There's a lot of intelligent design in this seemingly simple, inexpensive camping utensil. The designers of the Switch Spork, by veteran outdoor products company UCO, reasoned that forks and knives are often used together, but not spoons and knives. Thus they've collapsed three utensils down to two by making the knife and spoon one unit.

The objects nest for storage, locking together via a snap fit between the embossed holes.

You can also reverse one unit and snap them together, creating an extra-long utensil for cooking or eating out of deeper vessels.

A nice touch: The radius of the spoon matches the radius of UCO's Mess Bowls. (Sharp-eyed readers will note that the spoon in the photo below is actually different—that's UCO's more basic Utility Spork—but the relevant radii are the same.)

The snap-fit hole can also be used to bungie the Switch Spork to the company's Mess Bowls.

I'd prefer the thing were made of metal, but then the snap fit wouldn't work, and with camping there are weight issues. UCO's gone with glass-filled nylon for the Switch Spork, which they say is plenty strong and comes in at just under an ounce for the whole thing.

The Switch Sporks run just $8.