Just mentioning a technique that I've developed, and it's worth sharing.
It's a time saver, and it also has some safety dimensions.
And basically it's the favoring when possible of using a small pair of stainless steel folding, very small, maybe one 1" by two inch.
It's a folding pair of scissors. And I found that when possible, in doing food prep, where I'd otherwise have to be using a some kind of a kitchen knife to chop vegetables.
Obviously, there's some vegetables that cannot be easily cut with scissors, but a lot of herbs and greens that you would prepare for a salad lend themselves to being bundled up into a fist after harvesting from the garden per se.
I use my left hand to ball up all of these greens and herbs into a tight ball.
And then I use the scissors just to start hacking away at it.
And that makes these very nice, semi uniform shredded bits that can fill a bowl and save time.
And also, the safety dimension that I consider is that there's a continuum from the types of very safety conscious chefs who might use stainless steel chainmail mesh in order to really ensure that they don't ever cut into their fingers.
I know that you could be doing this everyday. You can have a perfect record of safety, and then just one slip of a cutting knife or a cutting board, or just a wrong position on a vegetable, or you have to apply a lot of force.
So for me, when possible, obviously there's times where you where it's unavoidable, and therefore you do your best with that.
I will often cut with my right hand and then use my left hand to go flat over the top of the back of the blade, so that there's just a physical muscle memory kind of mnemonic technique to never be if possible holding the vegetable with the left hand so that it can slide out and you can get cut so if you it takes maybe a little longer sometimes.
But I would rather have that trade off, if at all possible, to be able to chop with the left hand in a secure position above the knife, can add extra pressure and control and just give you that much more safety and security knowing that you're not underneath it with that hand.
That's a technique similar to training with weapons, is to make sure a hand that could possibly be in the way of the weapon, whatever the weapon is, is somehow anchored somewhere to where you're aware of it.
And you can feel it not being possibly in a way.
But this technique with the scissors. My best friend, my most frequently used everyday carry on my person item, is this pair of scissors.
I use it for all kinds of things, and I have several backups of them in different places.
But it's amazing how effective it is to harvest all these large, dark leafy greens and small herbs at all different sizes, from the tiniest herb leaves to the biggest leafy greens and everything in between.
And to be able to just have that in a tray from harvesting and then wad it all up into a ball, and just start hacking away at it with a tiny pair of scissors. It wears on the fingers of the right hand, or the dominant hand a little bit. So I've had to rotate fingers a bit, not to put too much strain or create a blister from that much cutting.
But I've found the perfect balance. It works well. And I do think it is a worthy experience and experiment.
This is very short, which is another safety factor.
Even when harvesting in the garden, I will just pluck them, pluck leaves off, and pluck herbs off from the garden so that I'm just eliminating that risk factor.
I'm gonna grab it with one hand and then cut it below. Sometimes you don't have the best visual angle on that and I have cut my fingers slightly, luckily, not much, but or not too badly.
For harvesting I prefer plucking with fingers if I can. It would be very tedious to sort of shred a lot of salad vegetables, salad greens, just by hand, although that's doable as well.
But again, for me, this is about how can I minimize the use of sharp objects in my life?
And when I do have to use them, how can I use them in a more controlled manner?
I'm wary of harvesting with scissors, if I can avoid it and just do plucking. And then once I've got them all set up in a tray, they're easy to to get through.
It's really efficient once you have that process going.
So I say, if you're ever in a situation where that makes sense, try it out and see what you think.