Just for this issue, I’ve been asked to review product design instead of graphic design. Great. I’ve been looking for the perfect cheese grater for a long time, and know exactly what to look for:

1. It should make fine, flexible, meltable shreds.
2. It should be easy on the hands for all of us keyboard Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) sufferers.
3. It should be stable, so you don’t have to fight to support it with one hand while grating with the other.
4. It should not require the sacrifice of flesh and bone.
5. It should collect the shreds—not scatter them across the countertop and floor.
6. It should last for years and years.
7. It shouldn’t cost more than $20.

Many graters meet the first objective, especially those nifty micro-planes. None meet all the others.

Traditional box graters fail on objectives one, two, four, and five. One: Most combine the fine grater pattern with the extra- fine prickly pattern you use to make lemon zest. I don’t know about you, but my aim isn’t that great, so I wind up getting half-shredded, half-powdered cheese. Two: They’re designed to make you apply pressure sideways, moving your hand up and down. They’re stable and easy to hold, but use hand strength inefficiently—you get more power pressing down than sideways. Four: Flesh and bone—ouch! Five: The shreds go all over, especially when you lift the grater to get at the cheese.

Traditional rotary graters, which make you squeeze the cheese-tamper down with one hand while turning the handle with the other, violate objectives two and three. The squeezing hand also has to stabilize the thing against the rotation of the handle. This not only makes your hands work against each other, it takes a lot of strength. Unworthy of consideration.

Micro-planes make lovely shreds, and allow you to position your hands any way you like. But the hand holding the cheese is subject to being grated, and the shreds fly everywhere.

I decided to focus on container graters—they’re this year’s craze. Everyone from Black & Decker to OXO is making them. Most of these are traditional box graters with little plastic boxes underneath. Since they have the same bad hand action, they’re off my list.

Shopping both online and in stores, I found four graters to test. In order of price, they are:

• Gourmet Standard’s 3-piece bowl set with grater and plastic storage lid at $19.99
• OXO’s I-Series Container Grater at $16.99
• Copco’s EasyGrate Container Grater at $12.99
• OXO’s Multi Grater at $9.99

now that we’re all foodies, spaghetti is called pasta, and no self-respecting cook serves anything but freshly grated parmesan with the farfalle and scampi, you’d think product designers could get a simple cheese grater right.

OXO’S I-SERIES container grater at $16.99 gets a C+, better than average.

OXO I-SERIES CONTAINER GRATER
This little item pairs a micro-plane style grater with a round-edged box that fits nicely in the hand, has rubbery no-skid strips on the sides, and is engraved with convenient measuring marks that let you know when to stop grating. The grater plane itself has a cool brushed finish, plus blades that cut in both directions so it works on both upstrokes and downstrokes.

The grater makes really lovely, soft, fine shreds with very little pressure. It doesn’t protect the grating hand, but the grater is so fine you’ll only lose soft, fine shreds of flesh.

The rubbery no-skid strips work. You can stand the thing up or lean it on its side and it won’t slide around. But again, you’re stabilizing with one hand while grating with the other. Plus, its small size, clearly designed to be held in the hand, makes it hard to hold any other way. Besides, it creates a lot of scattering, so you have to use it over a bowl anyway.

When you do hold it in one hand to grate with the other, you wind up making the “at last, I have captured you” gesture of old movie villains. That puts the wrists at a sharp angle to the arm, which is not only a weak position, but one that causes damage to the joints.

At $16.99, this is the best little shredder here in terms of blades. If you can figure out how to hold it comfortably, go ahead and buy it. Be careful, though. The container is open at one end, so in some positions, you’re just going to be grating onto the floor.