How to open a jar with a little elbow grease - and some great tools

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• Trace amounts of residue left in a jar top's threading and the factory's tight vacuum seal make jars difficult to open.
• By breaking the jar lid's seal using one of several handy tricks, you can make it much easier to unscrew the cap.
• You can also use a number of tools to make opening jars easier, including a jar key, cheap jar grippers, simple jar openers, and automatic jar openers.
• Here's how to open a jar with or without jar-opening tools.

If you have trouble opening jars, you're far from alone. While jars can be a notorious challenge for the elderly or for people with limited strength due to injury or illness, plenty of young, fit, and perfectly capable people still struggle to open jars.

I'm in my mid 30s, I'm in good health, I exercise regularly, and yet I still, at times, find jars that are almost impossible to open. Impossible, that is, without the aid of a jar opening trick or two - we'll get to those soon.

Why are jars so hard to open? The main reason is one you can hardly begrudge: It's the vacuum seal that is keeping your food fresh. When a jar is sealed at a factory, the contents tend to be warm. As the interior temperature cools, the air contracts, creating a seal that draws the lid on tightly and keeps out bacteria. The second reason is often trace amounts of the food itself, which when left in the threading of the jar's top, creates a glue-like effect when it dries and sets.

So how do you easily open a jar? There are two approaches that, in the most extreme cases, can be used in tandem.

By breaking the internal vacuum seal holding that pesky lid so firmly atop the jar, you can more easily twist the lid off, revealing the delectable pickles, pasta sauce, or jelly within.

You can also use a dedicated jar-opening tool to do most of the hard work for you. And by combing a jar-opening hack with a jar-opening tool, you're guaranteed to achieve mastery of your pantry.

Here are the best tools to help you open a jar:

• Best jar key: Brix Original Easy JarKey Opener
• Best jar grippers: Regent Multi-Purpose Jar Grippers and GXONE Jar Opener
• Best jar openers: Kichwit Arthritis Jar Opener and EZ Off Jar Opener For All Jar Sizes
• Best automatic jar opener: Hamilton Beach Open Ease Automatic Jar Opener

Read on in the slides below to learn how to open a jar with or without tools.

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