Probably not. This seems to be one of those things made in a factory in China and sold by many different companies here. I looked at a few different companies' listings and they all say cherry tomatoes and grapes, and some mention a few other soft foods. The cutter is supposed to be good for the kind of tough skin you get on tomatoes and grapes, but carrots require a stiff, sharp blade for cutting through the woodier root.

I see, but does anyone here actually own a zip-slicer, in order to have tried it on carrots? Thanks.

Why don’t you?

I'm sorry but that's the daftest thing I've seen in a long time. The chances are that your cherry Tom's would be too big to fit....how often do you need to slice grapes in half........your carrot probably wouldn't fit....imagine trying to shop for diameter specific carrots....you'd go crazy. Invest in a knife you feel comfortable with or get a food processor.

Totally agree Islay. Just another useless POS to take up space in the kitchen drawer and maybe see daylight once in a blue moon.

Cooking tip for jally: A good knife is all-in-one and does a lot more than just cherry tomatoes and carrots.

Might such a tool be useful for children, or people with arthritis, etc....?

I had to do an image search to see what a zip slicer was, and all the images show it slicing tomatoes and a few show it slicing grapes, but nothing as dense as a carrot.

Looking at the design and construction, I don't think it will work well for carrots. The blade is not shaped well enough and sharp enough. It will take a lot of force to slice thru a carrot.

If I have time, I will make a video to show how to cut thru a carrot with a knife.

dcarch

OK, I finally caved in and looked up a "zip slicer". I would also just use a knife, I don't think this is going to halve a carrot, even if you could fit it into the tube. Even if it were sturdy enough, which I doubt, it would take more hand strength and dexterity than I have to cut something as hard/dense as a carrot.

Annie

use dental floss ... save time ...

^_^

I've been thinking about Carol's question, would it help children or old people. Possibly. I haven't tried it. Watching old, arthritic hands just trying to pick up a grape makes me think no on that account. Loading the tube could be harder than cutting with a knife. And that's assuming that the blade inside is stiff and sharp enough to really go through it. Children too small to use a knife by themselves would likely put their fingers inside to inspect the blade.

Dave's post made me think of something. The point of this tool is for people who don't know the saucer trick for cutting a bunch of cherry tomatoes or grapes. Put them in a saucer, invert another on top, hold in place with mild (not squashy) pressure and slice horizontally between the saucers. The results aren't all that pretty because the stem spots aren't lined up, but it's fast, easy, and you don't have to buy and store special equipment.

And, no, you can't cut a carrot that way either.

BTW, for people with hand issues they do make real knives with ergonomic handles, a modicum of cushioning, and some even have a guard so it'll catch if the user's grip loosens.

I've been trying to think what would help cutting carrots in half lengthwise. rather than slicing. It's an unusual request. Carrots can be hard to cut and require pressure and a good blade. The only thing I can think of doesn't appear to be a popular device. For sure, it would be hard to store and heavy. You could make one though. A guillotine. Use gravity plus a super sharp blade to do all the work.

I use my large chef's knife to split carrots. It's longer than most carrots, so it just takes one stroke. That's if I'm preparing to dice them. I usually cut carrots into 2 or 3 inch sections first, though, if I'm making carrot sticks.

Now I'm wondering why anyone would want a whole carrot in only two long halves anway?

Was the dental floss suggestion meant to be a joke?

Take a look at this tool I make for people with the use of only one hand.

dcarch

The only thing I can think of doesn't appear to be a popular device. For sure, it would be hard to store and heavy. You could make one though. A guillotine. Use gravity plus a super sharp blade to do all the work.

There's a probably a reason for that. Even for its original purpose it's a very finicky machine, easily thrown off even by things like long hair, shirt collars, fat, etc. (I won't harrow this forum with the stories, but there are a lot of details that popular history traditionally skates right by.)

I can't really see how it could deal with the fact that a carrot is not of even thickness its whole length and give an accurate result. For chopping rounds, yes, it would probably work well, but for slicing lengthwise, not so sure about that.

Writersblock, I won't ask how you know that! I was just thinking of what could work with less human effort than a good knife. I've seen vegetable guillotine style cutters in the past, which worked well, but required a goodly amount of downwards pressure. It might be easier for certain folks with hand issues, but good shoulder strength. A true gravity driven guillotine would be needed to make it actually easier. And there would have to be some kind of vise that would need to be tightened, to clamp the victim...er...carrot in place, above the receptacle level so the blade would have free travel all the way through, same as during the Terror. Perhaps some kind of squeegees in the posts to help keep the hair and collars out of the works. It wouldn't work for a knobly bendy carrot, of course, but so many of them. at least where I shop, are round and straight, I think one could be picky while purchasing. And of course, it would have to be no greater than the length of the machine, or cut to fit. Probably many other considerations as well.

I didn't say that this was a good idea. Just that it has potential to work in theory, which the gizmo in the OP does not. :)

Dcarch, that's brilliant! So simple. The upturned knife for slicing, however, looks dangerous. There are better ways to slice a tomato one handed, I think.

ETA: A better thought all around! If one had a block with channels like Dcarche's, with an attached blade like a paper cutter, it might make the halving of carrots much easier. The lever action should help with the toughness of a carrot.

Well, in favor of your idea, plllog, I must say that years ago I was a bit startled to encounter the Bruges municipal guillotine moldering away in the Gruuthuse museum. It was very much more compact than its movie/tv counterparts, or even those depicted in contemporary drawings, and probably only had a drop of about 4 ft for the blade. The local revolutionary committee had evidently been quite dubious when it arrived, and that turned out to be an even worse time to be a sheep in that area than a Belgian lacking "revolutionary fervor," because they insisted on a very extended tryout before subjecting a human to the thing.

Another idea which occured to me would be a variant of this idea:

Pottery Barn evidently thinks it's a cheese cutter, but If I'd seen it on its own I would have said it was for trimming stitched books before binding. However, the idea of the pivoting blade might work well if there was some kind of groove for the carrot to lie in.

Huh. I've seen a lot of cheese cutters but none that shape. The blade seems too short, but maybe that's the camera angle. I'm trying to remember if we cut the edges when I was learning book binding, but I don't think so. But it was a precision task, meant for one of a kind rather than production.

Would it work on a carrot?

The guillotine is a hoop cheese cutter. Note the the round shape. Would have been used in a grocery store or at the local cheese factory.

That device is indeed a paper cutter, or could be used as such. in the newspaper biz, we take used paper, like photo copy paper where only one side has been used, and stack them using a weight (brick or lead pig) and glue the ends together, and when dry, trim the stacks into scratch pads/note pads. They are quite popular ...

YES, THE DENTAL FLOSS was a bit of my strange humor ...

I do think it was a paper trimmer. Note that the current blade is about the right size for a quarto but the handle will accommodate a much longer blade as well, which would work for a folio or maybe even an octavo. I can't think of any cheese, no matter how hard, that would need such a heavy foundation for the blade. That thing is meant to be leaned on hard.

Besides, that long ago people wouldn't have accepted the outside of a cheese when buying a piece. They knew that for a lot of aged cheeses you wanted your bit dug out from the middle where it was all edible. Not like today when the grocery store can sell you cheese that's 3/4ths rind at a high price and folks will pay premium prices for it. I never buy Stilton now, for instance, because our local store sells what is essentially pre-packaged Stilton rind with about a tablespoon of actual cheese per quarter lb. (Yes, I have those soup recipes but it's still too much pay for cheese rind.)

plllog, it's been a while, but I do seem to remember that if the signatures were to be stitched to form a curved spine it was common to trim the fore edge if you didn't want a complementary curve there.

Surely, Writersblock. I didn't mean that they wouldn't have been cut. Just that I don't remember a tool for the purpose from my limited experience in bookbinding. I was doing squared spines with X stitching, and bricks all around for precision, so curvature wasn't an issue. Someone came across an implement in my house last year and it took me awhile to recognize it. It's a stiletto (I can't remember the right word) for making the holes for the stitches. :)

Ci_lantro, could be, but it doesn't look like any of the hoop cheese cutters I've seen. That would make the shortness of the blade make sense, if they were cutting wedges off the wheel, and leaving the rest intact, rather than blocks. Blocks were the norm here, but I've seen pictures of wedges, especially from aged hoop cheese (which I've never seen in person). I so wish I could get fresh hoop cheese. I can't even find a good recipe for making it. According to the Cheesemaking guy, it's disappeared because they've never found a way to make it by machine.

If you google image 'vintage block cheese slicers' or similar key words many are just like that...

Addressing the original op request, something all-in-one? Unfortunately not many available. I get it. Gadgets can be handy. A guillotine type slicer for a quick to-do salad/stir fry. ?. Or a veg lunch prep? I vote for basic good knife skills as we all do but my mother is horribly arthritic (with great knife skills) so she manages really well.

I do have a couple friends that just will not ever learn proper slicing/chopping. (musicians). lol.

Some gadgets will do just one thing.

this one will do many sizes and many vegetables but only quarters...

And one handed, if placed face down. Could easily be designed to do half, quarters, and six slices...

That tool looks like you would have to press really hard to cut the carrots.

If arthritis or something is the problem, then there are many great devices that are better than these gadgets like this

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Moulinex+Fresh+express&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3AMoulinex+Fresh+express

The Pottery Barn pix is a cheese cutter. It's round. I can't imagine why any paper cutter would be round??

ETA: To be more clear, the base of the cutter is round. There is no way to line up paper to get a square cut with a round base.

Wow, the number of responses are mind-boggling! Never mind, i wound up buying the Progressive carrot cutter. Once i give it an initial "push" manually with my hand, then it's not so hard to use the presser though it's a nuisance to wash. i don't own a dishwasher. It's still easier on my arthritic fingers than quartering manually. I need to develop the knack, though, since they come out uneven. Thus i'm not so im-pressed (forgive the pun). The only reason i splurged, is for someone in a local nursing-home who most prefers salads, especially "crunchy" carrots. She doesn't like vine-tomatoes (says they're too "soft"). Actually, i'm not even sure if there's "crunchy" tomatoes?

Pillog mentioned a paper cutter. That got me thinking about a parchment paper cutter that i love, which the zip-slicer somewhat reminds me of.

https://www.amazon.com/ChicWrap-Bakers-Parchment-Dispenser-Culinary/dp/B00844G2MY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1544471769&sr=8-3&keywords=parchment+paper+cutter

So it would be great if they could invent a zip-slicer strong enough to cut through everything, even carrots. And which could allow carrots to then be rotated in order to quarter them.. Basically, an all-in-one gadget.

I'm also picturing a carpentry-desk my dad had set up in the basement, complete with a clamp. You turn the clamp's lever, to keep wood (or shoes or whatever) fixed in one place for purpose of sawing (or gluing shoe-soles or whatever).

Likewise, a gadget with some clamp to keep carrots, cukes, tomatoes, etc. fixed in one position, so people can cut peacefully, could come in handy.

So yes, a clamp with a paper-cutter-guillotine sorta gadget sounds good.

Re: YT video's - due to my electrosensitivity & eye-sensitivity, I still use Win-XP (on a thinkpad) which disallows clicking direct on vid's, rather i need to search for them via YouTube to get them to function. Also i favor quick vid's since i'm often pressed for time.