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The food and beverage industry is truly diverse and careful in protecting its products from the environment. If you are pondering about the advantages and disadvantages of vacuum sealing food amidst the variety of these protective methods, read this article, and you will be able to make your decision!
Advantages And Disadvantages Of Vacuum Sealing Food
1. The Upside:
Packaging Speed & Efficiency:
Once you have gotten used to the buttons on a vacuum sealer, you will get pretty fast with it. It is not even hard to do, as each commercial vacuum sealer only has at best four buttons. All you have to do is put the mouth of the bag into the machine, clip it shut, press a button, and wait for a few seconds! The machine is extremely quick at its job, too. In most vacuum sealers, you will be instructed to wait until a light bulb shines again to know that the seal is done completely. But that will only take half a minute at most, so you will never have to worry about the speed of the entire process.
Keeping food safe has never been so easy and quick!
Hygiene & Safety:
This benefit is directly tied to the reason why the vacuum sealer was born in the first place. When you put food into an extremely low oxygen environment, the bacteria culture on the surface of your food will stop growing in size. This is due to the bacteria activity’s dependence on oxygen to nourish itself and divide, so the number of bacteria will not increase in a low-oxygen space. By sucking the air surrounding your food, you will also take out some of the bacteria on the surface of food, as well as other environmental factors. One of such factors is the moisture that is both on and inside the food. Leaving moisture with food can lead to yeast and moulds developing all over your items, which can lead to food poisoning. Food hygiene is definitely something you should pay attention to, but vacuum-sealing your food is so easy you won’t have to focus anyway!
Perseverance:
This advantage is the direct result of the previous one. When you eliminate the risk factors, there is no surprise that your food will stay healthy and delicious for a much longer time. In addition, once you have sucked near all the oxygen that bacteria grow from the food items, you can rest the item in your fridge and rest assured.
Vacuum sealers give you peace of mind.
2. The Downside:
Cost:
If you do not use the seal too often or for only one or two food items at a time, you will feel like you have wasted your money on the sealing machine. A kitchen appliance of this type can cost quite a bit for a single function, so you will be sealing food at a price from $50 to hundreds of dollars (depending on the model). In case you use the machine often, another type of cost that you may look past is the price for the bag rolls. While each roll’s price tag can seem unsubstantial, if you take a look at how many rolls you go through per month, you will realize how much the bill stacks.
The machines may cost a lot.
Another little cost that might stack up along the way is the machine’s electric use and maintenance cost.
Loss of Protection After Seal Is Opened:
If you have ever purchased a vacuum-sealed food item at the supermarket, you will know the hell of trying to use the items inside quickly after you have opened the package. When the bacteria on the surface of food get a sudden abundance of oxygen once more, they will grow at a rapid speed and spoil the food even faster than before. Once you have taken the food away from its usual temperature at the cold supermarket, the bacteria will also react to that change. A rise in heat, especially back to room temperature, will let any bacteria colony a chance to grow in size even better than before. So even if you put the opened bag back into the fridge as soon as you arrive home, it will not be as fresh as before. You can never be too careful with food, and the same case can be applied to vacuum-sealed items as well!
Outro
Vacuum seals are extremely reliable if you know when to put them in place and how to do it properly. So do not be deterred by this article on the advantages and disadvantages of vacuum sealing food and get yourself a sealing machine to keep your food items safe and clean at all times!
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