When you screw the top off of a jar of spice, you'll usually find a plastic shaker cap with holes in it, and you’ve likely never thought much about it. However, that sifting cap is more a hindrance to your cooking than a help, since they mess with your ability to measure out the spices in recipes where quantities are important.

Very few recipes call for a "shake" of a spice — you're more likely to see teaspoons and tablespoons. Even terms like "pinch," "smidgen," "dollop," and "dash" are specific about how you should add the spice to your food, and a shaker cap makes it impossible to scoop out spoonfuls or take small pinches of spices.

Even jars of bay leaves from the supermarket often have a shaker top that the leaves themselves can't fit through, showing that the decision to put these tops on spices is merely industrial and not at all necessary or practical. Get rid of those shaker caps and actually measure out your spices instead.