The Foodloop

Pros: Fills an odd and handy little niche; releases easily; mesh bag for dishwasher cleaning; comes clean fairly easily; presses closed in a way that makes it simple to get a good fit
Cons: Fills a very small niche; mild cleaning difficulties
Rating: 4 out of 5

First published 12/6/2005
Review item courtesy of The Foodloop and Jardina Communications

“The Foodloop” is a pretty nifty little invention that fills a small but handy niche. It’s an adjustable, lockable “trussing tool” for wrapping, rolling, and tying foods. It’s heat resistant to 675 F/357 C, so you can use it for your turkey, a stuffed fish, or a stuffed and rolled-up cut of meat. You can also use it for holding a wrap sandwich closed. It’s safe for the microwave, the oven, or a pan on the stovetop.

The Foodloop is highly flexible. It’s certainly easy to see against your food, since it’s a hot pink color! The box comes with six, which is enough for most purposes. The beaded shape of the silicone strip tucks into a cavity at one end. You press the sides of the cavity end and pull the tail end to cinch tight (it isn’t incredibly easy to cinch, but you can certainly tighten it well enough). I find it much easier to close the Foodloop around a food item than to tie twine around it; I simply hold the cavity end down on the food with one hand and then use the other hand to press the tail end into it.

The Foodloop comes with a very handy mesh bag so that you can put it in the dishwasher without having to worry so much about it flying around. I love this so much that I’ve started using the bag for other small kitchen bits such as the brush tip from the Cuisipro silicone pastry brush. Being able to run this through the dishwasher is certainly a help, however, I found that when you’ve used the Foodloop with something particularly sticky and messy such as a cut of meat, bits of stuff tend to remain behind on the textured silicone. It does rub off with a little effort.

The Foodloop is fairly long, and you can attach more than one together if you need an extra-long loop. Don’t try to pick your food up via the Foodloop; it’s designed to release very easily, so when you pull on the dangling tail it’ll come undone. This does make it very easy to remove when you’re done with your cooking.

I don’t know how often I’ll be using the Foodloop, but it does fill a handy niche. It’s easier than trying to keep food-grade twine around the house and clean for those rare occasions when I need it, and it certainly works better! It’s also nice to have a solution for keeping wrapped sandwiches closed.