Most of the time, washing with hot soapy water is as close to sterilizing as makes no difference. Unless you're talking about CJD and prions, which won't be destroyed even by boiling, you probably only wash your kitchen knives after cutting up the poultry, yes? You probably don't make an effort to sterilize them (unless they go in the dishwasher). Water only has to be about 65 degrees Celsius to kill most things, it doesn't have to be boiling, but unless you carry a thermometer you can't really measure the temperature so better safe than sorry. I use tough rubber gloves when washing up so that I can work with much hotter water than I can without the gloves, but it still isn't boiling water. I make an effort to wash the things most likely to be contaminated with bacteria first, i.e. in the hottest water. I pour boiling water straight onto them, wash them, and then wash everything else.
When camping I always have surgical alcohol in my FAK and burning alcohol in my fire kit. If I needed to really sterilize a blade, e.g. for surgery, that's what I'd use. If you're going to cook the food, then by all means wash the blade you use to prepare it but sterilizing it seems like a waste of time and effort as the food isn't sterile until you've cooked it. I mostly use folding knives, and I keep a blade separate for food use. When it's in my pocket, it's wrapped in a clean cloth to keep it clean. I wash it with clean water, but I only make a point of using hot water if I've cut uncooked meat with it, so then I can use it for dessert. I'm a great dessert fan.
Size matters. If really necessary, I could take off the scales of my food-use folder and submerge the whole thing in a mug of boiling water. If
absolutely necessary I could leave the scales on, but I don't know how they'd react.
I personally would avoid boiling most tools unless the survival of the tool was a secondary consideration.
