[HN Gopher] Replacing forks and chopsticks with pincers
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Replacing forks and chopsticks with pincers
Author : possiblelion
Score : 55 points
Date : 2022-11-03 10:13 UTC (1 days ago)
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| rockostrich wrote:
| Kitchen tweezers are more expensive and less durable to make than
| forks and chopsticks so I doubt this will ever happen.
| ynniv wrote:
| These are basically training chopsticks. If you find yourself
| using them a lot, you'll find it easier and more satisfying to
| use actual chopsticks. Chopsticks are cheap, easy to clean,
| versatile, able to be made from materials like bamboo, and more
| elegant than pincers. You can't make rudimentary scissors out of
| pincers, and those points look too narrow to hold anything heavy.
| The only problem with chopsticks is that they're harder to use,
| but if you use them regularly you'll be able to pick up heavy
| items using polished metal chopsticks in no time.
|
| https://marcosticks.org/best-learning-chopsticks/
| dao- wrote:
| > These are basically training chopsticks. If you find yourself
| using them a lot, you'll find it easier and more satisfying to
| use actual chopsticks. Chopsticks are cheap, easy to clean,
| versatile, able to be made from materials like bamboo, and more
| elegant than pincers.
|
| Using chopsticks is also good exercise for your fingers. I
| suspect that's the main reason why they're so satisfying to
| use.
| koolba wrote:
| I suspect a lot of the satisfaction for western users is they
| only use them when they eat sushi. Which of course is simply
| delicious.
| ddalex wrote:
| isn't sushi intended to be eaten by hand?
| yongjik wrote:
| Now that you mention it, yes, pincers do remind me of training
| chopsticks:
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=%EB%BD%80%EB%A1%9C%EB%A1%9C+...
|
| ... though I guess a restaurant owner might be hesitant to put
| these on a table :P
| Jolter wrote:
| Disposable utensils is very 20th Century.
|
| I know there are multiple use chopsticks but I've yet to run
| across such in a bar or other informal cuisine setting.
| ynniv wrote:
| Disposable chopsticks are a bit of soft wood or bamboo. Your
| processed and bleached napkin probably has a higher
| environmental impact. Compare that to a plastic fork, or even
| a metal fork that accidentally ends up in the trash.
|
| That said, most people have re-usable ones at home. Metal
| ones can be tricky, but easily last a decade or more. Bamboo
| ones are also common. Both are dishwasher safe.
| Jolter wrote:
| > That said, most people have re-usable ones at home.
|
| Source?
|
| I mean, I'll believe that _you_ have them.
|
| Anyway, the thread was about restaurants, I believe.
| ynniv wrote:
| Lol, show me your source on how many households have re-
| usable forks
| [deleted]
| duckmysick wrote:
| That's an interesting question and I couldn't find a
| direct answer. Let's use a good old Fermi estimate
| instead.
|
| This report [1] tells us that the "global disposable
| cutlery market was valued at $10.1 billion in 2021."
|
| I checked the Walmart website and they sell various
| disposable cutlery packs at about $0.04 -$0.08 per single
| unit. I know it's not an accurate representation of
| global prices, but it's a good start. I'm going to use
| $0.05 per unit in my estimates.
|
| A market size of $10.1 billion divided by $0.05 gives us
| 202 billion units of disposable cutlery used per year.
|
| The report I linked above mentioned that disposable
| eating utensils "are generally used once and then
| discarded".
|
| Let's assume that a person uses two disposable utensils
| per day. That's 700 utensils per year.
|
| 202 billion divided by 700 gives us little less than 290
| million people using disposable utensils.
|
| Let's also assume that those 290 million people use
| exclusively disposable utensils. It's likely not true -
| say, some people might use disposables eating out but
| reusables at home. It lowers the average yearly usage of
| disposable utensils down from 700. This would increase
| the number of people who use disposable utensils. At the
| same time, it would also increase the number of people
| using reusable utensils.
|
| How many people use forks and spoons and knives (of any
| kind)? I've seen anything between 1-2 billion. Seems
| plausible.
|
| 1.5 billion (total utensils users) - 290 million
| (disposable only users) is 1.21 billion people using
| reusable utensils. About 400 million households, at 3
| people per household.
|
| A crude estimate, but feels in the right order of
| magnitude.
|
| 1 - https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/disposable-
| cutlery-mark...
| falcolas wrote:
| Any household who's had a picnic or party, I'd guess.
| Leftover disposable cutlery is unavoidable.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I suspect that you did not read that carefully.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| Globally? Vs chopsticks?
| abhorrence wrote:
| I expect they mean that people who frequently use
| chopsticks at home are likely to have reusable ones.
| csours wrote:
| https://www.tofugu.com/japan/chopsticks-in-japan
|
| > In 1878, Japan produced the world's first disposable
| chopsticks, and today China and Japan use the majority of
| them. China is responsible for using 45 billion disposable
| chopsticks a year. Japan is about half of that at 24 billion.
|
| I've used plastic, lacquered wood, and stainless steel multi-
| use chopsticks. Each of them has problems. At home I use
| titanium chopsticks and they are phenomenal, but bamboo are
| just as good if not better.
| wheels wrote:
| ...which accidentally gives us the information in question.
| With 1.4 billion people using chopsticks on average twice a
| day, that'd mean 511 billion instances of chop-stick usage
| per year.
|
| So the Chinese use disposable chopsticks about 8% of the
| time, thus debunking the grandparent's claim that they're
| primarily disposable.
| Markoff wrote:
| even cheap hole in a wall restaurants in China use reusable
| chopsticks from hard wood/plastic, they have even special
| cleaning machine where you just throw them in top and when
| cleaned they stick from side
|
| metal chopsticks are pretty much standard in Korea
| (personally not a fan, prefer hard wood or good quality
| plastic, metal feels cold and clinks on teeth)
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Utensils in general are 19th century. Back in the day people
| just carried a sharp knife with them to stab their food.
| Spoons didn't exist in Europe until mid-17th century. Forks
| came into fashion in the 18th century in Europe, only
| reaching America by the 19th century. The main purpose was
| for scooping food off a plate, and steadying food for
| cutting.
|
| Any non-crappy japanese, chinese, korean, etc restaurant will
| give you reusable chopsticks. Korean stuff is all metal so
| it's easy to clean. Some people are weird and bring their own
| portable chopsticks (they screw together and have a pouch).
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| All accurate, though we might qualify that by 'spoons' we
| mean personal spoons for eating from a personal bowl, it
| would be shocking if medieval Europeans didn't use stirring
| spoons while cooking, or ladles for serving, for example.
| Just that if you shovel the stew out of the bowl with a
| piece of bread, you don't need a spoon also.
| httpz wrote:
| That may be an America thing. In Asia, you'll almost always
| get reusable chopsticks at a restaurant.
| skyyler wrote:
| Metal chopsticks are pretty common in Korea.
| jefftk wrote:
| Disposable chopsticks are both ridiculously cheap and not
| much worse than reusable ones (compared to how bad plastic
| forks are). So the crossover where we switch from disposable
| to reusable as a bar/restaurant gets nicer is in a different
| place with chopsticks vs forks.
| derefr wrote:
| Other kitchen utensils you might not have considered using when
| plating and/or at the table:
|
| * Small silicone tongs (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/Fuyamp-
| Kitchen-Cooking-Silicone-Grilli...) -- great for "family-style"
| service of oily spaghetti, salads, etc. Much better grip on saucy
| foods than laquered wooden "salad hands." No need to wind pasta
| around anything; just pick it up. Works much better than a
| spoon/ladle for breaking up a mound of sticky sweet-and-sour pork
| -- you're pulling and twisting, rather than pushing.
|
| * Kitchen shears -- some foods (e.g. Korean short ribs) that are
| extremely annoying to slice/saw the meat off the bone of with a
| steak knife, can be scissored through with ease. Also work great
| for cutting open crab legs.
|
| * Handheld cheese wire slicer (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/Cheese-
| Slicer-Stainless-Steel-Cutter/d... -- don't bother with the ones
| with a little roller in them for "depth of cut adjustment", it'll
| just get gummed up) -- rather than pre-slicing your cheese for
| charcuterie snacking (and having it all dry out), you can just
| bring the block to the table and slice it as you need it.
|
| * A mini-sized silicone spatula (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/HLMY-
| Silicone-Resistant-Baking-Essenti...)... for spreading butter on
| toast. Yes, really. I just figured this one out yesterday, since
| I already had the spatula on hand from making eggs, and figured I
| may-as-well try. It works better than any butter knife I ever
| used; even the fancy wide-bladed "spreading knives." Much less
| butter left stuck to the utensil in the end. And it makes sense
| -- buttering toast isn't all that different than icing a cake.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| The best thing I've found for serving long pasta is the "pasta
| claw", a sort of deep spoon with fingers around the rim.
| nomel wrote:
| Just as with chopsticks, this only works if the food contains the
| cultural knowledge that it will be manipulating with two points
| of contact, or food will be tossed/shoveled from the plate/bowl
| held in close proximity to the mouth. Forks allow scooping!
|
| Perhaps a pincer where one tine has a semicircle, allowing it to
| be used as a spoon, when pinched?
|
| Regardless, surely the future of food is hallucinogenic flavor
| crystals, matching your desired flavor, texture, smell, and
| atmosphere!
| idbehold wrote:
| >Forks allow scooping!
|
| Forks are awful at scooping! They're about as effective at
| scooping as a butter knife. Everything just falls off the
| sides. I admit the pincers also stink at scooping, but I just
| hate forks.
| codesnik wrote:
| well, you can scoop green peas with fork with no trouble, for
| example. I'm sure there're asian people who can do it
| efficiently with chopsticks, of course, but I just can't
| imagine, how.
| mbg721 wrote:
| "I eat my peas with honey. I've done it all my life. It
| makes them taste quite funny, but it keeps them on my
| knife."
| pwinnski wrote:
| Forks aren't great at scooping.
|
| My Asian family members require only chopsticks and a spoon
| (large) to eat anything, and spoons are much better for
| scooping.
| frosted-flakes wrote:
| Forks are great at scooping. Think Kraft Dinner, or mashed
| potatoes.
| britch wrote:
| Forks can scoop but there's nothing a fork can scoop that a
| spoon cannot.
|
| There's plenty that spoons can scoop that forks cannot.
| ajot wrote:
| Well, but a spoon cannot stab/hold a steak while I cut
| it, so forks still have their merit.
| skywal_l wrote:
| Depends on the viscosity of what you are trying to scoop.
| ynniv wrote:
| You can shovel with chopsticks a little by pushing the pad of
| your thumb between them. The tension keeps the points a little
| apart and works like a two pronged fork.
| nomel wrote:
| This seems 25% as effective as an eight pronged fork.
| ynniv wrote:
| It isn't more than 33% as efficient as a fork, but honestly
| you don't need to shovel that often. There's usually a
| spoon as well, which is the undisputed champion of
| scooping.
| mkl wrote:
| An eight pronged fork? Those don't seem to exist as cutlery
| in general use (just pitchfork sized).
| SapporoChris wrote:
| I have not tried pincers so keep that in mind. I appreciate that
| they are easier to use, however the economics come to play.
| Chopsticks, the disposable ones, the ones presented to most
| diners are incredibly cheap to make about 2 cents. Some diners
| prefer disposable cutlery for perceived sanitary reasons. So
| these pincers need to beat the economy of Chopsticks and consumer
| uptake.
| wongarsu wrote:
| I wonder if disposable pincers made from cheap wood are viable?
| Obviously, they would have a more complex shape than
| chopsticks, making them a bit more expensive. But maybe still
| cheap enough that the economics could work out if somebody
| figures out the marketing.
| grahamplace wrote:
| Instead of designing an entirely new disposable wood form, I
| wonder if you could just make an attachment like "Chopstick
| Helpers"[1] that worked with existing disposable chopsticks
| but had action more akin to pincers.
|
| That being said, I'm definitely still in the "might as well
| just use chopsticks then" camp
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Inteliventor-6-FUNCHOP-Chopstick-
| Help...
| SapporoChris wrote:
| gnicholas in another comment mentioned this. The pincers can
| only pick up items in a narrow range. Chopsticks are much
| more versatile. The limited range of motion is a drawback
| that exceeds the ease of use benefit.
| Animats wrote:
| Pincer-type serving utensils are common and useful. Salad bars
| use them. They seldom make it to the table, though.
| ugh123 wrote:
| I think the issue will be that not all pincers (and other similar
| kitchen utensils) are not all made the same. Some are much harder
| to squeeze than others. Some don't open as wide, so I may not be
| able to get it around a large chunk of sushi. With chopsticks I
| have neither of these problems (although chopsticks do vary in
| other ways).
| noja wrote:
| Single prong pincers would not let me hold my food in position
| while cutting, it would need more than one tine on each side.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Years ago on our first anniversary I took my SO to a sushi place
| as she'd never been to one.
|
| The waiter told us that outside the regular cutlery they offer a
| middle option for those who want the chopstick experience without
| the hassle.
|
| I opted for that and the guy fashioned a set of picers from
| chopsticks and rubber bands on the spot.
|
| Guy looked like he did that every day.
| tracker1 wrote:
| The spork will not be challenged!
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _They make it so much easier to eat anything from sushi to
| chicken wings_
|
| I don't see how one would pick up a sushi roll with the pictured
| pincers. It looks like their default opening is not large enough.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Also, with sufficient experience, you can actually eat chicken
| wings, and many other foods with chopsticks.
|
| The only case in which chopsticks don't work so well is where
| food is slippery.
| shostack wrote:
| Or liquid.
| isitmadeofglass wrote:
| You just need hollow chopsticks
| purpleflame1257 wrote:
| This is why in Korean cuisine the default dining set is
| spoon+chopsticks.
| adhesive_wombat wrote:
| Chicken wings are much easier to easy with chopsticks then
| with Western cutlery and avoid the awful sticky fingers issue
| entirely.
|
| Even more so for pig trotters and chicken feet which
| otherwise make your hands aggressively sticky due to the
| collagen.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Between sticks with prongs, sticks with mouth shaped bowls, and
| sticks with sticks, unless culinary art sees major advancements I
| think we've got it covered for the next 1000 years lol.
|
| Of course according to the Onion, Yum Corp will being dumping
| Taco Bell nacho grande chees-oid solution into our troughs.
|
| ;^P
| mikestew wrote:
| I'm just simple boy from the Midwest who learned to eat his steak
| and potatoes with a fork and knife, as $DEITY intended, and even
| I learned to use chopsticks well enough that I don't see what the
| pictured tool buys me. I understand that some have hand mobility
| issues, but the pictured solution reminds me of the chopsticks
| with a rubber band that my Asian immigrant neighbors used for
| their kids.
|
| Take my titanium chopsticks from my cold, dead hands!
| cocacola1 wrote:
| $DEITY may have been Satan.
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/ten-surprising-fac...
| nathias wrote:
| maybe it would be even easier with an adjustable crescent wrench
| and pliers?
| pwinnski wrote:
| Tell me you're bad at using chopsticks by praising training
| chopsticks.
| yongjik wrote:
| > The pincers have a good grip, are easy to manoeuvre and are the
| right size and weight. They make it so much easier to eat
| anything from sushi to chicken wings.
|
| Oh dear god, I'm both horrified and intrigued ... but mostly
| horrified ...
| httpz wrote:
| This reads like a Jr engineer's argument on why some text editor
| is better than vim after only learning a couple vim commands.
| Pincers have a lower learning curve but chopsticks are so much
| more versatile if you're skilled with it.
|
| Here's when chopsticks are more useful than pincers. * Grabbing
| something wide like a large meatball. * Slicing soft food like
| tofu. * Separating bones in a chicken wing. * Eating noodles (you
| have to go in wide, close, keep parallel)
| irusensei wrote:
| How do I quit chopsticks?
|
| (sorry it had to be made)
| ummonk wrote:
| Still not as convenient as eating with your hands like we Indians
| do.
| nkozyra wrote:
| > They make it so much easier to eat anything from sushi to
| chicken wings.
|
| Easier than ... using your hand?
| granshaw wrote:
| Eating Panda Express style Chinese food with rice and a couple of
| stir frys? Try putting it in a plate, and use a fork and spoon to
| eat. Fork pushes components+rice into spoon, spoon goes into
| mouth. No more stuff falling off like when only a fork is used.
| Fork also used to stab when needed and spoon used to slice when
| needed.
|
| Thank me later
| Markoff wrote:
| that's how you eat in Thailand
|
| though not usable for cutting harder pieces of meat, so not
| really versatile for all cuisines
| nayuki wrote:
| I find eating western-style salads to be easier with chopsticks
| than with a fork.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Is this a parody? "Developer finds new tool -> is amazed ->
| thinks this is the future of X -> turns out it's not very useful
| outside one or two cases"
| taylodl wrote:
| Sadly, no. Developers do this all the time. They set out to
| "change the world" without first understanding why the world is
| the way it is in the first place. Their going-in assumption is
| things are the way they are because everybody else isn't nearly
| as smart as them and just can't figure it out. Developer
| delivers solution - it falls flat on its face.
|
| Some people respond to this repeated experience by learning to
| ask questions to better understand _why_ things are the way
| they are and eventually those people may come to develop truly
| revolutionary technology.
|
| Others just become serial entrepreneurs.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| I and the folks of chinese-descent in my family prefer wooden
| chopsticks over steel ones because of the better grip wood
| texture provides, so perhaps pincers are the future, but not the
| metal ones OP has. Wood might be more sustainable, too.
| Jolter wrote:
| Wood is only more sustainable than metal if the wooden utensil
| is multiple-use.
| googlryas wrote:
| Is that true? Metal chopsticks take much more energy to
| produce and ship than wooden ones, and need to be cleaned
| with soap, water, and energy after every use, compared to
| disposable wooden ones which could theoretically just be
| thrown in a hole on your garden.
|
| I wonder what the break even point is for reusable metal vs
| disposable wooden ones is? 10 uses? 1000? and if metal
| chopsticks actually make it to that stage before being
| retired/lost/broke.
|
| Not that merely environmental impact is the only question,
| I'm just curious if this analysis has ever been done.
| thrill wrote:
| There's also the energy of production.
| ummonk wrote:
| I think these pincers are textured to provide grip
| idbehold wrote:
| I hate forks as much as the next person (compared to spoons and
| knives, forks are far worse at performing their primary job), but
| I'm not sure about these pincers. For one thing they look more
| difficult to clean (stuff would get stuck at the base).
| philote wrote:
| But forks can scoop, poke, and cut. I'd rather the versatility
| than multiple task-specific utensils.
| idbehold wrote:
| Sure, but if you also had a spoon and knife then the fork is
| really just trying to compete with the knife at cutting and
| the spoon at scooping. It loses both of those competitions
| and is relegated to being a poker. The fork is a jack of all
| trades and a master of none.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Interesting. If I had to pick one utensil to eat with in a
| domestic setting (of the typical Western three) it would be a
| fork.
|
| In a more general or survival setting I'd choose a knife.
| nkozyra wrote:
| Pour one out for our humble cafeteria friend the spork.
| ghaff wrote:
| In a domestic setting, I'd argue a spoon is quite a bit more
| versatile especially in the context of scooping liquids.
| Anything you can poke and lift with a fork you can probably
| scoop and lift with a spoon instead.
|
| A fork is arguably most useful in conjunction _with_ a knife
| because it 's generally easier to hold foods for cutting with
| a fork than with a spoon.
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