How Do Lefties Peel Vegetables?
Left-handed people have a lot to complain about, starting with semantics (sinister, gauche, goofy) and ending with the unproven claim that lefties die younger than righties. Somewhere in the middle lies a valid complaint about kitchen tools, especially vegetable peelers, most of which are made for right-handed people. The culprit appears to be old or cheap peelers where the manufacturer has only sharpened one side of the blade. “If it is symmetrical in all ways, it should not be handed,” explains Timothy Yee, director of marketing for DKB Household, which makes Zyliss vegetable peelers. “It would make a difference [for lefties] with one side sharpened. You’d have to flip it over and pull up,” he says. A peeler made with a bend in the handle might likewise be awkward to flip over and use. Y-shaped peelers are ambidextrous by default, says Michelle Sohn, a category director at OXO. The people we spoke to from Kuhn Rikon, OXO, and DKB all told us they sharpen both sides of their blades, c
