Anyone here use a FoodSaver System? We have had one for years and find it so useful. We can buy big blocks of cheese then cut it into one-use smaller blocks, suck the air out of the FoodSaver bag, and store them in the fridge until needed without worry of mold or drying out. My wife also cooks big roasts which we have for one meal, then slice the remainder up, place in meal-size bags, vacuum and seal. These keep indefinitely in the freezer without freezer burn and taste like fresh roast after thawed and warmed. When she makes beans for chili beans, she cooks up a big pot, then labels meal-size portions into plastic pans and freezes. After they are frozen, she then seals each pan in a vacuum bag and stores in the freezer until she needs beans for a recipe or a meal. One time she found a really good buy on quality spices at Costco, brought them home and vacuum-sealed the large quantitys in vacuum-sealed bags to keep them fresh until needed to refill small containers. There is just the two of us but we have a 21 cu. ft. upright freezer in the mud room that we keep crammed with meats that we buy every 6 weeks or so at Costco, sale items of all sorts of bakery items and other foods, even cartons of milk that we buy once a week. Fresh vegitables can be frozen and vacuum-sealed to stay fresh without freezer burn. We freeze a lot of things rather than canning them because it's so much easier and fresh food tastes better than canned food.
I have not used one all though I think I would like to get one to help save on food, we do freeze food but it gets freezer burned. People that have gardens use Foodsavers or canning to keep all of the food that they harvest from their gardens.
I was looking into one of these systems, because I would like to start buying more items, such as meat, in bulk and saving it for later use, but when I priced out the FoodSaver system, it seemed rather expensive and would more than eat up whatever savings I was getting from buying food in bulk. Those bags are really expensive. When I priced them out at my local stores they were nearly $1 per foot! If I were to buy a huge cut of beef, and cut it up into 10 or so steaks, I would blow nearly $5-$10 on the foodsaver bags to seal them all up. Am I missing something here? I did see some less expensive systems at Wal-Mart though, and their bags cost about half of what the FoodSaver brand ones do so I may start exploring that route.
Yes, the bags are expensive but are re-usable so you can re-use the same bag over and over again. When cutting the bag off the roll, make it 6" longer than what you need and after vacuming the interior, seal near the end. Store the emptied bag in the freezer until it is needed again to keep it reasonably sterile. You can reuse the bag again and again until it is too short to use. Before you start, slice the meat into the portions you need, then freeze the meat solid before putting into the FoodSaver bags so that you don't smear blood and juices all over the bag. Same idea when you take the meat out of the freezer, remove it from the bag before defrosting to keep the bags clean. All of the other brands we have seen are less expensive and don't work very well. We see them at yard sales all the time because the owners were disappointed in their performance. Essentially, you get what you pay for. We bought our FoodSaver at WalMart two years ago for $139. We sometimes buy the bags ther but usually buy the rolls at Costco.
We have a vacuum sealer system that I actually purchased from a yard sale for $10 about a year ago -- works great. I have to say this is one of the things in my kitchen that saves me the most money. It keeps my meats from freezer burn and it allows me to put up certain leftovers for use later so that we don't have to eat it constantly until it's gone. I can also make certain dishes in advance and freeze them. This works especially well for sauces and soups as it lets me cook when I have extra time (I have a newborn at home) and then I can freeze them and use them later when I'm ready. One of the best small appliances that I own.
The Foodsaver is absolutely a great investment and something that really can save hundreds of dollars by not wasting food. I mainly vacuum seal the meat that I buy and it's just as fresh as they day I bought when I open it. The fact I can stock up when there are good sales on meat really is a great benefit to have when trying to shop on a budget. My parents told me about a trick they do of actually vacuum sealing left-over spaghetti sauce and it's actually just as good as they day you made it. There's just so many things you can do to save money with the vacuum sealer. It really is something that every household should have.
