Your Guide to Vacuum Sealing

When it comes to cutting down on food waste, your first port of call should be a FoodSaver Vacuum Sealer. A great solution to preserving your food the right way, a Vacuum Sealer has so many great advantages, including that it’s better for both the environment and our budgets. In a recent study, it was discovered that Australians throw out the equivalent of around 1 in 5 bags of groceries. That’s a lot of waste, around $2,500 per household every year.

But never fear! There’s a simple way to keep food from ending up in the garbage: better storage. If you’re not storing food properly, this will cause it to expire more quickly, so better storage equals a longer shelf life.

Vacuum sealing your groceries allows you to take food storage to the next level. No matter your grocery buying habits, or how you prepare your food; this food preservation technique can help your food last longer.

What Is Vacuum Sealing?

A simple explanation is that vacuum sealing removes oxygen from bags or containers, this creates an airtight seal that protects food from freezer burn and bacteria growth by keeping air and moisture out. By limiting exposure to oxygen, which causes food to spoil more quickly, vacuum sealing helps not only extend your foods shelf life, but also its and nutritional value, so you can enjoy fresher tasting, more nutritional food for longer.

Advantages of Vacuum Sealing

Each person might have a different reason for wanting to vacuum seal their food, but here are some of the main advantages:

• Save Food: Vacuum sealing is one of the easiest ways to preserve food. By vacuum sealing both cooked and uncooked food, you’re helping to maintain its peak taste, colour, nutritional value and texture. It’s also a great option to preserve seasonal fruits and veg - your future self will be thankful to find vacuum sealed summer berries or peaches come winter.
  
  
• Save Money: Buying in bulk and buying on special is an easy way to stretch your dollars, but you need a way to keep highly perishable items from spoiling. The vacuum sealer can preserve portions you aren’t using right away, including pantry staples like flour and sugar or snacks such as biscuits, chips and nuts. Bulk buying also means fewer trips to the grocery store and less money spent on transportation, which saved you both time and money.
  
  
• Save Time: Meal prepping is a great way of saving both time and money. A great feature of vacuum sealing is that is allows you to marinate more quickly, a feature that will come in especially handy on days when you forget to do it in advance, and easily prep food for sous vide cooking.

FoodSaver Controlled Multi-Seal Vacuum Sealer

What Foods Can I Vacuum Seal?

With so many foods that can be vacuum sealed, it’s much easier to list the things that can’t: soft cheese, bananas, mushrooms, whole apples, raw onions and garlic, cabbages and lettuce, and freshly cooked veggies—once they’re cooled.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some vegetables, like cucumbers and potatoes, don’t retain their texture well after defrosting so they aren’t ideal for sealing and freezing, and avoid putting hot food immediately in the fridge as it can increase the temperature inside.

How Long Does Vacuum Sealed Food Last?

This will differ between items, but vacuum sealing with a FoodSaver® machine can keep food fresh up to 5x longer compared to ordinary storage methods. This applies to foods that go into your freezer, fridge, or pantry. For example, when vacuum sealed, beef and poultry can be frozen for up to three years, hard cheese can keep for up to eight months in the fridge, and baking essentials such as flour and sugar are good for up to two years.

What Tools Do I Need to Vacuum Seal?

Here’s a short breakdown of what supplies you need to start you on your vacuum sealing journey:

• Benchtop vs Handheld Vacuum Sealers:There are two main types of sealers: benchtop and handheld. Benchtop vacuum sealers generally have more functionality, while Handheld sealers are perfect if you just want to seal reusable containers and zipper bags, and are appealing due to their small size and cordless, portable nature. Most good Benchtop vacuum sealers now come with a handheld sealer hose so they can also seal containers and zipper bags.
  
  
• Bags vs Rolls: Vacuum seal bags are already pre-cut and some also come with a zipper functionality, while a roll allows you to create your own custom sizes. But no matter what type you get, there are a few important characteristics to look out for: they should be BPA free, durable, freezable, and microwave-safe. Thankfully our FoodSaver bags and rolls are all four! There are also specialty bags that help make sealing even easier, such as expandable bags, which are handy for bulky items.
  
  
• Containers: Vacuum containers are a great reusable option to keep your food fresh. They are ideal for foods that you like to access often such as soups or for delicate foods that can squash such as salads and fruit.