New Food Storage Tools That Suck!!!

Fight inflation by keeping perishable foods fresh longer!

We’ve all become acutely aware of rising prices over the last couple of years, the cost of groceries especially, that impacts all of us on a daily basis. With that in mind, there is greater urgency to avoid wasting food due to spoilage and we’ve discovered some game-changing improvements to food storage products and techniques.

When it Comes to Food Storage, Air (Oxygen) is the Enemy!

Most of us have a pantry cupboard filled with an odd variety of plastic containers and their attendant lids, none of which are interchangeable and often it seems, some lids seem to disappear into the same parallel universe that socks do!

While these containers are handy and do a reasonalbe job of keeping foods fresh, they are far from ideal. The lids (if you can find the one that matches the container!) do not seal well enough and over time, the plastic becomes brittle so keeping a good seal is no longer possible and they often crack but the biggest problem is that you can’t get the air out, which is the source of all food spoilage.

Glass Makes a Comeback!

With the popularity of the Foodsaver® vacuum-sealer, a number of copycat vacuum-sealers have appeared along with some amazingly clever systems to make your plastic storage containers (mostly) obsolete!

We’ve all used canning jars for a wide range of uses, the advantages of glass being they can be fully cleaned in the dishwasher without deforming and breaking down like plastic and can be reused indefinitely with new lids and bands, but they have many of the same drawbacks as plastic containers in terms of only being able to preserve food for more than a few days…

Until now…

(Note: We are not making any particular brand recommendations here as there literally dozens of companies offering the same or similar products for sale online.)

These new “systems” consist of three simple components. The first is a hand-vacuum pump with a flexible tube and fitting along with two different sized jar sealers for wide-mouth jars and standard canning jars.

The process couldn’t be simpler. Place the food you want to store into the jar and place the lid on top (without the band! Just the lid!). Make sure the rim of the jar is clean or you won’t get a seal!

Next, place the jar sealer over the jar with the lid only on it, seat it firmly and attach the fitting at the end of the hose of the vacuum hand pump, to the opening in the jar sealer. (Note: While they are not fully standardized, many of these fittings work with the Foodsaver® standard, which is a simple press-fit opening approximately 1/4-inch diameter.)

After attaching the tube, begin pumping the vacuum pump. You may hear the lid “pop” and you may not but you “should” begin to feel resistance after 4-5 pumps, meaning you have attained a vacuum seal. Remove the vacuum pump fitting from the top of the sealer, which breaks the vacuum seal, but the rubber seal in the jar lid will allow the vaccum inside the jar to remain. You will be able to simply lift the sealer off the jar but you “should” discover that the lid of the jar is very firmly attached to the jar and cannot be easily removed. If the lid comes off easily, then you didn’t get a vacuum seal established. This is possible for two reasons:

1. There is food debris on the rim of the jar.

2. The rubber ring on the lid is old or deformed and cannot establish a vacuum seal.

The vendors that offer these Vacuum-Sealers for standard canning jars also often supply a set of new lids, (but not bands) plus a snap-opener to help remove the lids when tightly sealed.

The Benefits of Jar Sealers

There are a number of benefits of these new vacuum jar sealers, the main being that food that you previously put in a plastic container that only stayed fresh for a few days will now remain fresh for weeks, if not longer! With most of the air (Oxygen) sucked out, microbes and mold spores are also sucked out in the process and any that remain often die due to the vacuum effect and lack of Oxygen.

As you can see in the photo, we roasted Fresh Green Chiles, (purchased from Scotts Valley Market of course!), then blistered and chopped the Chiles and placed them into the jar and vacuum sealed it. The Green Chiles in the jar lasted for months!

This allows for buying Produce in bulk during the peak season and then storing using vacuum sealing.

(Note: While this is a huge advantage in keeping food fresher longer, the jars must remain refrigerated!)

VacuumSeal Containers

But wait! There’s more! The success of Vacuum-sealing perishable foods started by Foodsaver® not only engendered the development of the canning jar vacuum sealers, there are now plastic containers that are designed to be vacuum-sealed! These new containers are considerably more expensive than typical plastic containers for a number of reasons:

1. They must be structurally sturdier to withstand the stress of a vacuum.

2. The lids come with valves that allow the vacuum to be released.

They also come with visible Silicone seal indicators that stick up but invert when a vacuum seal has been established.

As you can see here, we’ve broken down a Rotisserie Chicken and placed it into the Vacuum-Sealed container. While it would be possible to do the same thing with a jar and Vacuum-Lid Sealer, there are some foods where a dedicated container is preferable.

This might be a good time to clear out that pantry of all those funky plastic containers, stock up on good ol’ Glass canning jars, (they come in sizes from half-pint to half-gallon!) and maybe a few dedicated heavy-duty vacuum-seal containers! You’ll not only have a cleaner, less cluttered pantry but you’ll have fresh-tasting foods, (even after week!) and you won’t be throwing out food from spoilage!