Food Saver Review
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Food Saver Review
Oh my food saver, how do I love thee. Let me count the ways.
What is a Food Saver?
Food savers are a brand of vacuum sealer. They are designed to store food in plastic bags by putting the food in a special bag, vacuuming out all the oxygen, and then using heat to seal the end. There are attachments to use on all sorts of other things, like special jars or Tupperware.
The advantage of a vacuum sealer over a zip lock bag or tupperware is that a vacuum sealer can get all of the air out, and usually help to prevent things like freezer burn, extending the lifespan of stored foods.
This is a review of what they are generally, how they are used, and the one in particular that I own. If you know what one is, skip to the actual review part near the end.
What Can You Do with a Food Saver?
Storing food for a start. Steak that you buy on discount, seal up and stick in your chest freezer, pork chops, tofu, cheese, soups, all sorts of stuff. Marinating meat or vegetables is one of my personal favorite uses- it does not take as much marinade, and it penetrates more quickly and more thoroughly, leading to less preperation effort.
Not all models can seal a bag of liquid without making a huge mess, but those that can are incredibly useful. All of them, so far as I am aware, are able to seal up marinades without creating a mess.
When I was in college, I would make my own trail mix- buy ingredients in bulk, mix them on my own, and have a serving size snack bag for when I wanted something to eat while I studied. It was quite a hit with my friends and/or study buddies (or my current girlfriend) , and meant that I could pack a bunch of portions of whatever shelf stable foods between semesters when I actually had time to do it, which saved me a lot of time during school.
In addition to food, there are a lot of items that can benefit from being in a low oxygen environment and moisture resistant container.
For anyone who has ever gone on a hike and gotten soaked, it is incredibly wonderful to change into dry socks and stop the rubbing and blister forming. Keep a few hand warmers in with your spare socks, and you can warm them up afterwards, since at that point your boots are usually pretty soggy as well.
When you are miserable and soaked, while rain is pouring sideways and you are pretty sure that you saw someone gathering animals two by two and herding them into an ark of gopher wood, clean, dry underwear that you pull out of a vacuum-sealed bag is a morale booster that almost cannot be beat. Hot chocolate comes close, but hot chocolate while your clothing is soaked is nowhere near as nice.
Keeping medication in a water resistant container that you can open in case of emergency is great if you have something that might degrade in a high moisture environment.
One of the other advantages of vacuum sealed clothing is that it packs down nice and tight- it actually takes quite a bit less space than normally packed clothing, even if you roll it nice and tight like pilots do. I personally am a fan of the extra space in my bag when I am heading somewhere.
Lastly, but absolutely not least, a vacuum sealer is a convenient way to package stuff so that you can tell it will be safe until it has been opened, and it is generally fairly easy to tell that it has been opened.
Pros and Cons of this Food Saver Model. (ACTUAL REVIEW PART)
The exact model that I own is the V4840 bag sealer. Honestly, I bought it because it was on a screaming good sale, and had great reviews. I had not realized how nice it would really be until I got one.
Pros-
My particular machine can be used by a well-trained 8-year-old. I know, because it has been done. The only parts of it that are really potentially dangerous are the blade used to trim bags, and the heating element and both of those are hidden behind safety features.
The entire procedure for sealing up a bag of trail mix is feed empty end of mostly filled bag into the machine, press the power button, let the bag empty of air, press the “seal” button, give it a couple of seconds as it does its thing, and pull the end of the bag out. Done. It even has a progress bar so you can tell what is happening. Over all, I have been very pleased with ease of operation, especially compared to the older models of other brands that I have used before.
Fit and finish on the machine is excellent, and it has held up well over time. There are no little bits that stick (unless I have spilled something on it) and I have not had to sand down anything, remake on it, 3D print a part so that it will fit correctly etc- despite extensive use over time and exploring various features.
Durability has been high- I have at least one friend who has bought a new vacuum sealer every two years for the last decade, and uses theirs about as much as I do. They are convinced that purchasing the cheapest possible machine will save them money, but when the vacuum pump goes out, or the seals fail, or the heating element burns out, it becomes a paperweight and they order another one.
In all seriousness, I have probably sealed up three to five thousand bags with my machine, possibly more, and it has held up wonderfully.
The feature set of my particular machine has been very nice.
As mentioned, I can seal up bags of liquid- if needed, I could literally store water in bags with it. It has a small tray to catch liquid spill in rather than having it splash over the interior of the machine. It even automatically detects what kind of load is being sealed, so no fiddling with settings.
Instead of being limited to using pre-made bags of mylar or specialized plastic, I prefer to use rolls of material that my machine can cut, seal one end of allowing me to make custom size bags for all sorts of things- I once sealed up a pillow so that I could ship it more easily, which was a lot cheaper than usign a full size shipping box.
The machine is large enough that it can use the larger (wider) size bags and rolls that are available, but has not had an issue packing the smaller size ones.
There are a lot of other features- things like a quick marinade setting, a light to tell you it needs cleaning to maintain effectiveness, and a mason jar sealer (you have to buy an accessory to use that feature).
Cons-
The price on this one is a little steep. I got my machine a number of years ago for less than a hundred dollars, but the price at time of writing is right around $200 USD, and I am not sure when or if it will be on sale to compensate for it.
More baseline machines can be had for much less money- the cheapest one I could find on amazon at time of writing was right around $50 USD, and the only feature that I use that it is missing is the ability to store soup in vacuum sealed pouches.
There are similar machines from other companies for less money, but generally the quality is not as good from what I can tell. I have not tried any of them.
The size on this beast is kinda large. This is not a tabletop commercial machine by any means, but it is a relatively large machine, just to fit things like being able to use the large size rolls. My particular vacuum sealer is large enough that I had trouble finding space underneath my counters for it.
Cleaning it is a real pain. Thankfully, it only takes cleaning every great once in a while, but I have found that cleaning it is a notable chore. If you are only sealing up dry goods, it is not as much of an issue, but still happens every once in a while.
Lastly, every so often, it overheats. And then you are stuck waiting while the machine cools down so that you can continue working, while your food sits out waiting for you. This is especially prone to happen if you are making a bunch of bags to store things in, such as (for example) if you are making a bunch of pre measured bags of trail mix.
Vacuum sealers are amazing, and if you have the scratch, I recommend it.
This machine in particular has served me well, and as far as I can tell, has done a good job in comparison to other (cheap) brands. Even within the same brand, I have been pleased with the features of this model in comparison.