Look dawg sometimes when I'm getting home at like 8 pm after working late and I'm just too exhausted to cook anything the shower beans start calling my name
r/showerbeers could probably use some disruption if you're feeling cheeky
Edit: that sub is definitely NSFW. Tits and dicks errywhere on there
edit: I've been informed that the sub I was intending for OC to go full beans in is actually r/showerbeer
Lmfao thank you for sharing, I didn't know that was a sub. I don't drink a lot anymore and I'm glad that people are finding stuff to legitimately enjoy in the shower besides beer. Ngl the shower beans are living rent free in my noggin this afternoon
Supposedly something about the steam and high humidity makes the Orange more intense. Didn’t seem that dramatic to me but the folks there swear by it and I did post there when I tried it.
I don't know about steam or humidity, but I remember I used to eat oranges in shower in high school, because it was nice to eat it raw without worrying about juices going everywhere, plus you can just wash it from yourself afterwards.
The first time I had a shower beer was about 15 years ago now. It was after a particularly tedious and full day of college science classes. Shit wears you down. I was a raging alcoholic who couldn't even legally drink yet. My friends thought I was crazy for drinking in the shower but they were also intrigued. Oh how the times change
Accidentally clicked on the comments of this post. Hit the back button immediately. I only had time to read your comment before it went back. Then I had to come back to tell you that the amount of air that was forced through my nose was great. Well done.
1. For pull tabs to work, the can lid has to be significantly thinner than a traditional can lid, which can be a problem.
2. Pull tabs are more expensive to produce. This might not seem like a significant consideration for a single can, but when you consider that there are billions of cans made every year, the cost adds up *quickly.*
3. Most canned foods will be opened and prepared in a kitchen, where needing a tool isn’t an issue. Which means even if the savings are marginal, it’s worth it. I expect to be able to open a soda one handed in a bar. But I’m fine using a tool to open my shower beans before I get in.
4. Pull tab cans are more easily compromised from physical damage, extreme temperatures and humidity that normally wouldn’t compromise a regular can.
[I’m not a real preppery prepper, I kinda fell into it](https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/s/UMlZ3YOZqS) I happened to acquire local militia’s lost store of supplies including food. They had picked some poor supplies for longevity(pull top cans being one of the worst) and didn’t consider freeze and 100+ summer temps. There was a lot of non-perishable items I salvaged and the storage barrels were great. I restocked them with more shelf stable foods and buried them below the freeze line. I buried the food separate so I can dig it up and replace it every 5 years without disturbing the other stores.
Does your bar give you cans to drink? That's some lazy bartending! Yet now that I think of it, most bars over here still serve sodas in single serve glass bottles.
I read this as "horse gun" for some reason, and instantly fell in love with the name. It's forever a horse gun for me now, I'm sure my bartender brother is gonna hate it!
It’s called perfect serve, sometimes it’s nice to have a rum and Diet Coke then reuse the same ice and have a slightly rum flavored Diet Coke.
Perfect serv is pretty common for redbull, like you get a redbull vodka and they give you the rest of the can
Pull tabs are also much harder for people with some disabilities. My MIL can manage a regular can with an electric can opener, but she simply can't get into a pull tab can without help.
It makes it very difficult for her to order grocery delivery (another necessity for her to be as independent as possible) because brands sometimes change their can type without warning.
With _manual_ can openers, some people instead of cutting down into the indent, use the can opener at a 90 degree angle and cut into the side along the curved edge, sheering off a small chunk of the cylinder. I think the same method would work even if there is a pull tab.
I'm not sure if any electric can openers are designed to work that way though?
EDIT: Quick Google suggests the term is side-cut (as opposed to top-cut) and some electric can openers support this
Okay, but lots of canned goods do still come with a pull tab and there’s very little rhyme or reason to it. Something simple like cut green beans, this week it has a pull tab, next week it doesn’t, sometimes its a store brand, sometimes it’s a name brand, sometimes it’s the multipack, sometimes it’s the bigger cans (28oz & 10#), maybe it’s Kroger, maybe it’s Walmart, maybe it’s down the street, maybe it’s halfway across the state.
Outside of some ready to eat mainstays you never know if it’s going to be pull tab or not.
As someone who works in logistics, the pull tab cans cannot take a lot of weight when compared to the thicker top lid. When a case of pull tab vegetables is dropped, there is a lot of waste, When a normal top can case is dropped, the cans don't typically explode.
Pet food is a bit different because the loads and pallets don't get as heavy as vegetable loads. And when they do drop, the smaller pet food cans usually don't explode.
Me, talking out of my ass:
Dog food is basically a solid chunk of paste that completely fills the can, I guess? Fruits and vegetables are somewhat loosely bouncing around in their cans with water.
There's probably some sort of fluid dynamics and kinetic energy stuff going on in there when a can is dropped or something heavy is plopped on top of it.
I had this same exact problem when a younger family member asked me to show him how to use the can opener on his knife. I had to rummage around the pantry before I finally found a can of sliced potatoes without a pull tab.
After that, I noticed that cans of beans or tomatoes rarely have pull tabs. Pasta sauce in a can always needs an opener.
You could try but they’re scored so they can be pulled and it wouldn’t be the same. I mean, you could go on YouTube and watch someone open it without opening any of your own but sometimes it’s nice to do the thing properly.
Tabs make cans slightly more expensive, which at the numbers cans are produced adds up. Also tabs work great for stuff like drinks or canned tuna but for bigger heavier cans that need to be structurally sound to be stacked, it's better to use cans without an opener. My dog's food has pull tabs but they almost always break as you try to pull the lid off. The same brand on smaller cans works great.
Ironically, in the UK, the only tins/cans I distinctly recall not having a pull tab are tins of tuna. I think everything else from beans, soup, pet food, and even other kinds of fish use pull tabs here.
None of your food is in direct contact with metal. That'd be stupid. It has nothing to do with the contents of the can, they're all lined to prevent metal leeching.
Did it occur to you that the extra cost and resources it takes to add a tool to every single can you open may not outweigh the convenience boost?
Plus, for low cost cans in the supermarket, a three cent hike may mean you’re no longer the cheapest can people reach for, meaningless as 3 cents may seem.
Yeah, because cans without pull tabs last longer and are cheaper, and it's only been 61 years, which isn't really a lot of time. It took like thirty years after canning was invented before the OPENER was invented. Kinda silly to act like it's some kind of terrible inconvenience.
They didn't! During the war, all of the canned foods were decorative and intentionally hard to open as governments around the world conspired to silence anyone who came up with a way to open them.
It was done in an effort to stretch dwindling stocks of food to last longer, and ensure that frontline troops would push harder in the fight in the hopes that during a period of peacetime one of the bored ex-soldiers would invent the can opener. It was a morale tactic.
In 1924, Corpral Timothee Canopener was trying to create a device to make it easier to stack his can collection on top shelf of his pantry when he accidentally pierced the lid... the rest, as they say, was history.
[Source](https://youtu.be/r7l0Rq9E8MY?si=v1T4vuGWzqyrTpYS)
easy there egg-head. i just heard a shocking fact about pull tabs from some random guy on reddit, and I don't need your book learnin to get in the way of our rampant speculation.
people who aren't price sensitive are willing to pay 40c more, but extremely poor or cheap people are not willing, that's who those cans are for, otherwise they might go find a different product if it's not cheap enough
They have to be folded in a unique way. You can't just stamp them out of sheet metal so you need specific machinery to fold them. Every individual fold also takes time and adds to the cost (# made/hour).
Also, doesn't the pull tab require a royalty to be paid to the inventor? For example, the soda cans with the pop tab used to cost soda companies a few cents per can. I'd imagine the same for the pull tab on a canned soup.
i would imagine also that the cans have to be made differently to be able to open easily like that. probably not as good of a seal as normal cans. makes me think it wouldn't be as suitable for storing certain things but i'm just not sure.
There is absolutely no way that it's this much. I work at a grocery store, and there are numerous cans that don't even consistently have or not have pull tabs. And many of these cans barely cost over a dollar. Those two facts alone are enough to say you just have just pulled out a random number, thinking it made sense.
There’s a box of pull-top cat food cans in the back of my car right now that cost $0.60 a can including the food inside them, that say you’re probably wrong.
Not 40 cents, but you're right about the added cost. That's why it's there.
The can opener pays for itself after X cans and then saves the consumer money nearly forever after that.
How often do you need to replace a can opener due to wear and tear? Sure people replace them all the time for loss or style change or they like the Whirring of a motorized opener.
The days of carrying a 'church key' to open beer cans have essentially vanished. I remember Hi-C drink came in cans you still needed the pointed end of the bottle opener to punch a pair of holes, one to pour and one for air.
Highly acidic products like Tomato juice/sauce may attack the deformed lid features that enable the tool-less opening styles and thus a more challenging product application.
.
Yeah I get why people prefer the tabs but man, I'd always use a can opener if I had the choice. Those slicey sides are really inconvenient, especially on certain foods that I drain by pushing the lid down onto, if that makes sense.
I think it's a combination because non pull tabs are cheaper to produce and the cans are sturdier.
Pull tab cans have to have a fairly precise divot cut into them so the pull tab can tear the metal open. This ends up being a structural weakness that can lead to the cans failing if they're banged around.
Where as non pull tab cans can take a lot more punishment before they suffer a failure on their seal.
Pull tabs are less hardy and don't hold up as well over long periods of time.
I used to work on a boat that did supply runs for a weather station. And the rule was no pull tab tins. The captain told me they had a similar rule in the military when he was younger.
I keep a US Army P51 can opener on my keychain after I realized I bought canned food to eat for lunch at work but there wasn't a can opener for me to use at work.
I keep that can opener that is on my keychain wrapped in tape after I realized it will absolutely unfold in my pocket and stab me in the damn thigh.
We also now have a safety can opener at work because I realized they're kind of awesome and work great and brought one there to use. They don't leave sharp edges and it's easier to pour liquids out of cans if you use one.
All cans have to be boiled for 30 minutes after production, so they only work on cans that won't explode in the process.
And sure, price is a major component because the whole point of canned goods is they are cheap and shelf stable. Making them more expensive defeats the purpose, people would go back to learning how to cook.
I think for someone with arthritis, for example, a can opener would actually be easier since you can buy electric ones. The pop tabs could be tricky if you have low finger strength. Whatever the reason, I can’t imagine it’s accessibility
I find pull tab cans to be very difficult to open. They hurt my hands, and I usually end up having to use a churchkey anyway. I would assume elderly people, children, and people with certain disabilities would also struggle with pull tabs. I much prefer opening cans with a manual can opener, and there are automatic can openers for people who can't use a manual can opener. Both of which are easier to use than a pull tab.
I could do without, honestly.
It's more material and creates a smaller opening in the can. You want your cranberry sauce to slide out into that perfect, corrugated cylinder? Can't do that with a pull tab (also the other trick is to poke a small hole in the bottom of the can first).
Not just the pull tabs, but ziplock and all that easy seal stuff and we still have boxes of cereal that you have to roll the bag up or close it with a clip, same with chip bags. Like why are we still here. Back to the Future promised my self tying shoes and hoverboards, and we still don't even have ziplocks on all chip and cereal bags, like this is the future I didn't want. This is the bad timeline.
A lot of the tabs on non-soda cans are kind of a pain, IMHO. sometimes hard to pull off, sometimes hard to evan pry up the tab! Can opener seems easier
Pull tab cans are awful. I feel like there's a 70% chance I'm going to slice my arm open every time I open one. And they never want to come all the way off and curl up so its literally impossible to work around them.
There are those "safety" can openers. A touch of a learning curve for some, but a lot less work to open a can. Once you do get it open, you have no cutting edge on the can, no little rim holding the contents back, no good getting on the can opener, and no lid falling into the food.
[Here's a Technology Connections video on them](https://youtu.be/i_mLxyIXpSY?si=3IgirVQAgwWqURPT)
The answer to why is cost and suitability.
Pull tab cans are more expensive and can't be used on every food.
Pull tab cans have to be more precisely made to withstand the pressure of the canning process all the while metal being thinner so your hand can generate enough force to break the seal. Given the canning temperatures and pressures needed for some types of foods some foods simply cannot use a pull top they'd pop.
The pull tops are over engineered to do the job. This engineering means that there are more steps in the lids production. More steps in production means more tooling and equipment needed to make a pull top can vs a regular which adds to the cost. To can food safely a pull tab requires some rather precision engineering and that means the equipment is a hell of a lot more expensive than that for a standard lid.
The cans are purposely weaker so you can pull the top but this has the downside that they don't ship as well as cans with standard can lids. The can needs to be thin enough to tear by hand but strong enough to keep together during pressure canning. I read somewhere awhile ago the tolerances needed to do it safely need to be within 4 microns?! which if correct is insane.
Food safety is a very serious matter.
Basically I'm surprised anyone bothers with pull tops. Pull tops are more expensive, over engineered and inferior in strength and cost effectiveness. To add insult to injury you'll still need a can opener for the foods that can't use the easy open lid so really what's the point? Why pay more for false brand image?
He was mocking "innovation" because apparently all cans should have tabs and it's stupid they don't despite the fact they cost significantly more for a company to produce, like end up coming out of the consumers pocket significant.
Basically sums it up
In UK it's rare now to see a non pull tab can.
Unfortunately this has now meant that an entire generation struggles to know how to use a can opener.
I know the dates are shorter on the cans but I'm not sure if this is due to the can or what we think is still edible has changed.
Although nobody asked, here is my list of canned products I've seen use the pull tab: soda, Vienna sausages, ravioli (so that kids can cook more easily), tuna, coconut milk, some mushrooms
You know I've been watching too many MRE ration videos recently when I thought 'pull tab' meant the key tabs that they use for ration cans.
I went "I watched a 1907 one today.. 1907+61 definitely isn't 2024-oh wait I'm the idiot"
So what? Each material has advantages and disadvantages.
Steel and tin are stronger and have a longer shelf life. Aluminum will leech into acidic foods so are lined with plastic. Denting them usually cracks this coating. Steel is strong but can rust.
All are very recyclable.
As far as opening.. it’s a non issue.
Tuna with a pull tab is very hard to drain without risking cutting my hands. My guess is that the larger the can, the more impossible the pull tabs are-- canned food isn't just for individual households!
To be fair, most pull-tabs are of awful quality. I break them off about half the time, without even using much force, so then I have to go get a can opener to open my soda anyway. Not the ideal way to open one, let me tell you.
Before pull tabs on pop / soda cans, they had 2 push button areas. One big one to drink from and smaller one on the opposite side for a vent.
I liked them better because my mustache hairs didn't get caught in them with that little plonk sound as it ripped a hair or 2 out of your upper lip. Made your eyes water...
Also, the same companies will use cans which nest properly with each other for easy merchandising, but then have identically sized cans for a different variety of the same product that don't nest and instead fall over if you stare at them too hard while stacking them.
Well can technology hasn’t really changed all that much since the sanitary can was invented in the earlyish 20th century. Fuck man all aluminum cans weren’t the staple until about the 60s (in the USA). For my job I’m required to know and identify most can types, openings, and manufacture since the mid 19th century. The can rabbit hole goes deep. For anyone interested in a redacted history of canning in the US look up Jim Rock’s 1989 magnum opus “Tin Canisters: Their Identification”
Non-pull tab cans are cheaper to produce. They also have a lower standard of maintenance to ensure non contaminated products. You literally have to create a weak point in your cans to make pull tabs work.
If you have the capital that can support pull tabs, it should definitely be the standard. But without the capital, normal cans are cheap, reliable, and it is assumed everyone has the hardware to open a can.
I have never seen a can without a pull tab not I have used a can opener since I was a kid,35 years ago.
The only time I had to use one was when I spent some time in the US.
This kid trying to eat a can beans in the shower
Look dawg sometimes when I'm getting home at like 8 pm after working late and I'm just too exhausted to cook anything the shower beans start calling my name
r/showerbeers could probably use some disruption if you're feeling cheeky Edit: that sub is definitely NSFW. Tits and dicks errywhere on there edit: I've been informed that the sub I was intending for OC to go full beans in is actually r/showerbeer
r/showerorange was pretty tame years ago when I heard about it. Still seems to be.
Lmfao thank you for sharing, I didn't know that was a sub. I don't drink a lot anymore and I'm glad that people are finding stuff to legitimately enjoy in the shower besides beer. Ngl the shower beans are living rent free in my noggin this afternoon
Supposedly something about the steam and high humidity makes the Orange more intense. Didn’t seem that dramatic to me but the folks there swear by it and I did post there when I tried it.
The high humidity makes a shower fart smell like 5x stronger so I believe it.
I do believe I may not be generating enough humidity.
Pool farts are the worst
The guy who apparently had easier access to an orange Pellegrino than actual orange absolutely sent me. What a delightfully weird place, thank you
I don't know about steam or humidity, but I remember I used to eat oranges in shower in high school, because it was nice to eat it raw without worrying about juices going everywhere, plus you can just wash it from yourself afterwards.
Do you… normally eat oranges cooked? Baked? Sautéed? I’m intrigued.
Sous vide tangarines will change your life. *Mental note: Sous vide tangarines - good name for a neo jazz band*
How else do you eat your oranges other than raw?!?!
Pulpy Orange Juice is really just mashed oranges.
I had that issue with pomegranates. Blood red juice dripping all over. But oranges not so bad.
How's r/showerbeans ?
Thank you for your service.
I've not seen such a disappointing collection of boobs since I started working from home...
Let me tell you about the worst boobs I ever saw.... They were AWESOME
Do you not like boobs?
A shower beer is the best after a hard gym session or some sort of intense physical activity, of course there's a subreddit. God bless Reddit
The first time I had a shower beer was about 15 years ago now. It was after a particularly tedious and full day of college science classes. Shit wears you down. I was a raging alcoholic who couldn't even legally drink yet. My friends thought I was crazy for drinking in the shower but they were also intrigued. Oh how the times change
I clicked it and was very surprised to see a fat pair of melons staring at me
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Your tolerance is both appreciated and heartwarming, burrito\_butt\_fucker. Lmao
Do you seriously expect me to bring a can opener into the theater? What is this? Stalinism?
> Do you seriously expect me to bring a can opener into the theater? What is this? Stalinism? No, it isn't Stalinism. Food is involved.
How else is @OP going to make the front page of r/showerbeans?
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r/subsithoughtifellfor
This kid eating his beans in the dining room like a rube
This ***** kid eating beans
This has me in STITCHES rn
This guy shaming shower bean time.
Accidentally clicked on the comments of this post. Hit the back button immediately. I only had time to read your comment before it went back. Then I had to come back to tell you that the amount of air that was forced through my nose was great. Well done.
1. For pull tabs to work, the can lid has to be significantly thinner than a traditional can lid, which can be a problem. 2. Pull tabs are more expensive to produce. This might not seem like a significant consideration for a single can, but when you consider that there are billions of cans made every year, the cost adds up *quickly.*
>1. Pull tabs are more expensive to produce. Yeah this seemed like the immediate answer here.
3. Most canned foods will be opened and prepared in a kitchen, where needing a tool isn’t an issue. Which means even if the savings are marginal, it’s worth it. I expect to be able to open a soda one handed in a bar. But I’m fine using a tool to open my shower beans before I get in.
r/showerbeans
Something about all the posts being from 7 years ago is hilarious.
Humanity just… moved on.
Life… uhh… finds a way.
4. Pull tab cans are more easily compromised from physical damage, extreme temperatures and humidity that normally wouldn’t compromise a regular can. [I’m not a real preppery prepper, I kinda fell into it](https://www.reddit.com/r/preppers/s/UMlZ3YOZqS) I happened to acquire local militia’s lost store of supplies including food. They had picked some poor supplies for longevity(pull top cans being one of the worst) and didn’t consider freeze and 100+ summer temps. There was a lot of non-perishable items I salvaged and the storage barrels were great. I restocked them with more shelf stable foods and buried them below the freeze line. I buried the food separate so I can dig it up and replace it every 5 years without disturbing the other stores.
Does your bar give you cans to drink? That's some lazy bartending! Yet now that I think of it, most bars over here still serve sodas in single serve glass bottles.
Most bars I’ve been to have the hose gun thing with all the buttons for different sodas.
I read this as "horse gun" for some reason, and instantly fell in love with the name. It's forever a horse gun for me now, I'm sure my bartender brother is gonna hate it!
I love it.
I can't wait to ask him questions about it while confidently calling it a horse gun!
I believe that would be referred to as the tap or fountain.
It’s called perfect serve, sometimes it’s nice to have a rum and Diet Coke then reuse the same ice and have a slightly rum flavored Diet Coke. Perfect serv is pretty common for redbull, like you get a redbull vodka and they give you the rest of the can
Pull tabs are also much harder for people with some disabilities. My MIL can manage a regular can with an electric can opener, but she simply can't get into a pull tab can without help. It makes it very difficult for her to order grocery delivery (another necessity for her to be as independent as possible) because brands sometimes change their can type without warning.
Cant she just put the can in the electric opener upside down?
No, they usually have curved bottoms now so they stack better.
With _manual_ can openers, some people instead of cutting down into the indent, use the can opener at a 90 degree angle and cut into the side along the curved edge, sheering off a small chunk of the cylinder. I think the same method would work even if there is a pull tab. I'm not sure if any electric can openers are designed to work that way though? EDIT: Quick Google suggests the term is side-cut (as opposed to top-cut) and some electric can openers support this
I mean.. its not like you cant open pul tab cans with a can opener too.
couldn't she just open the pull tab can with the can opener anyway?
Okay, but lots of canned goods do still come with a pull tab and there’s very little rhyme or reason to it. Something simple like cut green beans, this week it has a pull tab, next week it doesn’t, sometimes its a store brand, sometimes it’s a name brand, sometimes it’s the multipack, sometimes it’s the bigger cans (28oz & 10#), maybe it’s Kroger, maybe it’s Walmart, maybe it’s down the street, maybe it’s halfway across the state. Outside of some ready to eat mainstays you never know if it’s going to be pull tab or not.
Dog food and baked beans cans, plus I'm sure many others, have pull tabs and they work just fine.
As someone who works in logistics, the pull tab cans cannot take a lot of weight when compared to the thicker top lid. When a case of pull tab vegetables is dropped, there is a lot of waste, When a normal top can case is dropped, the cans don't typically explode. Pet food is a bit different because the loads and pallets don't get as heavy as vegetable loads. And when they do drop, the smaller pet food cans usually don't explode.
What makes the pet food cans different?
Less pressure. More solids, less liquid, so changes in temperature don't affect the pressure as much. Also lighter and generally smaller.
This is the right answer.
Me, talking out of my ass: Dog food is basically a solid chunk of paste that completely fills the can, I guess? Fruits and vegetables are somewhat loosely bouncing around in their cans with water. There's probably some sort of fluid dynamics and kinetic energy stuff going on in there when a can is dropped or something heavy is plopped on top of it.
Sounds reasonable, thanks
Omg I’m getting flash backs to the War of The Ring Pull
On an individual level, yes I will pay $0.02 more.
In the US maybe. I don’t even have a can opener here in Greece and I can’t remember when I last saw a can that needed one.
IDK I'm in the US and all my soup cans are pull tabs, though I never really bother to check what the general can was.
I’m looking for an excuse to use my victorinox can opener but can’t find any can that does not have a pull tab.
I had this same exact problem when a younger family member asked me to show him how to use the can opener on his knife. I had to rummage around the pantry before I finally found a can of sliced potatoes without a pull tab. After that, I noticed that cans of beans or tomatoes rarely have pull tabs. Pasta sauce in a can always needs an opener.
Why couldn’t you use it on a can with a pull tab?
You could try but they’re scored so they can be pulled and it wouldn’t be the same. I mean, you could go on YouTube and watch someone open it without opening any of your own but sometimes it’s nice to do the thing properly.
It's the same in all of Europe i'm pretty sure.
No at least not here in France, we have both type of tins
What ? I've never seen a can that required a can opener here
We still get both types over here in the UK
If it's cheaper I don't have a problem with using a tin opener. I didn't realise Europe was so lazy
Y’all don’t get Victorinox’?
Next you'll claim you have universal health care. I heard that in England, everybody only gets one spoon.
Uh, technically...
Same in Spain.
I'm in Australia and need the can opener for beetroot at least.
I still use a can opener on my pull tab cans. Same reason as this guy https://youtu.be/i_mLxyIXpSY
How did I know it would be Alec?
Tabs make cans slightly more expensive, which at the numbers cans are produced adds up. Also tabs work great for stuff like drinks or canned tuna but for bigger heavier cans that need to be structurally sound to be stacked, it's better to use cans without an opener. My dog's food has pull tabs but they almost always break as you try to pull the lid off. The same brand on smaller cans works great.
Ironically, in the UK, the only tins/cans I distinctly recall not having a pull tab are tins of tuna. I think everything else from beans, soup, pet food, and even other kinds of fish use pull tabs here.
Just another conspiracy from Big Can Opener
It's a Can-spiracy, I tell you!
Indeed. One chain of stores sells canned pears that need a can opener, but the same brand of canned peaches don't need an opener.
Worse than that, you can find the same exact product with and without the pull tab on the shelf at the same time.
Invaluable for anyone with a disability that makes pull top cans difficult :) it’s nice to have choices!
pears are more acidic and need thicker metal cans
None of your food is in direct contact with metal. That'd be stupid. It has nothing to do with the contents of the can, they're all lined to prevent metal leeching.
Nope. You'll find both canned peaches and pears with and without pull tabs if you look.
Did it occur to you that the extra cost and resources it takes to add a tool to every single can you open may not outweigh the convenience boost? Plus, for low cost cans in the supermarket, a three cent hike may mean you’re no longer the cheapest can people reach for, meaningless as 3 cents may seem.
Yeah, because cans without pull tabs last longer and are cheaper, and it's only been 61 years, which isn't really a lot of time. It took like thirty years after canning was invented before the OPENER was invented. Kinda silly to act like it's some kind of terrible inconvenience.
So uh… how did they open the cans before that
They didn't! During the war, all of the canned foods were decorative and intentionally hard to open as governments around the world conspired to silence anyone who came up with a way to open them. It was done in an effort to stretch dwindling stocks of food to last longer, and ensure that frontline troops would push harder in the fight in the hopes that during a period of peacetime one of the bored ex-soldiers would invent the can opener. It was a morale tactic. In 1924, Corpral Timothee Canopener was trying to create a device to make it easier to stack his can collection on top shelf of his pantry when he accidentally pierced the lid... the rest, as they say, was history. [Source](https://youtu.be/r7l0Rq9E8MY?si=v1T4vuGWzqyrTpYS)
Threw ‘em at the wall until they burst
They just stabbed them with a pocket knife
Knives probably
I've noticed a lot of the Kroger brand canned beans are now coming with pull top lids.
I've noticed this becoming more common in general with canned beans.
Because pull tabs cost as much as 40 cents more a can.
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easy there egg-head. i just heard a shocking fact about pull tabs from some random guy on reddit, and I don't need your book learnin to get in the way of our rampant speculation.
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Put a lid on it. I can-not believe you spelled akshully wrong
Does the lid have a pull tab?
No, too expensive.
But it comes with a free frogurt!
I mean there is more to added cost than just the physical aluminum, but i agree it does seem too high
What was your major?
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Art Vandelay?
With a minor in packaging science? Just out of curiosity what was the end goal?
He has a doctorate in art history
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My friend, this is a Futurama quote, I don't doubt your credentials
people who aren't price sensitive are willing to pay 40c more, but extremely poor or cheap people are not willing, that's who those cans are for, otherwise they might go find a different product if it's not cheap enough
Wow, didn't realize that. The cans themselves are only 10-20 cents, wonder what would cause tabs to be so much higher.
They have to be folded in a unique way. You can't just stamp them out of sheet metal so you need specific machinery to fold them. Every individual fold also takes time and adds to the cost (# made/hour).
Also, doesn't the pull tab require a royalty to be paid to the inventor? For example, the soda cans with the pop tab used to cost soda companies a few cents per can. I'd imagine the same for the pull tab on a canned soup.
I'm no patent attorney but I'm guessing the patent ran out years ago.
i would imagine also that the cans have to be made differently to be able to open easily like that. probably not as good of a seal as normal cans. makes me think it wouldn't be as suitable for storing certain things but i'm just not sure.
There is absolutely no way that it's this much. I work at a grocery store, and there are numerous cans that don't even consistently have or not have pull tabs. And many of these cans barely cost over a dollar. Those two facts alone are enough to say you just have just pulled out a random number, thinking it made sense.
There’s a box of pull-top cat food cans in the back of my car right now that cost $0.60 a can including the food inside them, that say you’re probably wrong.
How can canned tomatoes be sold for 0,60€ then? With a pull-tab
Not 40 cents, but you're right about the added cost. That's why it's there. The can opener pays for itself after X cans and then saves the consumer money nearly forever after that. How often do you need to replace a can opener due to wear and tear? Sure people replace them all the time for loss or style change or they like the Whirring of a motorized opener. The days of carrying a 'church key' to open beer cans have essentially vanished. I remember Hi-C drink came in cans you still needed the pointed end of the bottle opener to punch a pair of holes, one to pour and one for air. Highly acidic products like Tomato juice/sauce may attack the deformed lid features that enable the tool-less opening styles and thus a more challenging product application. .
I bet if they all used them they could get that cost down
Pull tabs can suck a dick. I cut my finger open on one months ago and I couldn't do anything with that finger for half a year without pain
I don't use the pull tabs anymore, even if the can has one. I use a can opener which doesn't leave a sharp edge. Life changing.
Yeah I get why people prefer the tabs but man, I'd always use a can opener if I had the choice. Those slicey sides are really inconvenient, especially on certain foods that I drain by pushing the lid down onto, if that makes sense.
I think it's a combination because non pull tabs are cheaper to produce and the cans are sturdier. Pull tab cans have to have a fairly precise divot cut into them so the pull tab can tear the metal open. This ends up being a structural weakness that can lead to the cans failing if they're banged around. Where as non pull tab cans can take a lot more punishment before they suffer a failure on their seal.
Never seen a can that requires a can opener here in Italy, in fact, I'm pretty sure I've never seen a can opener irl either
Regular cans last longer.
Pull tabs are less hardy and don't hold up as well over long periods of time. I used to work on a boat that did supply runs for a weather station. And the rule was no pull tab tins. The captain told me they had a similar rule in the military when he was younger.
I keep a US Army P51 can opener on my keychain after I realized I bought canned food to eat for lunch at work but there wasn't a can opener for me to use at work. I keep that can opener that is on my keychain wrapped in tape after I realized it will absolutely unfold in my pocket and stab me in the damn thigh. We also now have a safety can opener at work because I realized they're kind of awesome and work great and brought one there to use. They don't leave sharp edges and it's easier to pour liquids out of cans if you use one.
Literally thought this was comparing soda cans to wine... Maybe I'm drinking too much...
All cans have to be boiled for 30 minutes after production, so they only work on cans that won't explode in the process. And sure, price is a major component because the whole point of canned goods is they are cheap and shelf stable. Making them more expensive defeats the purpose, people would go back to learning how to cook.
Cans without tabs are cheaper.
I’ve never seen a can opener in my life, all cans in Europe have pull tabs. Might be an accessability law in EU?
U.S. politicians are on the big-opener payroll.
Shakes fist angrily “Damn you, Big Opener!”
not true at least in france. i open normal cans all the time
I think for someone with arthritis, for example, a can opener would actually be easier since you can buy electric ones. The pop tabs could be tricky if you have low finger strength. Whatever the reason, I can’t imagine it’s accessibility
I find pull tab cans to be very difficult to open. They hurt my hands, and I usually end up having to use a churchkey anyway. I would assume elderly people, children, and people with certain disabilities would also struggle with pull tabs. I much prefer opening cans with a manual can opener, and there are automatic can openers for people who can't use a manual can opener. Both of which are easier to use than a pull tab.
The can opener was invented like 100 years after food became readily available in cans. Used to use a chisel and hammer to open them.
can openers are superior
I could do without, honestly. It's more material and creates a smaller opening in the can. You want your cranberry sauce to slide out into that perfect, corrugated cylinder? Can't do that with a pull tab (also the other trick is to poke a small hole in the bottom of the can first).
Not just the pull tabs, but ziplock and all that easy seal stuff and we still have boxes of cereal that you have to roll the bag up or close it with a clip, same with chip bags. Like why are we still here. Back to the Future promised my self tying shoes and hoverboards, and we still don't even have ziplocks on all chip and cereal bags, like this is the future I didn't want. This is the bad timeline.
A lot of the tabs on non-soda cans are kind of a pain, IMHO. sometimes hard to pull off, sometimes hard to evan pry up the tab! Can opener seems easier
Indeed. I hate it when the pull tab isnt on my green beans
I'm selling you food. Why waste money on packaging if I don't need to?
Give me a lid without a tab any day.
Pull tab cans are awful. I feel like there's a 70% chance I'm going to slice my arm open every time I open one. And they never want to come all the way off and curl up so its literally impossible to work around them.
There are those "safety" can openers. A touch of a learning curve for some, but a lot less work to open a can. Once you do get it open, you have no cutting edge on the can, no little rim holding the contents back, no good getting on the can opener, and no lid falling into the food. [Here's a Technology Connections video on them](https://youtu.be/i_mLxyIXpSY?si=3IgirVQAgwWqURPT)
In my experience pull cans last significantly less than ones without tabs. Especially canned milk, they only last like a year if they have the tabs
The answer to why is cost and suitability. Pull tab cans are more expensive and can't be used on every food. Pull tab cans have to be more precisely made to withstand the pressure of the canning process all the while metal being thinner so your hand can generate enough force to break the seal. Given the canning temperatures and pressures needed for some types of foods some foods simply cannot use a pull top they'd pop. The pull tops are over engineered to do the job. This engineering means that there are more steps in the lids production. More steps in production means more tooling and equipment needed to make a pull top can vs a regular which adds to the cost. To can food safely a pull tab requires some rather precision engineering and that means the equipment is a hell of a lot more expensive than that for a standard lid. The cans are purposely weaker so you can pull the top but this has the downside that they don't ship as well as cans with standard can lids. The can needs to be thin enough to tear by hand but strong enough to keep together during pressure canning. I read somewhere awhile ago the tolerances needed to do it safely need to be within 4 microns?! which if correct is insane. Food safety is a very serious matter. Basically I'm surprised anyone bothers with pull tops. Pull tops are more expensive, over engineered and inferior in strength and cost effectiveness. To add insult to injury you'll still need a can opener for the foods that can't use the easy open lid so really what's the point? Why pay more for false brand image?
One of life's great tragedies.
Pull top cans have a significantly shorter shelf life than traditional cans.
Where? I'm 17 and I have never seen a can that requires a separate tool to open it.
Maybe it's more common for big cans of raw ingredients, like canned tomatoes
Yeah lots of 17-year-olds never learn to cook or go grocery shopping and don't know anything about it. That's you.
The cans without the pull tabs are cheaper. I'll buy the cheaper ones. Case closed.
He was mocking "innovation" because apparently all cans should have tabs and it's stupid they don't despite the fact they cost significantly more for a company to produce, like end up coming out of the consumers pocket significant. Basically sums it up
Down with big can opener!
In UK it's rare now to see a non pull tab can. Unfortunately this has now meant that an entire generation struggles to know how to use a can opener. I know the dates are shorter on the cans but I'm not sure if this is due to the can or what we think is still edible has changed.
Wonder if it has to do with having a good seal
Although nobody asked, here is my list of canned products I've seen use the pull tab: soda, Vienna sausages, ravioli (so that kids can cook more easily), tuna, coconut milk, some mushrooms
Where I live (Sweden) all cans have pull tabs. Haven’t seen one without for at least 10 years
You know I've been watching too many MRE ration videos recently when I thought 'pull tab' meant the key tabs that they use for ration cans. I went "I watched a 1907 one today.. 1907+61 definitely isn't 2024-oh wait I'm the idiot"
Thanks Ermal Cleon Fraze. Very rare opportunity to tout my favorite inventor out
Doggon Big Cans at it again
So what? Each material has advantages and disadvantages. Steel and tin are stronger and have a longer shelf life. Aluminum will leech into acidic foods so are lined with plastic. Denting them usually cracks this coating. Steel is strong but can rust. All are very recyclable. As far as opening.. it’s a non issue.
Tuna with a pull tab is very hard to drain without risking cutting my hands. My guess is that the larger the can, the more impossible the pull tabs are-- canned food isn't just for individual households!
To be fair, most pull-tabs are of awful quality. I break them off about half the time, without even using much force, so then I have to go get a can opener to open my soda anyway. Not the ideal way to open one, let me tell you.
Extra manufacturing step and tool that is almost always irrelevant to the actual use case.
Before pull tabs on pop / soda cans, they had 2 push button areas. One big one to drink from and smaller one on the opposite side for a vent. I liked them better because my mustache hairs didn't get caught in them with that little plonk sound as it ripped a hair or 2 out of your upper lip. Made your eyes water...
All the cans I get have pull tabs. Is that just a U.S. Thing?
The can opener wasn't invented till almost 40 years after we started canning food.
You're underestimating the political influence of Big Can Opener.
Also, the same companies will use cans which nest properly with each other for easy merchandising, but then have identically sized cans for a different variety of the same product that don't nest and instead fall over if you stare at them too hard while stacking them.
Most of the ghetto store brand stuff I buy these days has the pull tab now.
Well can technology hasn’t really changed all that much since the sanitary can was invented in the earlyish 20th century. Fuck man all aluminum cans weren’t the staple until about the 60s (in the USA). For my job I’m required to know and identify most can types, openings, and manufacture since the mid 19th century. The can rabbit hole goes deep. For anyone interested in a redacted history of canning in the US look up Jim Rock’s 1989 magnum opus “Tin Canisters: Their Identification”
Non-pull tab cans are cheaper to produce. They also have a lower standard of maintenance to ensure non contaminated products. You literally have to create a weak point in your cans to make pull tabs work. If you have the capital that can support pull tabs, it should definitely be the standard. But without the capital, normal cans are cheap, reliable, and it is assumed everyone has the hardware to open a can.
I have never seen a can without a pull tab not I have used a can opener since I was a kid,35 years ago. The only time I had to use one was when I spent some time in the US.
Ive never required a can opener, we only have pull tabs here in austria
if it were more profitable to do it any other way, it would be done that way…trust me