Should i cut lettuce with a knife

Kitchen mysteries: Is it better to tear or cut lettuce? By Maryellen Garrison. Wednesday, November 28, at am Updated: November 28, am. Smith leaves his mark.

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Tax exemptions, scours and a farewell to Henry County. As temperatures start to drop, look out for forages, hypothermia. Ad Gallery. News Business Education Public Records. The two nutrients that leafy green vegetables are held in such regard for, calcium and Vitamin A, it has in abundance. And it lags behind in other micronutrients.

No, clearly not. This can be a good approach, by the way, to help you cut through some of the overwrought claims about the superior nutritional nature of one vegetable over another. By those standards, no lettuce can really make or break you.

And neither contain a lot. So, iceberg is not as nutritious as Romaine. In fact, it has the lowest nutritional value of all the lettuces. But it does have some nutritional value, and that nutrition comes in with low energy-density. Also, it has uses that it is quite suited for. As above, iceberg owes its popularity to economics. This firm head lettuce was easier to ship and got to the store less damaged.

I have never had lettuce brown around a cut edge any more than it browns around a torn edge. But tearing implies some rougher handling than the smooth cut of a sharp knife. I think it's one of those old wives' tales, or rather, since most chefs are men, old men's tales.

I've heard two lines of reasoning: the "metal knife" explanation - presumably because iron and steel rust, cutting with an iron or steel knife will make the lettuce "rust". I don't know the science of this, but it would mean that there is a chemical reaction with the steel and the lettuce. It seems unlikely, but I'd be curious as to the explanation. And if that is true, then what possible chemical reaction would there be with a stainless steel knife?

And grasping lettuce in your hands and tearing it doesn't bruise the lettuce? Has anyone tested this?

Considering the excessive amount of time it takes to tear lettuce, as opposed to cut it with a good sharp knife, there should be some good evidence.

I've heard that tearing keeps the individual cell walls intact, while cutting does not. So torn lettuce stays fresher longer. But a few decades ago in a restaurant scene I used a knife, no time to stand there tearing all day. Click to expand This doesn't really answer your question, but I'm assuming the purpose of your inquiry is to find a method that doesn't turn lettuce brown. Last year I purchased this knife. I remember the first time I used it I had to cut a bunch of lettuce for next day service, so I took a HUGE leap of faith, cut it, covered it and placed it in the reach-in.

I think I lost sleep the might before, and when I went to work i made a bee line to the reach-in to see if the romaine had turned brown, and it had not. It was as if I had cut it fresh on the spot. Both cutting and tearing will rupture cell walls.

My experience is that both work and neither too offensively. The citation is not quantified; as presented, it's a blanket generalization by McGee being masqueraded as science to justify a cooking myth. With respect to the degree of browning I offer no quantifiable, practical, empirical evidence to a support that tearing does less browning, or b creates less "off-flavors" per the McGee citation , as these are a non-specified traits; nor c an effective, empirical comparison between the degree to which 1 "off-flavors" practically impact a salad once other ingredients and dressing are added versus 2 "off-flavors" significantly impact a salad's quality relative to textural concerns.

Practically speaking, when preparing a salad for consumption as opposed to cutting lettuce to oxidize , it has been my direct experience at home and in the commercial kitchen that neither knives nor hands cause more discoloration of leaf or flavor. One paper discussing fresh-cut practices for commercial pre-packagers has yielded no direct answer to the original question except that sharp knives are better than dull, p.

It may be able to quantify "off-flavors," however. Cook's Illustrated indicates the following results :. Our verdict? The plastic lettuce knife might stave off browning slightly longer than metal knives, but it's not worth the money or the extra drawer space.

To prolong the life of lettuce by a day or two, stick to tearing by hand. Tearing allows leaves to break along their natural fault lines, rupturing fewer cells and reducing premature browning. I think the biggest issue, what they're warning you against when they say not to cut, has to do with removing leaves if you're using less than a whole lettuce. If you slice up the lettuce head as though it was an eggplant, you will leave behind a flat plane of cut lettuce walls which will be nasty and brown the next time you make a salad.

If you pull off leaves by hand, the rest of the lettuce will stay nicer. I suspect for a salad you will eat within minutes, whether you now chop or tear the leaves you've pulled off won't matter much.

If you're pulling one leaf, tearing it up, pulling another, tearing it up, deciding if you need more, then doing it al by hand is probably easier than switching back and forth to the knife. If you pull off half a lettuce, it's probably quicker to switch to a knife at this point and the experiments being reported seem to suggested there will be no harm in doing that. To the extent that tearing lettuce leaves more cells intact, if a salad is going to be served immediately, cutting is much better.

The flavor of lettuce is in the juice, and cutting exposes the juices to the palate. There is nothing better that the sweet crunch of a rib of cut romaine lettuce. Torn lettuce tastes like paper by comparison. Lettuce is about one thing, nutrition. Many people have suggested that tearing lettuce significantly increases the amount of antioxidants. This benefit should trump any concerns about browning.

Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Is it worth tearing lettuce for salad?

Ask Question. Asked 9 years, 5 months ago. Active 2 years, 4 months ago. Viewed 30k times. When preparing a largish salad tearing the leaves can take a lot more time than slicing. Improve this question. Mien Sobachatina Sobachatina I'm not sure I buy that cell-boundary thing. I would rather say that tearing only uses light force that is evenly spread out, and the leaf only pulls apart where it is weakest. By contrast, cutting involves more pressure on the leaf around the prospective cut, so that the area touching the cut gets damaged more observe a cut.

And at some point the blade moves through the leaf rapidly, causing more damage.