whetstone, a knife will most likely break the egg and possibly cut your hand or fingers in the process if you are not cautious. This is why you should skip this DIY sharpening method and instead turn to an electric knife sharpener or sharpening stone to keep your knives ready to use. These two tools will keep your chopping skills up to par.

How often should you plan on sharpening your knives? It depends on what material they are made of and how it is performing, but the rule of thumb is if it isn't gliding through an ingredient like it was nothing, then it's probably time to sharpen it. And there are benefits to this maintenance. Keeping your cutting tools sharp ensures both precision and control when slicing a steak or cucumber. It will ultimately lead to more consistent results, but that's not all. A sharp knife is actually safer than a dull knife. When your knife is sharp, you can make cuts that are cleaner and don't require any brute force, which is the complete opposite of a dull knife.