A knife is a universal tool. From slicing an apple to cleaning your car battery contacts ( LEAD is poisionous) , it is always there.

That can create a problem or trigger a thought. Many times I used a knife in a situation and immediately thought: Will I use this same knife to cut some food to eat. We use knives for dirty owrk sometimes, and even sometimes we may use them around some hazardous materials.

Do you think about that sometimes ? How do you wash your knife ? Do you have a knife for food-stuff and another for non-food ?

I carry completely separate knives for food and toxic stuff. Working in a lab I use my SAK can opener to open some toxic chemical then use the knife blade to slice tubing that carried nasty stuff. No way I'm letting that knife come in contact with something I'll eat.

-Blast

I was thinking the same thing the other day. In my medium kit,i have a folding knife that does the dirty work(but i guess all survival work is dirty,haha).But i won't use the knife I just had gross and dirty to cut some food for me.....well unless i clean it real good.

Remeber that "coming in contact with food " is not always as direct as it sounds. You may not be cutting an orange to eat it in the next second, you may be using the knife to prepare a rabbit or fish in the cooking pot.

Also, coming in contact with bad stuff is not only when you use it to open a container of rat poison. Even when you use it to cut a small branch and the plant happens to be poisionous, some of its juices may be sticking to the blade when you touch food with it.

Haviung two blades is good but I wonder how practical it can be. Alright we all have many blades around us, but how can you stick all the time to the "food knife" and "dirty knife" classification all the time ?

Tuesday night I was thinking the same thing. Though I have yet to need my Victorinox Classic to cut the turkey, I thought of cleaning my blade with an alcohol prep pad if I had to.

Jeanette Isabelle

for normal urban uses, i use the smal blade for utillity purposes and the big blade for food.

In the wild, i use my fixed blade for cutting and mine SAK for food.

My brother and I both carry extra alcohol prep pads specifically to clean our knives with. He's religious about keeping his clean, I'm religious about keeping it clean AND sharp. I also try not to use my normal pocket-carry with nasty stuff, I have others for that. If I'm with my truck, I have another. If I'm at work, I have several others. At home, I have the whole collection. But, bottom line is, I don't mix Nasties and Food.
-Kyle

I think in the guns of navarone soemone had one knife for killing and one for cutting food...

Well I carry one knife and it gets abused with everything from everyday dirty work to all around household jobs. I try not to use it for any food stuff. If I have to cut food I prep the blade with alcohol and air dry it.

For day to day uses, I usually just wash the blade with a little bit of dish soap and water. I generally only clean it after using it to cut food, or if I had used it to open something nasty. I have used the same knife to open the foil on the top of an STP bottle or Prestone anti-freeze, then wash it with soap and water. Then using it to cut food at a later date. We injest so much toxics in the air we breath every day, a few ppm that escapes the washing will make no difference, unless you are talking really nasty biohazards. Have you ever drove at 5 mph in rush hour traffic behind a diesel truck whose maintenance schedule is suspect?

In a true emergency in the wild, I suspect you will be lucky to find a sandbank to stab the blade in a few times to clean it between uses when the occaisional food finds its way to your cooking pot.

If we die from cancer, it will be from years of accumulated gunk in our systems from what we breath, drink, and eat, with some sprinkling of occupational hazard thrown in on the side.

Use your knife. It is a wonderful tool. They do not need to be specialized for utility or food. Just clean them between uses.

The time to sterilize the blade with alcohol is after you use it to kill a mouse & before you cut food. I clean it after use on something messy (like food) & use alcohol BEFORE cutting food.