On the subject of oxygen absorbers..... I used a FoodSaver a couple decades for home food storage before being introduced to oxygen absorbers, but I do have oxygen absorbers and occasionally use them for dry packing instead of using my FoodSaver, but I prefer the FoodSaver. You can also use them together. Add an oxygen absorber AND vacuum seal the jar, or add an oxygen absorber to a mylar bag and use your FoodSaver to seal a mylar bag for long-term storage. There are food storage books like "Dinner Is In The Jar" by Kathy Clark or "The Gourmet Food Storage Handbook" by Stephanie Petersen (aka Chef Tess Bakeresse - she has lots of videos so check out her web site), using canning jars or mylar bags for making a whole meal and vacuum-sealing the jars using either an oxygen absorber or FoodSaver. Using these recipes you can quickly make 30, 60, or 90 days worth of meals. Chef Tess Bakeresse has recipes for individual size meals that work great for hubby to take to work in his lunch. Set up an assembly line with freeze-dried food, fill jars, pop in an oxygen absorber, put on the lid and ring and you've got your own "convenience" foods ready for storage. I would never suggest oxygen absorbers over a FoodSaver because you get so many more uses out of the FoodSaver. I use a lot of bags, especially for frozen foods. I have many of my silver serving pieces vacuum-sealed in FoodSaver bags so they never tarnish. I use the double-bag trick mentioned above. I'll portion things in inexpensive fold-top sandwich bags, quick freeze them, then repack them into a FoodSaver bag. I got a free box of Ziploc Perfect Portions bags and love them for using as the inside bag. I freeze Sloppy Joe mixture, pasta sauce, soup, stew, chili, the meat mixture for Stroganoff, homemade applesauce, etc. in plastic storage containers. I use containers that are for 1 or 2 servings. When completely frozen, pop them out of the containers. Stack the "cubes" into a FoodSaver bag and seal shut. Now all your plastic containers can be used for something else. But back to oxygen absorbers. They come in different sizes to accommodate different size containers or volume of food. For a quart jar use a 100cc oxygen absorber in the top of each jar. They cost about 1-cent per packet for the 100cc size (prices vary, so do the math) and are NOT reusable. There are charts available for how many oxygen absorbers are required for different volumes of food if you do a search on the subject. For more information check out the link below. When it comes to home food storage, the LDS Church has it covered. Information about using oxygen absorbers is readily available on-line. -Grainlady Here is a link that might be useful: Longer-Term Food Supply

Bread will work in the brown sugar that's gotten hard too. When celery, carrots, fresh spinich, onions, fresh herbs, (anything like that) get close to going bad, I chop them up, cook them about halfway and freeze right in the liquid they cooked in. Then I add them to home made soup later. I garden, so if I have potatoes that start to sprout from the eyes toward spring, I cut the eyes out to use as seed potatoes. I tend to cook in pretty large quantities. So if I have enough, I freeze enough extra for a full meal right away. That way we don't eat something long enough to be tired of leftovers and let it waste. We also buy meat in larger quantities when it's on sale. Our local store had uncooked whole hams last week for .99 a pound. This ham was $3.99 at it's normal cost. We bought one first, to see how we liked it. We asked the butcher to cut it for us and had him leave a nice size ham on either end and cut several ham steaks out of the middle. They didn't charge any extra for doing this. When I got it home, I froze each ham steak separately. This is one of the best hams I've ever eaten! We liked it so well that we went back and bought two more, leaving a smaller one whole to cook in a pit at camp next summer and having the other one cut like the first. We do have a large freezer, so I have the room to buy the meat (and other things when on sale) in quantity.

Helpful posts. I didn't have a backup when DH brought in some venison. I have an older model that was updated from my first one I got eons ago. I liked the second one because it has an override button (very important in my opinion) so when you have a bag that isn't sealing perfectly or you have delicate items you want sealed but not crushed you can override and still seal. I went and bought the new vertical model (don't remember the #) at Wally World (one of the few stores here unfortunately) I didn't think to try it out ahead of time and when DH got a 200# plus bear .... you guessed it. The new unit didn't work. I got it all unpacked, meat in the bag and NOTHING. Sales pitch was "Just insert the bag and the machine does the rest perfectly!" Problem was the part that pulls the bag in to start the operation didn't work. So out came the limping old one to put the meat up. I wouldn't be without one but I'm a little gun shy now about the newest models. Did you say you have a vertical one Mustang? Maybe I should try one again. It was $150 at Wally World too. Other than the override I prefer less bells and whistles. Less things to go wrong. But I wouldn't be without one. I just wish I could find my jar attachments that disappeared when I moved. I may have to buy another set of those too.

Well, I can tell you this much, I first got a small model at Kohl's, and you had to hold down each side of the lid while simultaneously holding the bag in the machine. It worked about 25% of the time, maybe less, and would be far more convenient if people had three or four hands. So, when you shop, be sure you look for one that doesn't require you to push down on the lid to activate the sealing mechanism and then continue to hold it down until the sealing is complete. My new one is bigger and I can hold the bag and just push the button, it seals while I'm holding the bag and doesn't require constant pressure by the user to activate the mechanism. I hated the old one so badly that I would have never purchased a new one, but Peppi convinced Elery that it would be a perfect Christmas gift last year and so we "upgraded". That said, I seldom use the new one either, as we are remodeling and just finishing up moving, and I haven't had time to do much of anything other than paint, tile, trim, tear down, build, move furniture then start on the next room. Ugh. I freeze a lot of fruits and berries, but those get mushed up by the vacuum and the juice interferes with the seal. Even when I freeze them on sheet trays the vacuum will crush them somewhat, and the only way that works at all is to freeze them on sheet trays, then put them into plastic bags and then put the plastic bags into food saver bags and seal them. Many here suggested that I use produce bags from the grocery store. The produce bags here are flimsy and tear immediately, if they even make it home intact, so Peppi brought me some! I'll use those when we raise chickens for the freezer this spring, and hopefully it will go better than it has in the past. I broke down last year and bought plastic storage bags, packed chicken halves in those and then sealed them in Foodsaver bags, and that worked mostly, I've lost seals on about 20%, probably because chicken halves are weird shapes. I've not yet been successful in sealing a canning jar. Ever. (shrug) I still just put chips and crackers into plastic Lock N Lock containers and save myself the time and aggravation and don't worry about the extra packaging to discard, LOL. I did get some Foodsaver containers for sandwich meat and cheese, but they get unsealed EVERY SINGLE DAY, and the contents are consumed far before they could spoil, so that's pointless and I quit and Elery and I just eat leftovers and don't freeze them at all. I do freeze Ann T's green enchilada sauce in pint canning jars, as well as freezing apple cider in quart canning jars. It works well for me, although other people have mentioned that they don't like to freeze things in glass containers. If I were a single person, cooking only for myself, I'd probably use the Foodsaver a lot so I didn't have to eat an entire pot of soup or pan of scalloped potatoes. Cooking weekly and always making double batches is a good way to get the freezer stocked and if your stuff "migrates" to the back or bottom of the freezer like mine does, if they are sealed up, they won't get freezer burned before you can find them. Good luck, I don't love the new one as much as I had hoped, probably because I just haven't had time to fully utilize it, but I don't despise it, like I did that old one. I'm just waiting to find someone I cannot stand, and I'll give the old one to them, LOL. Not really, my nephew is an avid hunter and often gifts me with venison, and he wanted one, so I gave him the old one with warnings about the efficiency of the process. He has his 7 year old son hold the bag steady while he pushes both corners to activate the seal. He says it works "OK", but he makes sure to check his packages in a couple of days and reseals the ones that lost their seal. Annie