I’m really on the fence about this gadget.
I’m Dan and I’ve been designing kitchen gadgets
for 40 years.
I’m gonna test some chopping gadgets
and see if I can find a way to make them better.
And if we’re not bottoming out here on the top,
then the top would be a lot easier to spin.
So, as you push down here,
you’re gonna have some mechanical advantage.
I would think about a third blade, possibly.
Seems like a little less work.
These are the products I am going to test, salad chopper,
industrial vegetable chopper, herb chopper,
cheese chopper, salad cutting bowl.
[upbeat music]
[drum roll] Salad chopper.
Its purpose in life is to turn a tossed salad
into a chopped salad.
So I have now some mostly destemmed Dino kale
and I’ve got some roasted garlic Caesar salad
that’s gonna top it all off.
Let’s see how this goes.
[kale crunches]
I’m not sure how successful I am,
I think I’m damaging the kale more than I’m slicing it.
Let me try this just on the cutting board.
I’m having a little more luck on the cutting board, I think.
Let’s put in some cherry tomatoes
and some cucumbers and some feta cheese.
It is not really slicing the tomatoes.
It’s more like squashing them.
Look at this poor little mangled tomato.
I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.
Takes a while to eat Dino kale.
Let’s see how the salad chopper compares
to using a plain old kitchen knife.
[upbeat music]
I can tell just by pushing my fork around
that it’s definitely more consistent
in terms of the way it’s been chopped.
So right now I am leaning heavily towards using a knife.
In terms of effectiveness, on a scale of one to five,
I would give this salad chopper a two out of five.
I think it may have some advantages
if you wanna actually chop the salad
while its ‘still in the bowl.
Let’s test its usability
by making my non-dominant hand slippery,
it’s gonna point out or exaggerate any deficiencies
in the design.
Let’s give it a go.
I am going to start chopping, left hand only,
and I can feel that it is not really chopping
through the leaves at all.
Again, cucumbers, no problem, tomatoes,
getting smashed.
I feel like I’m at a point
where I have given it all that I’m willing to give.
Might as well eat left handed as well.
Not nearly as well chopped as I would want
in a chopped salad.
In terms of usability, I would give this salad chopper
a two outta five.
I still think it takes quite a bit of work to use it
and to chop salad
and I think you’ve got better alternatives.
Let’s see how I would redesign this.
And there are a couple of things that come to mind.
The radius of the bowl
doesn’t match the radius of the chopper.
I’m going to eliminate these teeth
because I think they just help you to miss
the lettuce that you wanna chop as you roll this around.
I think I would put this handle up top.
And the reason for doing that is
that your hands will be right above the blade.
Your gonna put a lot more force directly under your hands
where you have the most power.
You may even want to use something
other than the plastic here.
Maybe line it with a piece of metal
or use something that can actually sharpen
to create a blade.
I think that would make a lot more sense.
I think this has room for improvement.
Should I buy this? Should I keep it?
I think I’m only gonna give it a two outta five.
If you are actually chopping cucumbers and iceberg lettuce
you may have a lot more success with this.
If you expect it to chop other things,
I think you have better things in your kitchen
that will solve that task.
You’re a little bit more of a salad squasher
than a salad chopper.
Industrial vegetable chopper.
So this lunar landing looking thing
that’s sitting in front of me.
It’s a rather heavy metal industrial looking,
basically can turn a potato into tiny little French fries
or any vegetable you put in here.
It’s gonna cut them into rectangular shapes.
We’re gonna try a variety of vegetables
and let’s give it a go.
Put it on top, place this above.
And I’m going to come down and press
And guess what?
I’ve got nothing.
[machine thuds]
I’m actually kind of destroying the top.
Oh, the potatoes kind of stuck in there.
Press down.
And I got nothing.
Let’s try banging it down.
[machine slaps]
All right.
It’s going in a little bit,
but I can’t say that’s successful
or I can’t believe that’s the way
this is supposed to be used.
Hang on, this may get messy.
I’ll be right back.
[machine thuds]
I’m not sure that’s what we were looking for.
I wonder what a tomato would do?
[machine rattles]
Perfect.
Maybe I should go clean up.
Let’s see how that large, metal,
lunar landing looking chopper compares
with using just a plain old knife.
[upbeat music]
Let’s rate its effectiveness,
zero out of five.
It really didn’t do anything.
I couldn’t get it to move.
I couldn’t get it to dice.
I couldn’t get it to even barely get started.
And it’s huge.
I’m gunna can try this again using a slippery left hand,
my non-dominant hand, to see if I can point out
any deficiencies in the design.
And who am I kidding?
I couldn’t even do this with the right hand, non slippery.
I already know what it’s gonna be.
Zero,
oh,
zero.
I’m not gonna waste your time.
In terms of usability, I would rate this zero.
This thing doesn’t work at all.
Zippo, nothing out of five.
Let’s see how I would redesign this.
Instead of 10 blades across let’s make five or six.
And then I would come out here with a lever.
And then this is gonna have to have some sort of plunger.
So as you push down here,
you’re gonna have some mechanical advantage.
You’re gonna have a ratio.
Let’s do some lunar lander legs.
With squeezing this potato, between those blades,
what we’re gonna end up with is a thing like this.
But this is getting squished that way,
as it tries to pass through the blades,
it’s getting squished by the width of the blades.
This is gonna be quite a different animal than this.
But I think this thing has some really fundamental issues.
My buy rating for this is zero.
Even with all this material,
it seems to do little or nothing.
Please fly to a galaxy far, far away.
Herb Chopper.
This is designed to chop herbs
with a gentle rocking of the wrist.
Let’s see how effective it is.
Got some Rosemary here and some Sage.
So let’s start rockin’.
[herbs crunch]
These blades are pretty sharp.
And I feel like this is doing what it’s supposed to do,
but let’s see what I got.
I would say, depending on what I’m doing,
I would stop right about now.
But I feel like that was successful.
Let’s move on to the Sage.
And the blades are pretty sharp.
They’re cutting this without much effort at all.
And again, I would say success.
These blades will fold up,
and let me see if I can figure out how that happens.
They will fold into themselves,
push from one side, spin this around, click it,
and it’s ready to be stored safely.
Let’s see how that one compares
to a more traditional wood and steel mezzaluna.
[upbeat music]
In terms of effectiveness,
I would give this a five outta five.
I thought it worked really well.
It benefits from having sharp, sharp, sharp blades
and the fact that you can close it up, I think is a benefit.
Thank God he likes something.
Let’s test its usability.
Whoa, I’m definitely less coordinated doing it lefty.
There’s not a whole lot of pressure involved here.
What I would do at this point if I was designing,
or redesigning this is, I would look a little more closely
at what is causing this to scoot forward.
In terms of usability, I would give this
a three and a half out of five.
I think trying this left handed with a slippery left hand
pointed out some usability issues
that I think are relatively easy to correct.
Let’s see how I would redesign this.
And I’ve got several thoughts about what to do about this.
I would make this action a lot more obvious.
I would design this tab so it looks like you pull it.
It looks like you push it.
One way to do that would just be to make this look like,
in cross section, just a little bit more like a pull tab.
I would make this look like something that you push.
Maybe do a concave shape,
so it looks like your finger gets in there,
it looks like it wants to go that way.
Now this wants to push into a point
where it can still roll into itself.
And I think it’s gonna be important to do that.
If I flatten this in some way, and I’m going to exaggerate,
I’m not sure this could be molded this way
but I would at least make a flat area up here,
so you can feel the angle that it’s out.
I would think about a third blade possibly,
seems like a little less work.
One of the things I do like about this
in the shape of the blade, so I’m happy with that
is that there’s not a whole lot of motion
that you have to take.
That rocking of a hand covers quite a bit of area.
That being said, I think there’s room for improvement.
In terms of a buy rating,
I would get of it a four out of five.
When I was using my less coordinated hand
it was going outta control
and I would hate to give it a five
and have somebody cut themselves,
’cause these blades are pretty sharp.
You also may be able to use it as an egg timer.
[ticking]
Cheese chopper
In front of me now is cheese chopper.
Its purpose in life is to make perfectly even,
vertical slices of cheese.
Let’s see how effective it is.
We’ll park the cheese inside and I’m just gonna experiment.
There’s a wheel here, there’s a series of gears.
It looks like if I am careful, I can increment the cheese,
and adjust the slices.
So let’s go right about there.
[blade thunks]
Press down.
And maybe that was too thin.
Let’s try again.
Let me go a little bit thicker.
So down.
Hmm. Still not quite right.
It’s funny ’cause as I’m doing this,
I could see this wheel move,
which means the cheese must be incrementing up by itself.
And I can see that’s the case because it started out thick
and it tapered down a bit.
I’m a little sad.
So let’s try this again.
Let’s this time and I’m gonna hold the wheel
so it doesn’t shimmy up.
And that is a relatively thick piece,
but it is a lot more even than it was previously.
So holding the wheel seems to help.
Let’s see how the massive plastic cheese chopper
compares with using a regular old knife.
[upbeat music]
In terms of effectiveness on a scale of one to five,
I would give this massive looking cheese chopper,
a one.
There are other devices
which I think are a lot simpler than this,
that would also slice cheese evenly.
Let’s try this again, using the left handed oil test.
And I’m gonna hold the wheel again
And push.
And lifting this now is not that easy.
One of the problems is it’s clear plastic on white.
It’s a little bit difficult to see what’s going on.
I’m just wondering if these levers
have locked the blade in place.
I don’t know what else it could be.
Let me see if I can back off.
Whoa. There it goes.
So I think it just jams itself in.
I’m gonna hold the wheel again so it doesn’t edge forward.
Push down.
That one was
actually okay.
I think I lucked out on that one.
I found some deficiencies.
They do feel a little exaggerate when I’m trying
to release this with my left hand.
In terms of usability, I’d have to give this a one as well.
I don’t think I could recommend it to anyone.
It jammed itself down.
You do have to hold this wheel, which is a little odd.
I just can’t go out and say this is for you
because it’s so easy to do.
Let’s see how I would redesign
the cheese chopper guillotine.
I’m not sure I would wanna design something
with this much plastic.
I think we can get away with a lot less.
I think I would look for options
that are just self contained within this handle.
Let’s draw a piece of cheese in here.
I think one of the directions I would go
is to add something to the front of this
that would push up against the face of the cheese,
but also assure you’ve got an even slice.
I think there would be something here.
So let’s just put an adjusting wheel on here.
So there’d be some sort of adjustment wheel
that would adjust the thickness
and that adjustment wheel would have to do it,
I think, on both sides.
So it would actually adjust this fence.
I would also make this part of the handle
a lot more stable and a lot more hand friendly.
So I would make this part of the handle a lot thicker
and a lot easier to control.
But something that would be able to be steadied.
Pushed down,
you’re gonna use the same amount of force pushing down.
I think you can get away with something a lot more clever,
that is just self-contained in this handle.
In terms of a buy rating,
I would give the cheese chopper a one out of five.
Think you may be just as happy using the knife
that you already have in your kitchen.
One thing’s for sure,
I would never cut the cheese with this thing.
Salad cutting bowl.
I have in front of me, salad cutter bowl.
It is designed to cut a head of lettuce
into perfectly even slices.
Let’s give it a try.
So I’m going to cut the end off.
I’ll just get this down to size.
I’m a little bit sad that I have to cut it down
but I don’t think I’ll lose it.
I think I will chop this part as well and it just fits.
I’m gonna put the top on first.
The top has a, has a shape to it.
It really is not chopped down low enough,
but I’m gonna go with this anyway
and it’s time to start chopping.
So slice one, slice two, slice three.
We are, we’re not quite through the the lettuce
because of the height and because
of this little shelf on this part.
But I’m gonna keep going,
’cause I think I could break it off at this point anyway.
And it is perfectly evenly cut slices of lettuce.
It works pretty well.
I’m gonna try this again
without the help of my hemispherical salad cutting guide
and try using just a plain old knife.
[upbeat music]
I feel like I have more control.
I can see what I’m doing
and there’s absolutely no effort to cutting lettuce anyway.
As odd as this thing is,
I would say in terms of effectiveness,
I would give it a four out of five.
Four to five sounds kind of high,
I’m not saying you should run out and buy this,
but it is giving you a guide and it is resulting
in evenly cut slices of lettuce.
I’m gonna try this again.
This time using the lefthanded oil test.
And this is a little less coordinated.
I am going to use my left hand to slice
and
I do notice a big difference in the challenge I have,
using a slippery left hand and a knife.
It’s kind of pulling itself apart.
I think I may be close to 90 degrees here
so I’m gonna try again.
It does guide the knife.
I’m just not sure it is an amazing improvement
over just using a plain old knife.
In terms of usability, on a one to five scale,
I would give this a three,
’cause I just don’t think the size is correct.
I think you’re gonna have to cut the lettuce
and kind of guess how much to cut.
So let’s talk about a redesign.
I think to hold ahead of lettuce
it’s gotta be significantly larger,
which means more plastic.
One of the advantages of making this larger,
is that if we’re not bottoming out here on the top,
then the top would be a lot easier to spin.
Let’s say this is your head of lettuce.
When you spin to cut 90 degrees,
to get tiny, tiny slices of lettuce,
it’s not going to tear itself apart, as you spin around.
I would give this some way to spin.
Maybe just something to grab,
whatever goes up here though,
is gonna have to have slices in it.
It’s gonna have to continue the slices
so you can get the knife down.
So scratch that idea.
One thing I’d be concerned with is,
this is, even with just our limited use here,
it’s just starting to get scratched.
Think if this is really gonna be usable
this would have to be a cutting board plastic
or a piece of wood.
But I do think, if we’re gonna go
with the hemisphere idea for slicing lettuce,
I think there are a couple
of improvements that could be made.
In terms of a buy rating,
I would give the salad chopping bowl, a one out of five.
I know it gave the usability and the effectiveness,
a higher rating.
That being said, I think there are better alternatives
that you may already have in your kitchen.
I think unfortunately we’re looking
at a lot of wasted material.
I don’t think you’re gonna use these
if you bought them, at least four outta five.
I think they’re just headed for landfill.
This is something that nobody wants to see.
Congratulations herb chopper.
You are the only thing that made me smile all day.
