Friday, February 25, 2011

Ask the readers: Your Favorite Can Opener

If you are a prepper, chances are you store a lot of canned food, be it from the Piggly Wiggly or an LDS Cannery. If the only can opener you own is electric or a dinky one attached to a faux Swiss Army knife, you need a good manual can opener, stat!

Can you imagine if TSHTF and you didn't have a way to open your cans? You'd be a little frustrated, just like the cat in this video.





Sesame Street was so much better back in the day. "Elmo's World", which seems to take up most of the current incarnation of the show, makes me want to gack.

Oxo Good Grips Can Opener. Image from Amazon.com

I own a pretty decent manual can opener that I use all the time, an Oxo Good Grips Can Opener. It is very easy to turn and cans open smoothly. I have noticed that the plastic around the handle appears to be breaking down a little bit after a year of continual use. I definitely need to develop some redundancy in this area. I think we should have three manual can openers, minimum, to be safe.

So, I'm asking my readers: do you have a favorite, rock star manual can opener? What's your go-to device for opening TEOTWAWKI eats?

7 comments:

  1. Hi Emily!

    I enjoy keeping up with your prepping. You have given me some good ideas. I like the can opener from Pampered Chef. I have had it for over ten years now. I do not own an electric can opener. I think getting an extra one would be a good idea.

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  2. I love the one from Farberware. I picked it up at Walmart and have been super happy with it. It seems really sturdy and I haven't had the problems with the cans tilting like my OXO set before. I've only had it for a few months so far, but I've been quite pleased. I've got one in use and one on backup, but my goal is a total of 4 stashed away. Remember, one is none and two is one. =) So four must be three, right?!?

    Regarding devices, we have most of our long term food stored in 5 gallon buckets. We ordered several bucket openers from Survival Essentials with our buckets and have been very pleased with them. I can't imagine having to get into the buckets routinely without them.

    Emma
    City Roots, Country Life

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  3. I have purchased and used two different openers with the big plastic handle. One stripped out quickly and the other is a bit cumbersome. My can opener of choice is the old fashioned basic metal one made by EKCO. It is also the cheapest to buy. I threw out my electric opener about a year ago. Right now I have two openers and have been thinking I should have at least one or two more - "just in case"!

    Blessings,
    Red

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  4. I have a Swing-Away "Made in the USA" can opener that works like a charm. That reminds me I need to pick up a spare one. I too have a couple of electric ones that seem to be more of a hassle than it's worth.

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  5. I've tried ergonomic can openers, and fancy ones that are supposed to smoothe the edges of the can, so you don't cut yourself. My favorite one that has never let me down, is my cheap .98 cent can opener from Wal-mart.

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  6. My favorite by far is the one from Pampered Chef that cuts the lid off so that the edge is smooth and not sharp. The boys can use if without me worrying at all!1

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  7. I have two regular manual can openers, don't know the brands. One I use everyday (leaves a smooth edge on the can) and one I keep stashed in the basement with some of my extra food (just a cheap-o as a back-up). But my BACK-UP back-up can opener is the P-38 or the P-51. It's a GI can opener about the size of 2 quarters maybe. They cost about 25 cents, depending on where you buy them. I bought a bunch one day and have them stashed in my bugout bags, in my car, with stockpiled canned goods, etc. Your post just inspired me to do a little blog entry about them.

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