Stocked up on tins for the pandemic? They have a multitude of uses

When I was a child growing up in the 1970s, tinned food formed a significant part of our family diet. A tin of tomato soup, spaghetti hoops or baked beans (on toast, of course) for lunch. Spam – I quite liked spam – with mashed potatoes in the evening. Tinned fruit salad and evaporated milk for dessert. There was always one maraschino cherry in that fruit salad, which otherwise comprised non-specific pale yellow fruit. The pale yellow fruit was disappointing, but did anybody actually want to find that radioactive red thing in their bowl?

Then ready meals came along and of course something that had a “best before” date only days, rather than years, hence had to be fresher and better for you, right? The idea of eating things from tins started to seem old-fashioned and probably downright dangerous. Eating something from a dented tin could kill you: that’s one of the lessons I learned at my grandmother’s knee. (Food safety guidelines still suggest you avoid badly dented tins, by the way. Especially if they are dented along the seam, as a compromised seam may allow bacteria inside).

But as of last March, when a no-deal Brexit loomed (for the first time), I have had a guilty stash of tins in my kitchen cupboard again. Tomatoes mostly. Tomatoes on toast is my go-to comfort food. And right now it seems like having those tins to hand might finally prove to have been a wise move. Not only because there’ll be something to eat while we’re all confined to barracks.

Exercise is a great way to relieve stress, of course. But when I received an email from a yoga studio I used to frequent detailing the measures they were taking to ensure that their equipment was germ free during the current crisis, my shoulders shot up to my ears. I had no idea that the trendy bright white studio with all its wellness slogan posters might previously have been so filthy. Actually, I had guessed. There’s nothing like finding a suspiciously pubic-looking hair stuck to the underside of your mat as you go to roll it up at the end of a session to undo all the relaxation benefits of savasana. At least at home, you can be sure it’s your own pubic hair. Or… Stop it, Manby. #triggered.

So, exercising at home has been the only option for me for a few weeks now. A static bike is good for cardio. Yoga can be done anywhere there’s enough floor space. Hula-hooping is excellent for core strength if you have enough room or don’t mind losing a few ornaments. I’m convinced that the elbow flapping and bumping that has replaced the handshake and the air-kiss is good for toning armpits (Entire publishing industry – could we please never go back to having to kiss people we’ve only just met?) but serious bingo wings need something more. Bring in the tin.

While you’re standing in front of your cupboard, wondering what the heck you’re going to make with tomatoes for the 28th day running, you could do quite a number of bicep curls or exercise your triceps with a few overhead extensions. For that, with both hands around a tin, you lift it above your head so your arms are straight. Then, bending from the elbows, you lower the tin behind your head until your forearms are parallel with the floor. Straighten up again and repeat.

While that day’s tomatoes are simmering, you could work the muscles in your back with a single arm “rowing” exercise. To do this, you’ll also need a chair. Holding a tin in your left hand, put your right knee on the chair’s seat and hang on to the chairback with your right hand. Bend at the hips so that your upper body is parallel with the floor (or as near as you can get). Let your left arm hang straight down. Now you’re in position, bend your elbow and raise the tin until it’s at chest height. Keep raising your elbow backwards as far as you’re elbow, then lower your arm again. It’s less a rowing motion than a bicycling one in my view, but hopefully you get the picture.

Next, sitting on the chair while you wait for the toast to pop up, holding two tins directly in front of you at chest level, you can exercise your chest, shoulders and upper back by bending your forearms to bring the tins to your shoulders.

If you’re not used to using weights, you can start with small tins – sweetcorn, for example – and build up to confit de canard. Though I’ve tried that, and unless you have enormous hands, the benefit of the increased weight is considerably outweighed by the risk of dropping a tin full of duck on your foot. Safety boots are recommended.

It may seem simple, but tin-can toning works. In 2017, the Manchester Evening News reported the story of Hollie Nolan from Bolton, who shed 7st and seven dress sizes through healthy eating and using a couple of baked bean cans instead of expensive hand weights when she worked out to a Davina McCall DVD. In self-isolation, I’m sure even a Davina exercise DVD could start to seem like a proper treat.

And when you’re finished with a tin? As a child, I had a thousand ideas for what I could do with empty tins if only my mother would let me get hold of them. She wouldn’t. Quite rightly. Old fashioned tin openers left horribly jagged edges that turned used cans into offensive weapons. But I longed in particular to be allowed to turn two tins into a pair of mini-stilts with the addition of some long string loops for handles. If you’re self-isolating with kids and the Xbox breaks down, you may run out of ideas for entertainment, at which point my tin and string stilts won’t sound quite so mad. They will, however, definitely do for your wooden floors.

There are less floor-damaging entertainment options. The website, www.tinplategirl.com, run by father and daughter duo Marc and Adriane, has some very impressive ideas for things you can make with empty tins, including “Canimals”, a ray gun, various pieces of jewellery and six teeny tiny shovels for burying the small dead, or, as Tin Plate Girl suggests, for adding a dash of welcome novelty to your sugar bowl. There are even instructions for making a safe, in which you could hide your last bag of rice. You’ll need to add a hammer, some pliers and a drill press to your next Ocado order. And bandages. You’ll probably need bandages at some point too.

At the end of this Covid-19 crisis (of course it will end, won’t it?), I’m going to invite my neighbours round to a tinned dinner-party. My brother-in-law suggested making the evening more exciting by asking everyone to bring a tin of their own, having first soaked off the label, for a meal of tin roulette. By the end of April, we may need such excitement in our lives. Whoever gets the maraschino cherry in the fruit salad buys the drinks when we’re next confident enough to go to the pub.