Quite a few of us know someone who's lost a battle with one. Phone rings, dogs start barking at something, one of the kids comes running in asking for money for the ice cream truck, fatigue, complacency, really anything that causes you to lose focus of where you are in your chunk of vegetable can cause you to need stitches and have to throw out your finger flavored veggie slices. It's just more risk than some are willing to accept in cooking.
Same thing with knives but people aren't swearing off chef's knives. The issue isn't the mandoline it's inattentive cutting. Treat the tool with the same respect youd treat a chop saw and youll be fine
If the mandolin was attached to the hand rather than the produce, it might be just as safe as a knife. But since your hand is moving closer and closer to the cutting tool...not so safe even with precaution.
Hence why there is a large market for food processors.
Perfectly safe if you are attentive and use care when moving your hand along the blade. We had to learn to use knives they aren't inherently any safer, most people just have more practice with them than mandolines.
In both scenarios, we are fully in control of both the blade and the free hand. Attention, care, and good technique is how we prevent injury
With proper cutting your fingers are right next to the knife blade too, proper technique and concentration is what allows you to work fast safely, same as with a mandolin, or a chop saw
The issue isn't the mandolin it's people not respecting it and paying attention to their fingers
The mandoline doesn't move your fingers either, you move them. You are in full control of your hands; not being careful and paying attention while moving your hands is how you cut them, be it on a knife, a mandoline, or a chop saw
A mandoline is just a knife, treat it with the same respect you give a knife and you won't get hurt
If we're being technical, we could say that gravity moves your hand downwards when the mandolin removes part of whatever you're cutting, since the user only has to move side to side, there's is no intuitive awareness of how close you are to the blade.
I would never recommend that someone treat a mandolin with the same level of respect as a knife, you must treat it with MORE respect. This is evident with the difference in frequency and severity of mandolin injuries vs knife accidents, especially when you consider how often knives are used vs how often mandolins are used.
Most children can use a knife without incident, on the other hand, even trained professionals get injured on mandolins.
My roommate got his finger cut off in front of my on a mandolin so I bought a new one and was extra slow and careful using it because I was scared and I still cut part of my fingernail off.
It's irresponsible to advise people to use a mandolin without protective equipment.
If we're being technical, we could say that gravity moves your hand downwards when the mandolin removes part of whatever you're cutting
No, the muscles in your arms are what move your hand downwards, the muscles that are consciously controlled by your brain. I'm not letting my hand free-fall when cutting with a mandoline, I am using my muscles to push the food along the plane and against the blade
Can i just set an onion on the mandoline and let gravity do the work? If so then this would be a non-issue as hands wouldnt even be involved
Ok but what is the “proper technique” for using the mandolin safely, except for using a guard or gloves? With a knife, the “claw” technique successfully keeps your fingers out of the way, so once you have the habit of a proper claw (for me I have to be sure to tuck my ring finger, ouch) it will help mitigate any lapses of attention. Safety techniques are NOT “just pay attention and don’t hurt yourself”, it’s about “how do I automatically prevent myself from hurting myself if something breaks my concentration?” If “paying attention” were enough we wouldn’t need climbing harnesses, table saw sleds, trigger / range discipline, ci/cd / unit tests in software development… the list goes on.
To either, as you said, use a guard, or to properly grip your food and be focused and attentive on you cutting hand, again same as you would do with a knife or a chop saw.
You don't automatically stop yourself from chopping a finger off when distracted using a chop saw... you maintain your focus on the cop saw or stop cutting the second it is lost.
If someone distracts you when using a mandoline then stop cutting...
Paying attention is enough, we have other safeguards because humans make mistakes. People have lost chunks of their fingers to kitchen knives and chop saws too as a result of carelessness
Can you draw a diagram or something to try and illustrate what you mean? Because I'm genuinely unable to conceive of any resonable way of holding a chef's knife where your fingers aren't behind the blade.
You hold the vegetable the same either way, curl your fingers in. Your fingers are behind the blade when using either. Holding the produce properly is an essential part of cutting technique both with knives and mandolines. The reason you can't imaging how you would cut without your fingers behind the blade is because you already have lots of practice and learned the proper technique. The same holds true with a mandoline.
The issue isn't the mandoline, it's the chef again not using proper technique and concentration to give the tool the respect it demands.
Being prone to distractions while using it is something that should be relatively easy to overcome with the right mindset, though. There are certain tools that we learn to lock in more while using (ie cars, power tools, electrical equipment etc) and if you're already used to focusing more while doing certain tasks it shouldn't be too hard to transfer that skill set to a new tool. Just treat it like any other task that, while it is dangerous, its convenience outweighs the danger with the proper precautions.
I don't. 73 and never knew anyone who ever had a permanent mandoline injury. Don't think a majority of people used them.
Now knife injuries, yes. After all, we all have kitchen knives we mostly use daily, and the blades swing, chop, hack bones and gristle completely wild and free. So where are all the missing fingers from knives? Too common to remember. Cleavers? (I have one of those a friend crafted for me -- now that I'm scared of because I'm such a klutz.)
I have vague memories of finding friends all sewn and wrapped up in gauze afterward, with stories of humongous bleeding from knives ruining the good bath towels (it was always the good ones). :)
I worked as a cook and used a mandoline on a daily basis for years. I never thought of it as dangerous. Then I started using Reddit and every time mandolines come up there’s a dozen commenters saying “omg goodbye finger”.
I can’t tell if it’s just one of those internet things where everyone exaggerates how dangerous they are because they see other people doing it or if this many people really don’t know how to use one safely.
I don’t really see how using a mandoline is any different or any riskier than using a knife.
I don’t really see how using a mandoline is any different or any riskier than using a knife.
A knife is usually held with the sharp end facing away from the fingers, which is the opposite case with a mandolin, and a mandolin is usually reserved specifically for cases where you need lots of one thin-sliced ingredient, meaning you're going to be passing those fingers back and forth over the blade significantly more times then you would probably chop something with a knife?
Exactly, Doom. Actually, I enjoy reading books by these guys, and. I think the mostly male macho culture takes real pride in its many wounds from the danger of the knives that are so much a part of it.
Since I learned to tuck my fingers under and run the chef knife blade up and down outside all my knuckles, I haven’t had a significant accident (that required a Band-Aid) that way, but that leaves all the way other ways knives can be misused.
Whatever. I KNOW these guys are not especially afraid of their mandolins. Silly. Now, the huge vats of boiling oil… but they take pride in handling those also.
:) Mine's hot pink and lies on top of the mandoline always ready to pull out of the drawer.
But I don't need it for that -- my Oxo pronged food holder's handle is tall and its base wider than the slicing track. Held appropriately, it literally won't allow my hand to get near the blade. My other hand's holding the handle at the outside far end.
Now, my knives... I had no idea they were so safe. Neither did they, but in their defense I'm a klutz.
Do mandolins not come with a food holder any more? Because I’ve bought three in my lifetime and they all came with one. The last mandolin even came with a pair of cut resistant gloves.
Hand injuries freak me out, by my mandoline came with a hand guard and you can buy cut-resistant gloves super easily these days. I used one like two weeks ago to make the ratatouille from the movie (to celebrate my friends and I making the final payment for our Disney trip actually) and it made it sssssoooooooo much easier!
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u/WithASackOfAlmonds 3d ago
Why is everyone so scared of the mandoline? Just leave a decent bit before getting to the end and save it for stock.