The Dumbest Kitchen Gadgets Amazon Brainwashed You Into Purchasing

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We don't know about you, but we often find ourselves influenced by Amazon reviewers when buying new products. After all, how can you ignore a kitchen gadget with over 14,000 mostly positive reviews? That product must be totally amazing, right? But the more we looked into some of these well-reviewed items, the more we realized how useless they were. Other essential kitchen items, like knives, measuring spoons, utensils, peelers, pots, and pans, can accomplish all the tasks that the items on this list promise to achieve. 

Although Alton Brown would vehemently disagree with us here, we do believe that certain unitaskers are helpful. Wine openers, for example, only function to open bottles of wine, but there isn't really a better way to accomplish that task. Other gadgets have us questioning our collective sanity, and lead us to wonder why we let Amazon brainwash us into thinking we need them in the first place.

If you were to take the word of the thousands of Amazon reviewers, you absolutely need all of the kitchen gadgets on this list. But we think you don't. You might disagree with us on a few of these — you could be one of those reviewers that can't live without this gadget — but we simply can't believe people are actually buying these products.

We get it — people love avocados. And we're right there with you: We're equally obsessed with dipping chips into guacamole, adding avocado to our burgers, and (of course) eating our weight in avocado toast. In 2018, Mexico exported 2.5 billion pounds of avocados to the United States alone (according to Avocados from Mexico). So, it's only natural that an all-in-one avocado slicer would amass over 6,000 reviews on Amazon. Why might you need this gadget? According to the reviewers, the blade on this slicer is sharp enough to cut through an avocado without being able to slice your hand. They also love how the all-in-one tool can remove the pit and create perfect avocado slices with the "fan blade."

Now, we will say that "avocado hand" is a real thing: Holding an avocado in your hand and attempting to slice it or remove the pit with a sharp knife sends close to 9,000 people to the ER each year. But that doesn't mean you need a gadget that's sole function is to slice avocados. It's easy enough to use a cutting board, carefully cut around the avocado with a regular knife, and remove the pit with a spoon. So, do yourself a favor; save your money for buying more avocados and skip this gadget.

Cooking can be overwhelming at times, especially if you're preparing food for a crowd. Making something like pulled pork can be especially nerve-wracking. What if you're using your grill or smoker wrong, and the pork shoulder never gets tender? How do you decide which barbecue sauce your friends will like most? And, most importantly, how to you shred the pork without making a mess?

If you were to listen to the 4,700 reviewers on Amazon, buying a pair of meat shredding claws is essential to pulling this dish off. The claws fit in your hands and are "the answer to perfectly shredded meat without the mess and headache of knives and forks." And they work for chicken, pork, beef, and more! It all sounds compelling, but you're falling into a trap if you spend $13 on these things. When meat is cooked to the proper temperature, it practically shreds itself. You can easily shred pork with two forks, a set of tongs, or even your hands. It's called fall-off-the-bone-tender for a reason. No need to turn yourself into Wolverine, we promise. 

Remember that one time when you peeled so many potatoes that your hand literally fell off? Gosh, wasn't that the worst? Wouldn't it be great if you had access to a gadget that would peel potatoes, apples, cucumbers, peaches, kiwis, and more, all without having to use your hands? As luck would have it, such a gadget exists! It's the electric potato peeler, and over 4,000 Amazon reviewers think it's totally worth purchasing.

Here's the problem: This thing is 6.3 x 6.5 x 11 inches, which isn't the largest gadget in the world, but it is somewhere in between the size of an electric can opener and a small coffee pot. Where are you going to store it? Do you really peel enough potatoes to leave it out on the counter all the time? Do you really hate peeling potatoes that much? 

You also might want to ask yourself if there's an easier way to peel potatoes — like boiling them with the skins on and letting the skins slide off when they're cooked. If that doesn't work for you, a hand peeler works just as well at peeling all these vegetables and is available for a fraction of the cost. Plus, it stores easily in any drawer and doesn't require an electrical outlet to work. Hmmm, I think that brainwashing is starting to wear off....

Instant ramen is a college student's dream meal. It's inexpensive, even if you add a few ingredients to upgrade it and make a fancier version. Better yet, it's super easy to cook. Add it to boiling water in a saucepan, and it will cook in about two minutes. Or, place it in a bowl and nuke it in the microwave for three minutes. So why — oh why — do over 3,000 people think it's necessary to buy a rapid ramen cooker?

This product literally does everything a regular bowl can do — cook ramen in three minutes in the microwave. And it doesn't even have a lid, so it's not like you can use it to meal prep your ramen and bring it with you to work. It does come with an added bonus, as one reviewer who forgot to add water points out: it "almost caught the microwave on fire." Fantastic!

When it comes to bulky, completely unnecessary gadgets, we think this pancake batter dispenser takes the (pan)cake. For starters, you can't mix batter inside the dispenser: You have to mix it separately and pour it into the dispenser. That means you still have to dirty a bowl when making pancakes, cupcakes, waffles, muffins, crepes, or cake. So why not just use a measuring cup to dispense batter instead of dirtying up a harder-to-clean gadget?

Well, you might be persuaded by the over 2,000 people who love how much easier it is to pour out batter using this bottom-dispensing tool. They claim it saves the mess of pouring from a ladle. But how much less messy can it really be? You still have to clean up an extra tool, and this gadget doesn't look any easier to clean than a measuring cup. Some reviewers also point out that it doesn't work as well for thicker batters, which leaves us wondering, what's the point?

Every once in a while, a gadget is so dumb and useless that we find ourselves at a lack of words. The no-mess tuna can strainer is exactly that gadget. And yet, over a thousand people took the time to review this product. Couple that with its extremely low, $4 price, and you might find yourself being brainwashed into trying it.

Here's the major problem with this gadget: It doesn't do anything that the lid of a can of tuna can't do. Yes, it has tiny little holes for drainage, which the tuna lid does not have. But do you really need to have super dry, perfectly drained tuna fish? Plus, after you use it, you're left with a fishy, smelly gadget stinking up the gadget drawer (even after you've cleaned it). Add in the fact that it fits most — but not all — cans, and we're gonna have to say thanks, but no thanks.

It has to be hard for inventors in the food gadget-sphere. All the good ideas seem to be taken, leaving only ideas like the pickle picker. Yes, folks, you read that right: It's a fork that's dedicated to doing nothing but helping you remove pickles from the pickle jar. This particular model gets really fancy, too, by rubber banding itself to the side of the jar and including a "caddy" that catches excess pickle drip. Phew, good thing, because otherwise you might lose your all-important pickle picker in the gadget drawer! Do you know what's harder to lose? A fork, which performs the same essential function.

The only thing that surprises us more than the 400 people who reviewed the pickle picker is the fact that it gets mostly positive reviews. Only three percent of reviewers gave it fewer than three stars. Most people felt like this gadget was a game-changer, leading us to believe there's a wave of pickle brainwashers out there making scads of money, $6 at a time.