Learned something wild about knife steel today at a demo

I went to a knife sharpening workshop in Portland last weekend and the guy running it dropped a stat that blew my mind. He said a high carbon steel blade can lose up to 15% of its edge sharpness just from cutting on a bamboo board for 10 minutes. I always thought bamboo was supposed to be gentle, but apparently the silica in it acts like sandpaper on the edge. He showed us under a microscope too, you could see the micro-chips forming. Has anyone else ditched bamboo boards after learning this?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_tara12d ago

Hold on, let's pump the brakes a bit. 15% in TEN minutes sounds like a crazy exaggeration you'd hear at a demo to sell a different cutting board. I've used bamboo boards for years and my cheap Kiwi knives still slice through tomatoes without a fight after months of use. Maybe if you're running a professional kitchen and sharpen obsessively you'd notice, but for regular home cooking? Feels like a problem that doesn't really exist.

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hall.nina12d ago

Buddy of mine used a bamboo board for years and swore by it. Then he got one of those Japanese knives as a gift and it was dull after a week. His wife mentioned it at a dinner party and a quiet guy at the table just said "bamboo" and went back to his steak.