In defense of the Kitchen Safe

The Kitchen Safe* went viral on Facebook today. Go watch the 41 second video; I'll wait. (Alternate video)

I've had several for a couple years now (before I saw it on Shark Tank!) and was really disappointed by the top comments it was getting:**

• Don't want to eat sweets, don't buy sweets! Simple as that!
• this is such a bad idea haha if people want what's in it badly enough to lock it away from themselves, they'll just go around the corner and buy more. And if not, then the second the get their hands on it they'll binge and not even enjoy it at all, and probably want more of it than they would've in the first place haha 
• this would work until I "accidentally" happen knock it off the bench and watch the plastic shatter into a hundred pieces hahahaha
• Why not just NOT but the sweets or items that tempt you? And what makes this safe weird is that its clear, it be better if it was black or dark color so you wont see the product inside and be even more tempted. Just saying.. lol
• This is the most stupid thing I've ever heard 😂😂😂 if you lock your sweets away then what's stopping you from going to the shop to buy more? The trick to a healthy diet is to only buy healthy food and watch less tv because there's so much unhealthy food on tv that will tempt you!

So, dear hypothetical readers, let me give you a different perspective, originally left as a comment to be forgotten on the post.

My actual countertop with two different sizes of Kitchen Safes. A locked opaque one is not shown.

As an owner, I can say it's amazing. I have several, for several different reasons: junk food, device timeouts, passwords***, and I'm sure other uses I'm not remembering. I highly recommend them! There's also an opaque version (which helps the passwords!): out of sight, out of mind.

They're surprisingly sturdy. If you really want to break it, then sure, you can. It probably won't help a true addiction. But let's be honest about a few things:

1. You don't have an addiction to skittles (or pick an alternative). You like skittles. You snack on skittles. You have a bad habit of seeing skittles and eating them. We're dealing with habits and easy access here. Maybe cravings. But you're not addicted. 
2. There's nothing wrong with skittles. Flat out refusing to buy them is a little drastic too. Keeping yourself from all the foods you like is one key reason most diets fail. If only there were a way to eat in moderation (a few at a time)...
3. At the moment you see skittles on your counter, you want to eat them. But assuming you do have a goal of eating less junk food, you also have some other desires: You *don't* want to eat them tonight. And you also don't really want to eat 50 now. You do know better, but it's hard to stop. It's the slippery slope of eating ten, then another ten, then another ten that's what's dangerous. 
4. It's much easier to have willpower over your future self than yourself right now. It's not that hard to take your ten skittles now and have just enough willpower for the next *ten* seconds to say "I shouldn't eat any tonight. Let's lock it until tomorrow." This is the key: Grab what you want now, and then relock it before your desires have a chance to update themselves. When I do get into problems, this is always why: leaving it unlocked for too long. 
5. Yes, you could go buy more skittles. *But you won't want to* Again, we're not preventing full heroin addictions here. At the moment you want your skittles, your choices are 
1. Break a $50 box that I actually do want working tomorrow (because again, it's easy to have willpower over your future self... you actually do want to lose that weight!)
2. Get dressed, find your keys, get in the car, drive through five minutes of traffic, go into the store, wait in line for ten minutes, drive five minutes home, and eat your skittles, or
3. Wait until tomorrow. Those bananas aren't half bad either and are more nutritious. And you really do want to eat better...
   
   So what'll it be? A $50 cost, thirty minutes of effort, or forgoing a few skittles that you can get to tomorrow anyway? That actually is the option that wins!

The Kitchen Safe is easy to mock, but in practice really helpful for reducing your access to problem items to a reasonable rate! I highly recommend it!

Don't believe me?  Check their Amazon reviews, and then buy a couple! Or, if you order through the official site in the next thirty days you can enter promo code 'ojchase' for a 10% discount!


*It's now called a kSafe, a name which only makes sense if you know it's really a Kitchen Safe, so I refuse to call it that ;)
**Names removed to protect the guilty. These are actual unedited quotes.
***I've gotten a number of questions about why you would lock up a password. Simple: To limit access to an account or service that you don't always like, such as parental control or internet filtering programs.  This allows you to be your own parent in terms of responsible device/internet usage.  Set and write down a long randomized password you won't remember (which is surprisingly hard!), set up your parental controls, lock up the password (in an envelope if a clear base). And then you're stuck with whatever restrictions you've given yourself, no parent needed. Keep a list of any tweaks you need to make, and you can make them when the safe opens up in a week or whatever.