Food Saver/Sealers

[Roseofsharon]

 

I am not sure if I am calling this by the right name ...but my son is thinking of getting us a food saver- sealer or whatever for Christmas.

 

Can anyone tell me about them ?

 

At Walmart they have 3 kinds -one brand- Rival is about $38- then one by Black and Decker for $58

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=2299660

and one is Food Saver for $98

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4228524

there is a pretty big price difference -does anyone know will the cheaper ones do the same job? I am leaning toward the Black-n-Decker - probably because of price.

I have seen a few on line - most around $100 (edited to say and way up)

Do these really preserve your food 5 times as long like they say they do?

I really do not know anything about these -can anyone help?

[Bamboo]

I have the Food Saver brand and I love it. We use it very often, every day or so to seal something. I would recommend getting the best you can, especially if you plan on using it often. As far as the bags go, I usually buy the cheapest (walmart has their own brand) and they work just fine.

[ricardo]

I also have the Food Saver brand too. I got mine at

Walmart and I also get my bags there too.

[Leia]

We have a foodsaver also....have had it for probably at least 5 years.

 

One thing you have to watch when picking out....considerable price differences are sometimes due to the fact that some of the units just SEAL, they don't vaccuum out the air. So make sure you pick one that sucks out the air too. The foodsavers that run around 100.00+ usually also have a hose attachment that will vaccuum seal jars. It is a great attachment to have if you store alot of stuff in jars. Usually it comes with a large-mouth jar sealer....then you have to order the regular-mouthed one (but well-worth it!).

 

I buy the Black and Decker bags now...they are about 2.00 less per roll and work just as good. Only thing I don't like about them is that they are harder to clean if you want to reuse them. That's my opinion

 

I love, love, love my foodsaver (did I mention that I love it??? LOL!) What's nice is you can use it to seal many bags from the store (like if oyu buy cereal/chips/things like that) you can re-seal the bag and keep them fresh.

 

I keep all my spices in small canning jars, and I use it to seal those. I use it for freezing, for marinating (greatly cuts marinating time), for resealing, you name it.

 

If you get one, find a place to sit it where you can have it plugged in at all times. You will use it much, much more if you don't have to drag it out and plug it in every time you want to use it.

 

Good luck!!

Shawna

[SueC]

There's a Yahoo Group spefically about vacuum food sealers that you may find useful.

 

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FoodSaver/

 

The high end Rivals (Magic Vacs) are very good home vacuum sealers, maybe the best on the market. But they're typically more than $200, maybe $300. I'm not familiar enough with the lesser models to say much about them. Do make sure whatever you're looking at actually vacuum seals rather than simply seals bags.

 

I myself have a Tilia (now Jarden) 750 that does the job for me. I don't seal many bags and when I do I prefer the real FoodSaver bags though from what I've read the Rival bags may be better. I've tried the B&D bags, but I don't care for them as much though they are cheaper.

 

What really makes these things valuable to me is the accessory port that allows the use of a canning jar sealer adapter. This has become an integral part of my food storage program as I have umpteen dozen half-gallon, quart, and smaller sized jars full of vacuum sealed foods in my storage cabinets. I wouldn't buy a vacuum sealer without an accessory port.

 

I'm not very taken with the Black & Decker sealers. They do work, they seem to be reliable, but my experience with them is that I don't think they draw as much vacuum as the FoodSavers and Regals.

 

If you think you won't be using it for bag sealing you can order a handheld FoodSaver that only contains the accessory port for about $40.00. This allows you to seal jars, canisters, and so on. I intend to get one of these myself so I won't have to keep taking the larger FoodSaver down off the shelf when I want to use it. My kitchen counter real estate is too valuable to leave it out all the time.

 

.....Alan.

[Guest Guest]

"My kitchen counter real estate is too valuable to leave it out all the time."

 

I sure can relate to that...lol

 

I've come to the conclusion that I just have too MUCH stuff...the only problem is that all the STUFF in my kitchen are things I use so I can't see parting with anything.

 

I have the food saver vacuum sealer, in fact I have 2 of them. One that is about 5 years old and one I just bought a month or two ago that has alot of the newer bells and whistles on it. I've never used the canning jar sealer attachment, but am going to pull that out to see what it's all about since alot of people have commented on it. I just cleaned out the freezer in my kitchen today and threw out alot of meat that I had not vacuum sealed that was anywhere from 4 months to 1 year old and it was all ruined by freezer burn. The stuff that I have vacuum sealed still looks awesome and I'm sick of throwing things away because I either forgot about the sealer or was too lazy to do it at the time.

 

Look at it as an investment that will preserve your foods for a longer period of time. Probably what I threw out today woulda paid for a brand new one and that's just ridiculous.

 

Thanks for the link, Alan...I'm gonna go check it out and see what new ideas and/or tips they might be sharing over there!

 

[Roseofsharon]

I just found these responses- Thanks!!! DS got me the Black & Decker for Christmas (Mom w/ eyes in back of head) but I guess I could return it and upgrade if I need to. I will check out the web site above- thanks- We do store a lot of meat as all here hunt - a lot- and I do have lots of freezer burnt meat to get rid of every year -And I was just thinking of sealing bulk goods like wheat.