I don’t own any spoons – they’re useless

For the three years I’ve worked at Which?, there have been two recurring themes of arguments with colleagues: the first involves mixing peanut butter and marmite on toast (it’s outstanding, try it, trust me) and the second is that I will never use a spoon again – and you don’t have to either.

If you’re furrowing your brow already, I implore you to think of the reasons that (other) people use spoons; stirring drinks, eating yoghurt. If we’re honest with ourselves, that’s about it. And of the two, stirring drinks is probably the most common, so let’s look at that first.

Shake it, don’t stir it

I distinctly remember opening the cutlery drawer years ago, looking for something to stir my coffee, and finding nothing but an empty section of the cutlery drawer.

Despite then owning a large collection, I once again found myself spoon-less and could only surmise that most had made their way into the dishwasher having barely been used. The rest had presumably evaporated in the curious way that only teaspoons can do. Useless.

Forced to stir my coffee without a spoon, I had an epiphany: shake the coffee.

So I transferred my coffee to my trusty sealed and insulated mug, shook it and peeled open the lid to inspect the contents. Perfection. The milk and sugar had near-instantly dissolved, and the gossamer layer of frothy bubbles added a delicate texture to the drink, just the way coffee should be.

Today, I have a set of insulated mugs and use one at work. Admittedly, it raises a few eyebrows, not least when we’re hosting external meetings and I’m shaking up our guests’ drinks to order. But it’s also an ice-breaker and genuine-conversation starter. Most people I talk to simply, and quickly, accept that my idea has changed the way they think about sugar dissolution in hot beverages, and the meeting can begin.

Sticks are also acceptable

In the unlikely instance that I don’t have my insulated mug on me, I use a stirring stick. A tool machined for a dedicated cause, they are much more efficient than spoons.

But don’t just take my word for it. Dorian Trapér, who runs River Stix, a company that manufacturers and supplies wooden drink stirrers for companies across the UK, says:

‘Think about it – if spoons were actually efficient, we would produce spoon-shaped implements for stirring. But they’re not, so we don’t.

‘Independent studies have shown time and again that a thin bit of wood “chops” up the drink in a much more efficient way than a spoon can, creating small eddies and currents within the liquid that dissolves sugar over 60% quicker than a spoon-stirred beverage.’

Use the fork, Luke

As for eating yoghurt, a fork is actually much more efficient, as you can get into the corners of a pot much easier than with a certain convex-dented shovelling implement.

It also provides a crucial, yet sadly overlooked, health benefit: as yoghurt warms or nears the end of its shelf life, it becomes runny. Enter the fork.

The gaps between the tines (those are the pointy bits) are just far enough apart that yoghurt that is going bad will simply droop through. Whereas healthy, cold yoghurt will brace the gaps nicely.

As I sit here writing this with my coffee shaken, not stirred, and shovelling in fork-safe yoghurt, I feel a sense of peace before the storm. There is no spoon. There was never any need for it. And so, I defy anyone to come up with an actual, logical reason to use a spoon.

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