as someone who's had multiple close calls in the past (to the point of cutting off a bit of fingernail), i appreciate videos like this, and i think you were very fair. also, i learned something which is always nice :)
I've been cooking every meal at home for 35 years and never cut my fingers a single time (many thousands of meals) until I tried the claw grip and cut the skin off my knuckle. Never again.
Adam has built a reputation for being incredibly arrogant. He used to go down to the comments section and lash out at anyone who dares question his greatness, in a most condescending tone. While he doesn't do that anymore (last I checked at least), his overall smarmy know-it-all attitude never left him, it seems. I like Adam too, but the guy really needs some lessons in humility.
I like everything you have to say here, I'm pretty sure Adam has some sharpening videos where he talks about a sharp knife being safer. I even like using a bench scraper, but also using a bench scraper means I have another thing to clean. If you have the knife at an angle that is less than the angle of the blade, scraping towards the knife edge shouldn't dull it. Testing out that theory would make for a great video!
fun fact his video about distilling alcohol is also dangerously wrong and could lead a viewer to burning their house down or going blind from methanol poisoning but since he's wrong in a way that is less obvious than how blatantly wrong he is about cutting techniques noone made a video about that :P
Theres at least one video ive seen of his where he almost cut himself in a way that wouldnt have happened if he used the proper technique (5:24 in his chicken and dumplings video if you're curious). which proves that his "just go slow and never get distracted" method of "safety" doesn't even work for HIM. His pigheadedness on this issue is so weird. I can't tell if he genuinely misunderstands what people are telling him and actually thinks the "claw grip" means holding the food with your knuckles or if his "demonstrations" of it in his video are him doing it wrong on purpose to be deliberately misleading to his audience so that he can feel like he's "won" but either option is pretty embarrassing.
Damn. I was looking through that one for some b-roll, and I only got about 2 minutes in before I felt like I had gotten enough. That would've been perfect! 😂
@@Hephera I'm sure he's been criticized A LOT for his mediocre technique that he displays in so many of his videos. His motivation for creating those videos was probably quite simply just to seek validation for his insecurities from other people that can't be bothered to use their tools correctly lol.
whole knife technique thing is ridiculous... people who cook family meals every day don't do it... grandma almost definitely isn't using "proper knife technique"... I had basic knife safety instruction in boyscouts and they never talking about making sure the log is secure. all of these things you're saying are "unsafe" are total hipster nonsense.
I work in a kitchen with a nice expensive knife and have "good technique" etc but my 65 year old dad still cuts up everything towards his hands with a paring knife - like grandma did - and he's never really hurt himself and the carrots come out more or less the same. Obviously certain techniques come into play in a professional setting for the sake of efficiency but cooking should never get pretentious
no disrespect, but adams point is to tell home cooks to be safe and careful. trying to teach someone good knife skills is a hard habit to learn and simply unnescary for most people who just want to cook at home, not be fancy home cooks, but simply be able to cook at home. cook in a way that is controlled and safe, and for most people that will be to keep doing what they know.
They want to do this at home, but learning safe technique is unnecessary? The last point seems irrelevant? and also false given the audience consists of people watching videos on how to do something or improve at said something... disrespect meant lol
@@ostrava_ here since you need an explainer, let me be more explicit: literal children in other countries are taught the basic knife safety skills Adam says are too hard for his little baby hands. "unecessary blah blah blah" I do not care, act like an adult.
So Adam is saying sloppy knife technique is not inherently less safe and controlled even for home cooks? This argument just implodes on itself. On one had he's saying to be safe by slowing down and taking your time, but then on the other he's telling you to ignore the other best practices that are honestly just as easy to follow?(re: holding your knife in a more controllable pinch grip, etc.) Its obviously better to implement all the best practices for knife technique that you can, not pick and choose arbitrarily. People don't need to be professional chefs just to cook at home, but Adam should not teach purposefully unsafe technique just because it works for him. And as home cooks, we should focus on learning the RIGHT techniques becuase it will always pay off in the long run. Do you want to always have dinner take 2 hours to cook because you spent 10 minutes cutting an onion with a butter knife or do you want to learn the right skills so you can eventually, with practice be able to put dinner on the table in 30 minutes?
Learning basic knife safety is unnecessary? If Adam really wanted to tell home cooks to be safe and careful, he would take the time to learn basic knife safety himself and then teach those principles to his audience. These techniques aren't as hard to grasp as he makes them out to be.
Adam's meta-analysis of the research about this topic was hilariously bad. As in, go back to undergrad bad. Guy strikes me as the kind of person who drives slow in the left lane because he just knows that the right speed to drive is the speed he wants to drive. And telling an audience of young people (which is his and the overall youtube demographic) who are still probably too young to accurately evaluate risk that they don't have to treat knife safety seriously as long as they're real careful and go slow is irresponsible. It's a shame that UA-cam works in such a way as to promote people like him over actual experts but such is life. Oh and he's so petty he turned this into his literal person brand. Just insane.
His first video was horrific, but I thought it might be salvageable if he learned something afterward. The second video made it so much worse because A) it was repeating all the same flawed arguments as before, B) it was a commercial for his knife, and C) he turned his justification for bad technique into his slogan. I still think it might be salvageable though. "Walk, don't run" could apply to proper knife technique, but he would have to pivot away from doubling down on his poor technique, which, sadly, I doubt he'll ever do.
@@lachlanbrown3112 As others have pointed out in this very comments section, his arguments are not sound. And at least one professional chef has posted a video response to Adam's knife videos pointing out that his reasoning is terribly flawed. Again, as I mentioned in my own video, using proper knife technique is not about speed and efficiency as Adam argues. It's about safety, and Adam can argue all he wants that he's being safe, when in fact he's using extremely unsafe technique and claiming it's safe simply because he's going slowly. That's not being safe. As someone else in this thread so aptly put it, you can drive slowly in the left lane and claim you're being "safe" just because you're driving slowly, but in fact you're putting yourself and others on the road in greater danger by doing so.
@@NateNakao okay. Compare knife skills to driving. WOW you've won. Go and watch the actual video without trying to make your own click bait video and you'll see he has addressed your points. HOME cooks are not Chefs. The ez way is dangerous if you're going super fast but just don't go fast and it's much safer. Claw grip might be safer for professionals but home cooks will be more likely to screw it up. Like he said it's an awkward and unnatural grip which has to be mastered. Nobody got time for that. we are not living in an ideal world where people will spend hours to master cutting. You're just wrong!
@@lachlanbrown3112 I'm not making this a competition. I was drawing an analogy to make a point. And I've watched both of his videos all the way through, which is why I felt the need to address his videos. Not only does he not make any compelling arguments to not learn proper knife technique, he demonstrates the claw grip completely incorrectly, which is why he struggles so much with it. Again, his argument is that the claw grip is about speed and efficiency. My argument is that the claw grip is about safety, not speed. All of the other points he makes are nothing more than justifications for his poor technique.
as someone who's had multiple close calls in the past (to the point of cutting off a bit of fingernail), i appreciate videos like this, and i think you were very fair. also, i learned something which is always nice :)
I've been cooking every meal at home for 35 years and never cut my fingers a single time (many thousands of meals) until I tried the claw grip and cut the skin off my knuckle. Never again.
Adam has built a reputation for being incredibly arrogant. He used to go down to the comments section and lash out at anyone who dares question his greatness, in a most condescending tone. While he doesn't do that anymore (last I checked at least), his overall smarmy know-it-all attitude never left him, it seems.
I like Adam too, but the guy really needs some lessons in humility.
I like everything you have to say here, I'm pretty sure Adam has some sharpening videos where he talks about a sharp knife being safer. I even like using a bench scraper, but also using a bench scraper means I have another thing to clean. If you have the knife at an angle that is less than the angle of the blade, scraping towards the knife edge shouldn't dull it. Testing out that theory would make for a great video!
fun fact his video about distilling alcohol is also dangerously wrong and could lead a viewer to burning their house down or going blind from methanol poisoning but since he's wrong in a way that is less obvious than how blatantly wrong he is about cutting techniques noone made a video about that :P
I managed to have a functioning claw grip the first time I tried it. Must be because I’m a superhuman genius.
Theres at least one video ive seen of his where he almost cut himself in a way that wouldnt have happened if he used the proper technique (5:24 in his chicken and dumplings video if you're curious). which proves that his "just go slow and never get distracted" method of "safety" doesn't even work for HIM.
His pigheadedness on this issue is so weird. I can't tell if he genuinely misunderstands what people are telling him and actually thinks the "claw grip" means holding the food with your knuckles or if his "demonstrations" of it in his video are him doing it wrong on purpose to be deliberately misleading to his audience so that he can feel like he's "won" but either option is pretty embarrassing.
Damn. I was looking through that one for some b-roll, and I only got about 2 minutes in before I felt like I had gotten enough. That would've been perfect! 😂
@@Hephera I'm sure he's been criticized A LOT for his mediocre technique that he displays in so many of his videos. His motivation for creating those videos was probably quite simply just to seek validation for his insecurities from other people that can't be bothered to use their tools correctly lol.
whole knife technique thing is ridiculous... people who cook family meals every day don't do it... grandma almost definitely isn't using "proper knife technique"...
I had basic knife safety instruction in boyscouts and they never talking about making sure the log is secure. all of these things you're saying are "unsafe" are total hipster nonsense.
I work in a kitchen with a nice expensive knife and have "good technique" etc but my 65 year old dad still cuts up everything towards his hands with a paring knife - like grandma did - and he's never really hurt himself and the carrots come out more or less the same. Obviously certain techniques come into play in a professional setting for the sake of efficiency but cooking should never get pretentious
no disrespect, but adams point is to tell home cooks to be safe and careful. trying to teach someone good knife skills is a hard habit to learn and simply unnescary for most people who just want to cook at home, not be fancy home cooks, but simply be able to cook at home. cook in a way that is controlled and safe, and for most people that will be to keep doing what they know.
they teach literal grade schoolers in Japan cats paws not dog claws so, you know, no.
They want to do this at home, but learning safe technique is unnecessary? The last point seems irrelevant? and also false given the audience consists of people watching videos on how to do something or improve at said something... disrespect meant lol
@@ostrava_ here since you need an explainer, let me be more explicit:
literal children in other countries are taught the basic knife safety skills Adam says are too hard for his little baby hands.
"unecessary blah blah blah" I do not care, act like an adult.
So Adam is saying sloppy knife technique is not inherently less safe and controlled even for home cooks? This argument just implodes on itself. On one had he's saying to be safe by slowing down and taking your time, but then on the other he's telling you to ignore the other best practices that are honestly just as easy to follow?(re: holding your knife in a more controllable pinch grip, etc.) Its obviously better to implement all the best practices for knife technique that you can, not pick and choose arbitrarily. People don't need to be professional chefs just to cook at home, but Adam should not teach purposefully unsafe technique just because it works for him. And as home cooks, we should focus on learning the RIGHT techniques becuase it will always pay off in the long run. Do you want to always have dinner take 2 hours to cook because you spent 10 minutes cutting an onion with a butter knife or do you want to learn the right skills so you can eventually, with practice be able to put dinner on the table in 30 minutes?
Learning basic knife safety is unnecessary? If Adam really wanted to tell home cooks to be safe and careful, he would take the time to learn basic knife safety himself and then teach those principles to his audience. These techniques aren't as hard to grasp as he makes them out to be.
Adam's meta-analysis of the research about this topic was hilariously bad. As in, go back to undergrad bad. Guy strikes me as the kind of person who drives slow in the left lane because he just knows that the right speed to drive is the speed he wants to drive. And telling an audience of young people (which is his and the overall youtube demographic) who are still probably too young to accurately evaluate risk that they don't have to treat knife safety seriously as long as they're real careful and go slow is irresponsible. It's a shame that UA-cam works in such a way as to promote people like him over actual experts but such is life.
Oh and he's so petty he turned this into his literal person brand. Just insane.
His first video was horrific, but I thought it might be salvageable if he learned something afterward. The second video made it so much worse because A) it was repeating all the same flawed arguments as before, B) it was a commercial for his knife, and C) he turned his justification for bad technique into his slogan.
I still think it might be salvageable though. "Walk, don't run" could apply to proper knife technique, but he would have to pivot away from doubling down on his poor technique, which, sadly, I doubt he'll ever do.
did you watch the same video i did?? Adam talks about safety lol
Yeah, he talks about safety while demonstrating and advocating for unsafe knife techniques lol
@@NateNakao omg your just using him for click bait. He's argument is clearly sound.
@@lachlanbrown3112 As others have pointed out in this very comments section, his arguments are not sound. And at least one professional chef has posted a video response to Adam's knife videos pointing out that his reasoning is terribly flawed.
Again, as I mentioned in my own video, using proper knife technique is not about speed and efficiency as Adam argues. It's about safety, and Adam can argue all he wants that he's being safe, when in fact he's using extremely unsafe technique and claiming it's safe simply because he's going slowly. That's not being safe. As someone else in this thread so aptly put it, you can drive slowly in the left lane and claim you're being "safe" just because you're driving slowly, but in fact you're putting yourself and others on the road in greater danger by doing so.
@@NateNakao okay. Compare knife skills to driving. WOW you've won. Go and watch the actual video without trying to make your own click bait video and you'll see he has addressed your points. HOME cooks are not Chefs. The ez way is dangerous if you're going super fast but just don't go fast and it's much safer.
Claw grip might be safer for professionals but home cooks will be more likely to screw it up. Like he said it's an awkward and unnatural grip which has to be mastered. Nobody got time for that. we are not living in an ideal world where people will spend hours to master cutting. You're just wrong!
@@lachlanbrown3112 I'm not making this a competition. I was drawing an analogy to make a point. And I've watched both of his videos all the way through, which is why I felt the need to address his videos. Not only does he not make any compelling arguments to not learn proper knife technique, he demonstrates the claw grip completely incorrectly, which is why he struggles so much with it.
Again, his argument is that the claw grip is about speed and efficiency. My argument is that the claw grip is about safety, not speed. All of the other points he makes are nothing more than justifications for his poor technique.