The Most Essential Tool in Your Kitchen

Preparing healthy meals full of organic fruits and vegetables requires some essential kitchen tools. As a Fort Collins Nutritionist, I often go to clients’ homes and peek into their food world. One of the biggest frustrations with food preparation and cooking healthy meals that I see is chopping food.

The most essential tool in your kitchen is a high quality sharp knife. Without one or two quality sharp knives in your kitchen, cutting fresh organic fruits and vegetables is a whole lot harder. I usually see one of three scenarios:

1. You have a whole bunch of knives in your knife block or drawer that are low quality and dull which makes food prep frustrating and in many situations– dangerous!
2. You have some high quality knives, but they aren’t sharp.
3. You understand that sharp knives make prepping and cooking healthy meals infinitely easier, so you have knives that hold a sharp blade and you sharpen your knives often.

If you have a whole bunch of cheap dull knives, they are pretty much all worthless for cutting and preparing healthy real food meals. You have two options– either sharpen your knives or get one or two high quality knives that will do just about everything you need to do in the kitchen. If you have some high quality knives that are just dull, all you have to do is to sharpen them and your work in the kitchen will become a lot easier.

If you find that you need new knives, you really only need one to two high quality sharp knives. A paring knife and a 6 inch to 8 inch chef’s knife will do the trick. A paring knife works great for peeling fruits and vegetables and a chef’s knife is great for slicing and chopping. There are stainless steel, ceramic, and carbon steel knives on the market and each has its own advantages.

Choose whichever you prefer. Just make sure that the knives you get are high quality and full tang if possible– this means that the blade extends all the way through the handle and is riveted through the handle. Full tang stainless steel or carbon steel knives will last for decades as long as you take good care of them and sharpen them often.

Peeling, cutting, slicing, and chopping fruits and vegetables to create real food meals is infinitely easier when you have essential kitchen tools like high quality sharp knives.