Section Hikers Backpacking Blog Hiking and Backpacking for Beginners and Experts
The Unitensil Folding Fork-Knife-Spoon is a highly portable and reusable eating utensil that weighs a mere 7 grams. It folds flat for easy storage in your wallet or a food bag and can be reused hundreds of times making it perfect for ultralight backpacking, at home, when traveling, or at the office when you need a tool to shovel food into your mouth. It was originally developed to help reduce our reliance on disposable utensils and the mountains of plastic waste they produce. One of my readers turned me onto it so I thought I’d give it a try.
The Unitensil has two parts: the combination fork-knife-spoon and a protective sleeve to keep it clean between uses. When the Unitensil is inserted into its sleeve, the two are thin enough that you can carry them in your wallet. I’m always forgetting my backpacking spoon when I pack for trips, so having an emergency folding Fork-Knife-Spoon is a handy failsafe for me.
The Unitensil has a fork with a serrated edge that serves as a knife and a spoon. You can’t really cut with the serrated edge like a real knife, but it’s still useful for tearing soft items into smaller bite-sized chunks.
The fork and spoon are formed by joining the light-blue and dark-blue snaps together in order to create a three-dimensional utensil that is capable of eating sauces and soups. It’s really rather clever.
While you can eat ramen noodles, hot cereal, or just about anything else with the Unitensil, it falls short of eating with the big plastic GSI spoon (90 cents at REI) I normally carry when backpacking. The Unitensil has a shallower bowl so it can’t hold as much food at once and it’s a little more difficult to maneuver because it is shorter and doesn’t have a proper handle. Still, for backpacking, it’s good enough to shovel food into your mouth just in case you forget to pack your regular food utensils in your food bag. I also think the Unitensil Knife-Fork-Spoon would make a great stocking stuffer for the holidays.
Disclosure: The author purchased this product
Editor's note: Help support this site by making your next gear purchase through one of the affiliate links above. Click a link, buy what you need, and the seller will contribute a portion of the purchase price to support SectionHiker's unsponsored and independent gear reviews, beginner FAQs, and free hiking guides.Most Popular Searches
- section hiker
I don’t know.Sometimes we just try too hard.
An ultralight utensil review and you don’t bother to mention the weight
First sentence. Time to brush up on your reading.
An interesting idea and I think it will definitely have it’s uses. Thank you for the review-I plan to purchase.
Good for the car and chinese food takeout!
Nice review and as you said, a great stocking stuffer. But I can not help it. When I look at it I think of the scene from the Young Frankenstein movie where the monster is trying to enjoy some soup.
I was predisposed to hate this thing but I don’t. It’s quite clever, and not a bad idea as a backup. It’s not going to stop me from carrying both my Morsel spork and my titanium spork, though. I can improvise a lot, but I cannot imagine having to eat with a tent stake or a stick.