Everyone wants to save time and money, and you will, but do you know the most important benefits of vacuum sealing food? Hint: it’s all about helping you eat healthier!
Sadly enough, the American food supply isn’t what it used to be. What is profitable for the food industry can involve end results that may be harmful to consumers. New warnings come out all the time about additives, chemicals, pesticides, dyes, steroids, hormones, antibiotics, GMO plant and meat products, or food recalls. Concerns abound about how food is grown, shipped, manufactured, processed and stored.
The best way to eat healthier is to choose food in its purest form, and to cook it yourself. The problem with that usually boils down to two issues, time and money. The good news is that using a vacuum sealer can help with that and with a whole lot more!
The First 3 Benefits of Vacuum Sealing Food
Make healthy eating cheaper and easier!
1. Eat Well on a Budget
These days the price of fresh produce is very high. Organic is even more expensive. How many times have you hesitated in the grocery store debating whether to splurge on organic, settle for fresh but non-organic, or cheap it and go for the canned stuff with all the additives you can’t even pronounce?
Making the healthiest choice is much more affordable when you can buy in bulk while produce is in season or take advantage of sales. Vacuum sealing keeps foods fresh much longer, so you can stock up without worrying that your great buy will spoil before it’s all used.
Vacuum sealing is excellent for all kinds of meal prep. Smoothie lovers can buy a variety of fresh fruits to cut up, divide into individual portion sizes, and then seal in vacuum bags and freeze for later. If you’re into juicing, think how much you could potentially save on fresh veggies.
2. Eliminate Less-Than-Healthy Temptations
The worst eating choices we make are usually because we’re in a hurry. Whether you’re working in the corporate world, home raising small children, or enjoying the retirement that you thought would give you endless hours of free time, when does your day ever go as planned? Those are the days when it’s so easy to abandon healthy eating and just pick up fast food, but you don’t have to resort to that.
If you’re really committed to eating healthier, it helps a lot to get in the habit of planning ahead. Think about the meals for the coming week, shop accordingly, and try to devote some time to advance meal prep. This is not another “chore” on your to-do list. You can find ways to make it enjoyable!
A weekend afternoon might be a great time to put on your favorite music and have a little cooking spree in the kitchen. On nice summer evenings you could fire up the grill and enjoy sitting outside while you cook a big batch of boneless chicken breasts. With a vacuum sealer, you can package up those meals so they’re ready to pull out of the freezer and eat, as quick as “fast food” but much better for you.
3. Portion Control
Here in America, serving sizes have gotten completely out of hand. We’ve become so accustomed to restaurants that use monstrous plates heaped with food that most of us have lost track of what size a normal serving should be. If you need more information on that, there’s an entire article on this site dedicated to portion control, and as mentioned there, a vacuum sealer can be a great asset.
Even when you know what size a healthy serving should be, there’s always the temptation to overeat, especially when dinner includes your favorite foods. You figure just a few more bites won’t hurt, and next thing you know you’ve eaten another entire serving. It’s so much easier when you don’t have that option!
Vacuum sealer pouches come in various sizes, and a machine that can handle bag rolls lets you cut pouches just the size you want, and not overly large. You can divide up food into healthy portions and package individual servings or only what you will need for a meal. That way you won’t be cooking up big batches of food, and you eliminate that temptation to go back for seconds.
Four More Benefits of Vacuum Sealing Food
4. Save Freezer Space
Foods wrapped in layers of freezer paper or stored in plastic containers can take up quite a bit of room in your freezer. Vacuum sealed pouches are much more compact, and except for odd shaped items, they can be stacked neatly. This is especially important to hunters or gardeners at harvest time when you need every inch of available space.
5. Stop the Waste
You know how quickly cheese can mold and deli meats can spoil. With the right vacuum sealer you can seal and reseal those everyday items so you won’t end up wasting a single bite. The same goes for leftovers that you know you won’t eat the next day. Package and freeze in individual portions, and they’ll keep much longer because vacuum sealing prevents freezer burn and retains moisture so foods don’t dry out. You can also reseal chips and snack bags to keep them from getting stale (and besides that you won’t be so tempted to keep going back for just one more little handful).
6. Sous Vide Cooking
The basic water displacement method can work fine for beginners, but avid fans of sous vide cooking will eventually want to invest in a vacuum sealer. For soups, sauces, or any high-liquid content foods, a commercial style chamber vacuum sealer can do an excellent job without messes and mistakes. Even a much less expensive channel model like the FoodSaver FM5200 can offer some big advantages. For one thing, the vacuum pouches are heavy duty, food grade material that is safe for freezing, boiling, and microwaving, and these bags are rated for the high temperatures used in sous vide cooking.
(You can click here to see the FoodSaver FM5200 on Amazon, or compare it to other top rated models in our FoodSaver Comparison Chart.)
7. Enjoy Favorite Foods More Often
Do you have an absolutely delicious dish that you rarely serve because cooking it is an all day affair? Your vacuum sealer can come to the rescue for this too. On the rare occasion that you have time to pull out this recipe, cook up a double or triple batch. Vacuum seal the extra in individual portions for later, and you can enjoy this divine treat even on the busiest night.
If you’re interested in adding a vacuum sealer to your kitchen but aren’t sure which one is best for you, a good place to start is with our comparison charts. There are three charts, all on the same page, one each for chamber models, channel models, and basic handheld models. You can compare features side by side, see price ranges, and read detailed reviews.
Click here to Compare Vacuum Sealers
