If there’s no other piece of tableware in your camping collection, the Lexan Tablespoon from GSI Outdoors should be. It’s one of the handiest, hardiest and useful pieces of tableware you could have for your camping and backpacking adventures.

Forget stainless steel or aluminum tableware, when it comes to backpacking/camping utensils, nothing really beats lexan. It’s a kind of plastic that is both lightweight and incredibly strong (it’s used as bullet proof glass in some applications), and so when made into tableware, it can stand up to almost any situation you’d put it in.

I’d suspect that once you buy the Lexan Tablespoon, unless you accidentally drive over it or some other huge calamity befalls it, you’ll be using this spoon for as long as you’ll be backpacking and camping and you won’t need to replace it through that whole time.

Why this spoon?

Just like the other Lexan tableware available from GSI Outdoors, the tablespoon is somewhat oversized when it’s compared to regular tableware you’d find in your kitchen. At just over 7 inches long, the spoon isn’t too long to comfortably use and at only half an ounce, it’s almost as light as a feather.

The spoon is available in three different colors – glacier ice (which is blue), emerald green and eggshell. The glacier ice and the emerald green colors are translucent, while the eggshell colored spoon is a solid color and the lexan isn’t translucent. I have both glacier ice and eggshell colored spoons and I haven’t noticed a difference between them. Neither of them stains and because the color is part of the Lexan, not just a coating and it won’t wear off or dull down over time.

It’s been my experience that Lexan is practically unbreakable during normal use and even during most extreme conditions, the Lexan isn’t going to break. We used to use panels of Lexan on the Appalachian Trail information boards to prevent people from shooting them up (it seems some people enjoy shooting informational signs). So if the Lexan can block a bullet, a spoon made out of Lexan is going to take a lot of abuse before it breaks.

Because it’s slightly oversized, the Lexan Tablespoon doubles as an excellent cooking utensil. You can use it to stir things your cooking and because it’s Lexan, it won’t transmit heat like stainless steel and aluminum utensils can. Thus, you don’t have to worry about the grip becoming too hot to hold. You can even let the spoon lean against the side of the pot and the Lexan is heat resistant enough to not melt or be otherwise harmed.

Lexan doesn’t stain, so if you’re using the spoon in something that you think might stain it (like tomato sauce), don’t worry, once you wash the spoon, it’ll be fine.

Lexan can also be exposed to temperature extremes without any worry – you can go from a stirring a hot liquid to putting the spoon into ice cream and it won’t crack. Plus when you get home, you can put the spoon in the dishwasher and not worry about the plastic melting or deforming from the heat of the machine.

What I use the spoon for…

I’ve had my Lexan Tablespoon longer than any other Lexan tableware in my collection (a knife, a fork and a teaspoon). The tablespoon has been in my collection for many years and I haven’t had any problems with it. The spoon has never deformed from heat, cracked from bending, or even scratched from general use. Basically, the spoon looks just like it did when I bought it.

The spoon has been on just about every backpacking and camping trip I’ve been on. I even take it with me when I’m car camping. When I’m not out camping, I keep the spoon in my silverware drawer at home and use it to cook and eat at home. I think sometimes I end up using it more than my regular silverware at home.

The Lexan Tablespoon is probably the most useful multi-purpose utensil of the Lexan tableware that I have. You can use it to stir coffee and tea, make oatmeal in the morning, stir a dinner simmering on your backpacking stove, or use it as just a plain old spoon to eat that food. Out of all the tableware out there, the spoon really is the most all-around useful item and I really do use it all the time, whether or not I’m camping or at home.

Overall…

I don’t think you really could find a better deal for camping tableware than you can with Lexan Tableware. The Lexan Spoon is, at least to me, the most useful and handy of all the tableware though. At only 50 cents, this spoon has so many different uses and will likely make it through all your adventures.

So skip over the stainless steel, ignore aluminum tableware and go right to the Lexan Spoon when you need a backpacking/camping spoon. You won’t be disappointed by the spoon and you’ll likely end up with an entire tableware set made of Lexan.


Many thanks to pogomom for adding this to the database.

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