I bought my first vacuum sealer from a county fair in 1989. The demonstrator showed how I could save money purchasing large packages of food and breaking them down into family meal size pouches and freezing them. Originally, I was looking to save money on my food purchases for three growing children. My children were fascinated by the invisible forces collapsing the packages around the food. They begged me to to let them make their breakfast, lunch and dinner using the vacuum sealer. In fact they wanted to make all their meals for the week and vacuum seal them. I was speechless because there was no more complaining about what there was to eat. Each child made their own 5 breakfasts, 5 lunches and 5 dinners for the week. Each child wrote their name on the bag before putting them in the freezer or refrigerator in their own tray.
On weekends we seasoned and grilled 4 hamburgers, froze them overnight then vacuum sealed them the next day. Sometimes we made 70 pancakes broken into 3’s, froze them with butter and vacuum sealed them the next day. We sealed fruits, vegetables diced for quick snacking or cooking. Some of the sealed pouches we put in boiling water to defrost and heat. Your children (as mine were) will be fascinated by the vacuum sealing process along with using magical cooking gadgets to prepare their meals. (Everyone wanted to use the egg cracker.) No arguing, no complaining about what was there to eat. The children were more willing to wash their own meal prep gadgets….with me lending a helping, guiding hand. We were a team…a happy team. (I thought I had landed in Disneyland where all dreams came true!)
On vacation you want to get up and go not get up and try to make a breakfast everyone would like or wait in hour long breakfast lines. One summer vacation we went to the woods for a week to hike and swim. We made 50 English breakfast muffins with egg, or sausage, or Canadian bacon and egg, or egg and sausage, with a sprinkling of onions and cheese…or not. We then froze and vacuum sealed them. In the morning we got up, plopped the breakfast sandwiches into hot water and in 5 minutes were eating one of our favorite breakfasts.
We avoided standing in summer vacation breakfast lines at "fast food" outlets for an hour. As we were able to get-up and go we arrived at uncrowded beaches before the fast food outlet crowd arrived. We always took the closest and best beach parking spots. With kids the best beach spot is near the bathrooms!
I used that county fair vacuum sealer every weekend for nearly 10 years before the pump gave out. They don't make them like that anymore.
This vacuum sealer is a starter model so you can learn how to use one and decide if you want to continue. Right now I have two vacuum sealers. One for small jobs and easy to use. The other is a small commercial model for larger sealing runs which I used when planning three meals a day for 10 people while on vacation. Now that my grandchildren have moved to Texas I don't use the big one anymore. Some vacuum sealers need to rest after 5-10 seals to cool down before sealing more bags.
For my single parenting lifestyle, this was one of my most useful kitchen appliances and was an unanticipated bonding experience with my children that lasts to this day through my grandchildren as well. I've included some photos of my vacuum sealed foods.
This model has:
- 2 vacuum pumps.
- 3 vacuum levels
- Automatic vacuum and sealing
- Seal only, no vacuum
- Manual vacuum pulsing
- External vacuum attachment
- Vacuum and sealing stop
