Yeah sure . . .
Why is it that so many of these new ‘easy open’ products end up being anything but?
To be fair, the round flip top tins do tend to open quite easily, but rectangular tins usually get stuck at about the 2/3 open point so you end up having to dig out the sardines (or whatever) with a fork while you risk having your thumb sliced open by the sharp edge of the partially opened lid.
But the worst offenders have to be the tear-off tetrabrick packages which usually end up with a small fountain of juice, etc landing all of the kitchen work surface (and often on oneself). And that is only if it can be torn open – usually scissors are required.
Then there are the ‘easy open and re-sealable’ cellophane packets of pasta. Ha! These seem to have been sealed with superglue so that when you gently pull the top open the cellophane rips half-way down the packet and meanwhile the ‘re-seal’ sticky tabs immediately lose all stickyness and so even if you managed to get the thing open without destroying the packet a clothespeg is required to seal it up again.
I know it’s a silly rant, but it’s the blatant ‘false promise’ by these marketing guys that mostly annoys me. Like, who are they trying to kid? 
casa azahar 
They aren’t trying to kid anyone. They just want you to believe that they care. What really annoys me is the child proof tops, which if you want them open you give to a child, but no adult can figure out.
Another source of rant for me is the bottle of herbal supplement that is in a sealed box, has a plastic wrapping around the cap (or in some cases the whole bottle including the cap), then you have to “unzip” a piece of plastic so the top will flip open, and then you also have to remove the aluminum seal that is glued inside the lid, and finally, a wad of cotton to remove from inside the bottle. Can you spell “over-packaged”?
See, Az, you aren’t the only one who rants! Ranters of the world, unite!
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“What really annoys me is the child proof tops, which if you want them open you give to a child, but no adult can figure out.”
Thanks for that, hmh – best laugh I’ve had all day! 🙂
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I thought the cotton was inside medicine bottles to absorb excess moisture, so that the pills don’t. Most of my pill bottles contain dessicant, as opposed to cotton, so I assumed the cotton served that purpose.
I understand the careful packaging of pill bottles, though- during my childhood there were two or three incidents of tampering, where people were killed.
I guess I’m lucky in regards to re-sealable packaging, in that most of the re-sealable packaging I encounter seals with a zip-lock instead of that sticky stuff. Except for bagged coffee beans- those bags always have a sticky tape to reseal them, and the tape never holds.
By easy-open tins, do you mean the ones with the pull ring? I agree- those ring pull cans are awful- I also tend to cut my fingers on them. Luckily, none of the canned goods I tend to buy come in that kind of can, except for the cat food. Once you’ve nicked your finger and bleed into the can’s contents, it’s a waste of effort and of food.
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I remember the tampering cases too. So, I am wondering now how many millions of dollars have been spent closing the barn door after that horse escaped. Not to mention the huge amounts of litter that have been generated. All because a crazy person killed two people?
Actually, the cotton is in there to keep the pills from rattling around and getting battered during shipping and storage. Which makes it doubly silly since frequently they don’t put enough in to keep the pills from rattling around.
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Actually, there have been at least five heavily reported tampering-related deaths since 1982. And I do think that every measure should be taken to ensure that future incidents don’t occur.
It’s been years since I got a bottle of pills with cotton in it, so I didn’t realize it was there to stop them rattling around. I’ll have to make sure I put cotton balls in the pill bottles that I carry around with me. Duh!
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Five cases in 24 years. I believe measures should be taken also. I just don’t know that I believe that we need three or four safeguards on every single bottle of pills.How much redundancy is necessary?
It brings to mind the whole car safety issue. We have airbags, front air bags, seat belts, cars that are designed to crumple to absorb the energy of impact, anti lock brakes, traction control devices. These are all good things. But wouldn’t it be more to the point to teach people to drive safely?
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Speaking as someone who was nearly killed in a car accident, and is only alive because of airbags, crumple zones, anti lock brakes and traction control, I think no matter how safely people drive, there are bound to be accidents, and the more safety devices that can be implemented, the better. There’s no such thing as redundancy where safety is concerned.
And please note that those “five cases in 24 years” are merely the five which have received heavy coverage. I’m sure I could research stats for you- but what would be the point? Better to waste a few human lives than some easily replaceable (and recycleable) paper or plastic, I guess.
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Speaking as someone who was hit by a car, the only thing that saved me was my yoga training. My only injury was a dislocated shoulder. There are no crumple zones to save pedestrians.
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‘They’ve given me all the tablets. When I drop dead my coffin will have a childproof lid on it, because I’ve had so many pills.’
Paul O’Grady on life after his second heart attack
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I agree that most stuff is over-packaged for safety, but I’m stumped as to how to prevent tampering otherwise. This is an occasionally but catastrophically deviant society we live in.
I’ve had it with this resealable stuff! I get some shredded cheese in bags which have a zip thingy on them to reclose. No matter how carefully I do it, when I pull the bag open, half the time *both* sides of the plastic “zipper” are on one side of the open bag, because the glue or whatever didn’t hold it down! (steamfromearssmiley)
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That at first read as ‘steam from arse smiley’ to me… 🙂
Yeah, those zipper things almost never work for me either. Still have to get the clothespegs out.
My rice boxes have ‘easy open and resealable’ tabs on the side of them. Except the tab when you first open it is lower than the product inside so rice ends up spilling out all over the place. 😕
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Easy open garlics and prawns would be useful. The current packaging is a real pain.
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Bananas, on the other hand, are a marvel of design.
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” That at first read as ’steam from arse smiley’ to me… ” ROFLMAO!! i gotta be more careful, then!
“Easy open garlics and prawns would be useful. The current packaging is a real pain.”
(shakes head sadly) Too true, too true. Particularly shrimp.
Garlic cloves I just whack with the side of a broad knife or cleaver, then the papery stuff slides right off. Haven’t the nerve to try that with shrimp… 😎
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Trying that with shrimp might result in something quite unappealing and rather flat.
This afternoon I noticed that the laundry powder I use comes in a box with an ‘easy-close lid’. Well, thank Bob for that. The days I’ve wasted, trying to put lids back on boxes in the past…
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Easy open potatoes would be nice, too. how about a zipper or something? 😀
While an easy-close lid does sound a bit silly, resealable boxes might be neat- dry goods here tend to get bollweevils once they’ve been opened. Some of the dry goods come in resealable plastic puches, but a reinforced box top could prove useful, no?
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Gaa! The word “puches” in my previous posting was supposed to have been “pouches”. Oops.
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Then again, there is tupperware (or its variants) which seems the best way to keep stuff like flour ‘insect free’. In fact, I’ve never seen an easy-open or easy-resealable packet of flour. They just tend to come in paper packages and I reckon should be immediately put into tupperware-type containers.
A couple of weeks ago I bought some flour at the small shop around the corner (to make a beer batter for frying prawns) and ick! It was full of bugs! So I asked a neighbour if they had some flour they could lend me … and theirs ended up having bugs too! Gaaa!
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I bought 50 pounds of organic unbleached white flour and of course it was full of bugs. Proved it had not been irradiated or fumigated, I guess. So I put it in the freezer for a couple of days which killed all the bugs, and then spent a happy couple of hours with my flour sifter sifting out all the dead wild life. I also got 50 pounds of organic rolled oats from the same source, and I am afraid to open it. If it is buggy I will have to throw it away as it simply is not possible to sift rolled oats. Sigh.
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“then spent a happy couple of hours with my flour sifter”
Yeah right. 😉
Actually, that was very clever – I never would have thought of that.
I did go back to the little shop to tell them about the bug problem (after I’d bought more flour elsewhere) just so they’d know and the woman said she’d heard from some other people about it as well and she gave me a whole new kilo bag of flour (even though I’d only bought a half-kilo bag from her). I tried telling her I really didn’t need any more flour but she insisted.
So now I have enough flour to last for about a year or more! I don’t bake so usually only use flour for making bechamel and beer batter.
Too bad if the rolled oats also end up buggy – couldn’t you take them back?
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I don’t want to think about how long it would take me to sift a whole sack of flour… I think my sifter does a cup at a time at most. It would be more efficient in the long run to toss the bag of flour and buy a new one- unbleached, organic flour is available in four pound bags for just a few dollars, and I’d be willing to bet it would “cost” me more in terms of time! But, in a pinch, I’ll follow your example, HMH. How long did the flour need to sit in the freezer to kill them all?
If I wound up with 50 lbs of buggy rolled oats, I’d be looking for some really hungry horses!
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