I use my food saver every day and often several times in one day. On what, you ask? Oh, just about everything. I buy bulk cheese at Costco or gourmet cheese at Trader Joe's. Then I put it into smaller Food Saver bags, seal it, and rest assured knowing that is going to stay fresh a lot longer. Same with lunch meats. After spending that much money, you don't want it going bad on you.
This summer I froze a ton of fruit on trays and then popped them into a food saver bag. I even bagged a few vegetables this way. Nuts, grains, larger packages of meats that needed to be split. The list goes on and on. Some goes in the freezer, some in the refrigerator, but some just goes on the pantry shelf.
With each Food Saver, you need to use a special roll of bag material (no substituting - it's specially made to suction out the air). The bags must be sealed on one end first, then filled, and sealed a second time to remove the air and close it. I admit the bags seem a bit expensive, so you can be sure that I try to measure each bag correctly so I'm not wasting any. But, over all, I haven't noticed that I'm spending any more than I did on zip lock bags. And if you don't get the bag too dirty, you can wash it out and reuse it on a smaller item.
Now if that is all the Food Saver did, it would still be a pretty good buy. But it does so much more! Later, I purchased the meat marinating container. It really does the job and in so much less time! It's amazing how easy it is to use and how well it works.
This summer I purchased additional products - the Jar Sealers. These come in two sizes to fit your wide mouth and regular canning jars. Just place the Jar Sealer over your lid without the ring, hook it up to the Food Saver and suck all that air out that causes the food to spoil quickly.
You do need to know that this is not a substitute for regular canning, but it does work great for dried foods, nuts, chips, and similar foods. You can see in the photo below so of my own items packed in canning jars which were sealed with the Food Saver.
I purchased my appliance at Costco, but you can purchase it directly from the manufacturer. Both places often have a special package where you can get some additional items together with the Food Saver. However, I should tell you that I found the Food Saver Canisters a waste of money. They take up a lot of space and the lids were a pain to clean. That's why I like to Jar Savers so much.
Speaking of jars, glass, baggies, etc... I know there is a lot of concern about storing food in plastic. I take that seriously. I've ditched a lot of plastic ware when it wore out and replaced it with nice glass storage ware. But not everything can go into these containers. Especially in the freezer cause it takes up too much room. Personally, I think the cold temperatures help slow some of leeching into the food, so I feel like it is a fairly safe trade-off. Most of the room temperature stuff is stored in glass jars.
There are several other attachments available such as a wine bottle sealer which I haven't tried (I have a manual one that does the same thing just by pumping). A new item they sell is a hand held baggie sealer. If you don't want the big machine and only need it for small items, this might work well for you. Either way, their products are as good as they say. That's nice to know in this day of wild product claims!
