1. Technical Field
This invention relates to cutting, shaving, mincing, grinding, and squeezing devices for fruits and vegetables, and more particularly to a portable crank operated device for cutting, shaving, mincing, squeezing, and grinding fruits and vegetables.
2. Background Art
Various cutting, shaving, mincing, grinding, and squeezing devices for fruits and vegetables have been proposed and implemented. In recent years there has been a tremendous surge in the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and increased variability in their method of preparation both in restaurants and in homes. This surge in consumption is part in due to the surge in consumption of all fruits and vegetables, and part in due to the influences of various ethnic and foreign cultures.
The present invention is a safe, efficient, highly versatile device for cutting, shaving, mincing, grinding, and squeezing fruits, vegetables, cheese, or other foods. The device may be used to shave foods such as garlic, ginger, cheese or the like. It may also be conveniently used for providing square cuts of a food such as garlic or ginger, or used to squeeze foods such as lemons or mushrooms, for example. The device may be used to cut a variety of foods in different ways, such as apples, potatoes, radishes, cheese, in slices, squares, shredding cuts, and the like.
Accordingly, it is the primary object of this invention to provide a crank operated cutting, shaving, mincing, grinding, and squeezing device for fruits, vegetables, and other foods, which allows for the rapid, convenient, safe, and clean, shaving, cutting, squeezing operations, and which is inexpensive to clean, use, and manufacture.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instrumentality""s and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims,
To achieve the foregoing objects, and in accordance with the purpose of the invention as embodied and broadly described herein, a crank operated device for cutting, shaving, mincing, grinding, and squeezing foods has an outer housing element with a first disc element positioned therein. An inner shaft element is slidably positioned within the outer housing element. The inner shaft element has one or more positioning tracks or channels for positioning a cutting disc within the inner shaft element. The inner shaft element is operably connected to a hand operated crank shaft which may be inserted and removed from the inner shaft element. A control mechanism for controlling the depth of a cut stroke of the inner shaft element is secured to the inner shaft element, and a handle is secured to the inner shaft element. The first disc element and the cutting disc may be provided in various configurations and cutting styles, such as discs having a plurality of spaced apertures, various grate configurations, spaced cutting edges, cones, squares, and the like.