FoodSaver Bags: Not Just for Saving Food

The FoodSaver® System is one of the most useful tools in my kitchen when it comes to keeping food fresh. The handy vacuum sealer is excellent when it comes to helping me preserve everything from meat to cookie dough for long term storage, but that isn’t the only thing that it can be used for despite the fact that it is in its name! The things that make the FoodSaver® System so versatile are the bags. The high-quality bags are exceptionally strong and BPA free. When you compare them to other plastic bags you might have in your kitchen, it is easy to feel how much stronger and more durable they are. When combined with the vacuum, you have a bag that can literally hold anything – and do a better job of it than your average sealable bag.

You can buy bags in various sizes for the FoodSaver® System, as well as FoodSaver® Heat-Seal Rolls that will allow you to custom-make bags in any size you might need. The pre-sized bags are available in standard sizes like pint, quart and gallon, while the rolls come in different lengths to give you even more flexibility. I use the pre-sized bags when I have them on hand, but I must admit that I prefer to make my own bags from the rolls so that I can customize their size and make sure my bags are exactly the size I need.

And it turns out that I need a whole lot of bags.

So, besides food, what kinds of things can you store in a FoodSaver® bag? Almost anything. In the kitchen, I not only store foods that I want to keep fresh, but I store things that I only need seasonally – even if they’re not foods! For instance, I will stash all of my holiday cookie cutters in a large, custom-made bag and seal them up, then store them out in the garage with my other holiday decorations. Sealing up the cookie cutters keeps them clean, so when the next holiday season rolls around, I can simply cut the bag open and be ready to bake in seconds. The FoodSaver® bags can be reused when you are storing non-food items in them, so I will place the cutters back into the same bag and seal it up again for the next year.

In addition to cookie cutters, this is a convenient way to store other holiday decorations, from containers of the colorful sprinkles that you might use to top off your freshly decorated cookies to strings of colorful lights that you wrap around your Christmas tree. These seasonal items, like the cookie cutters, don’t necessarily need to be kept “fresh,” however I find that vacuum sealing them holds them together neatly and efficiently so that they take up less space wherever they are stored.

Outside of the kitchen, I use my FoodSaver® System for all kinds of other things. One of my favorite tricks is to bag up my toiletries for traveling. Sealing small bottles of shampoo and conditioner ensures that they won’t leak out after I pack them up and preparing the package in advance means that I can just grab it and go without worrying that I’m forgetting a vital container of body wash. The vacuum sealed package is also easier to pack, since I don’t need to worry about crushing it under my favorite shoes in my suitcase.

I’ve also put the FoodSaver® bags to work in my garage, sealing up screws, nails and other pointy objects that tend to poke holes (and my fingers) through weaker bags. Since I don’t typically need those nails on a daily basis (only when I’m working on weekend DIY projects), I simply snip open the bag and seal it back up with the FoodSaver® System for the next time. I also make sure to label all my bags with a permanent marker so I know exactly what is inside each one before I cut it open. There are an almost unlimited number of uses for the bags besides the few I’ve mentioned here. The FoodSaver® System’s utility in the kitchen is obvious, but once you start to realize how handy it can be outside of the kitchen, you’ll find that it is a useful tool throughout  a useful tool throughout your house and all year long.

Now for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card, what other ways do you think the FoodSaver® System can work for you? Leave your answer in the comments below.

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