?? About Food Savers/Sealers

[barbeml]

I am considering getting one of those vacuum seal food saver systems. DMIL just got a Tilia, which seems to be the more expensive of the brands.

Anyone have any advice/experience with these things? I think I would be able to fit a whole lot more in my freezer if I used one of these.

Thanks!

 

[virginiamama]

Just subscribing - I'm interested in any info/opinions too.

 

[NicRI]

I love my food saver.... we have an older model ( by Tilia)... in the begining, you try to seal every thing... it kind of wears off after a while. Use it for camping as well. Prepackage our own food, rather than buy pre packaged stuff. I even used it to premeasure dry formula, just wrote directions on package.... worked great for my mom when she would babysit.

Bags are a bit expensive... I tend not to reuse if bag had raw meat. I didn't feel I could get the water hot enough to kill germs.

Now that I think about it.... I'm out of bags...

Hope this helps...

 

[cseca]

I've always wanted one and saw an ad at Kohls for them during BF.
I bought the littlest one from foodsaver. Didn't work so well, had to return it...
It would seal one time and not another time. I put the same amt of pressure while sealing it too, so i know it's not me.
Anyways,
The bags are expensive just the other poster said.
If it had worked well I would've kept it, maybe the bigger model will work better?

 

[SueM in MN]

Our biggest use is resealing things.
You can reseal plastic bags that frozen fruits and vegetables come in.
We use it A LOT fro resealing things like chips and snacks. It keeps them fresh and (even better) you are less tempted just to have a few since it means cutting the top off the bag and then resealing it.

We only wash and re-use bags occasionally and not for anything raw that you don't eat raw (like I would re-use for fruits and vegetables, but never for meat). Re-using bags also means have a place to store them and then finding the right size bag for what you are putting in. We found it easier to just throw the bags away.

 

[Mom2Ashli]

I just got DH one for Christmas. I think it was the FoodSaver brand. That was the only thing he asked for. He came with the canister that you can suck the air out of.

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

We've mostly used our Tilia Food Saver for sealing bulk cuts of meat like pork chops and ground beef. Early on we would reseal the potato chips and crackers, but the novelty wore off and we are in the bag of potato chips too often to warrant resealing. Recently I bought stick butter and only used a portion of it. I sealed the reaminder in a bag rather than use a zipper bag or other plastic container. I've also used it for Cracker Barrel cheese that has been opened. I dislike any packaging that can't be closed once opened, so it's handy for that. I buy the quart size bags at WalMart. I forget how many are in the box, but it costs about $10.

 

[flagdaytwins]

I like my Foodsaver also. If you do get one, get one with a manual sealer on it (perhaps they all have them by now). Then you can buy a ROLL of bags and make your own sized bags, which is good for non-food items like clothing and such.

Just FYI, Foodsaver does not recommend re-using any bag that contained a meat/poultry, etc. product. It also does not recommend re-using a bag more than 1 or 2 times I think, especially if the bag is heated (soup). I guess they don't guarantee a seal on re-used bags.

If you do get a Foodsaver, and you vacuum pack foods, always check a few hours/day later to make sure the seal took. Many times I've sealed things, stowed them away, only to find I didn't seal the bag right.

I use mine alot for homemade soups.

 

[barbeml]

Thanks for all the info!