I don’t know what the technical term is. Just about anything bottled has an aluminum-like cover stuck underneath the bottle cap, right? Anything from milk to motor oil to aspirin seems to have these.
These days, there’s usually just enough to seal the opening, but they used to have a little extra piece of this seal that folded down over the side to make it easier to peel it off. Where has this gone? Nothing seems to have it any more and it is a pain to have to dig out a knife–or dig with my fingernails–anytime I want to get into something.
Maybe without the tab the security is better? With the tab you could peel back just enough of the seal to either add something, or take something away or otherwise jeopardize the freshness of the contents.
As you mentioned, without the tab you need to dig into the seal and it’s obvious it’s been breached.
Here in Pittsburgh, milk in plastic bottles comes with a plastic cap that twists off to break its seal (like plastic soda bottles), and doesn’t have an inner cover. I can’t speak to motor oil or aspirin, but most over the counter drugs I get that have foil seals have never had pull tabs. Puncturing the foil is the best way to get the very tight foil seal off.
Other products with seals, like juice, continue to have small pull tabs at the sides, or similar mechanisms. So some have the tabs, some don’t (mostly drugs), but I haven’t observed any general change in which products have them.
Maybe you’re buying all some particular store brand and they’ve cut back? Maybe you could mention particular products that you think have changed, so people can check your memory that they used to be different.
Well, the five-quart jug of Castrol Edge oil I just bought, for one, jugs of windshield washer fluid, I think Oakhurst milk (not the gallons or quarts, but the small bottles). And I think the last bottle of ketchup I bought (either Heinz or Hunts, can’t remember right now) as well. All were missing the little tab.
Sometimes there’s a clear plastic circle glued to the top of the seal, well half of it is glued/attached and the other semi-circle is free to grasp and help with the seal removal.
I have no idea if they still use them, but Russian vodka bottles used to have just a pull tab, which meant that once opened you had to empty it in one session.
Blast the 5 minute edit limit!
To put this back on track, I have been missing those tabs of late myself. I’m annoyed at products that don’t use them although I can’t recall if they had before. Worse, the aluminum covers seem to be more resistant to tearing. Where once it was purely foil, now it seems to be a stretchy foil/plastic hybrid. Curses to advances in modern technology!
On medicine, not so much. Either there’s the (near useless) plastic thing glued to the foil, or you need to grab a knife to cut the foil open. (Well, I suppose you could use your fingernail if they’re not chewed to uselessness like mine.)