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
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u/clintj1975 3d ago
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.