Foodsaver - Freezing raw food?

[HeatherAnne]

My husband & I got a Foodsaver from my parents for Christmas. Does anyone use this for raw meals? What damage (if any) is done to raw food, once frozen and thawed? Last year when I made some of Allisas yummy raw deserts (pecan pie and banana cream pie), I put the pie pieces individually in the freezer and took them out a few hours before I wanted to eat them - they were still just as good. Has anyone attempted this with any other raw meals? Thanks & Happy New Year!

[HeatherAnne]

Thought I'd bring this back up incase anyone uses foodsaver for raw food. I'm all ears, thanks!

[speltrong]

I don't see why you couldn't use it for raw food. From what I've read, freezing isn't as ideal as eating fresh veggies, but it still 'counts' as raw. I know lots of people on this board freeze bananas and things like that to use in their smoothies. Earlier today I think someone else was talking about freezing spinach. So yep, it's do-able. We have a foodsaver, but I find that we never really have a need for it, so it sits in our pantry collecting dust. Let me know if you think of any brilliant ways to use it!

[DebB]

How did I miss this when you first posted it HeatherAnne? ;) We've had our Food Saver for years and while I do still use it, I seem not to use it nearly as much as before we started eating this way.

Yes, I've frozen bananas as speltrong suggested. With the FS, they'll still darken, but not nearly as quickly as tossing them in a ziploc.

What I use it for most of all is for our dehydrated tomatoes from our garden. I put them into quart jars and then seal the canning flat on and store them on our pantry shelf. I do the same for bulk spices (seal them in jars). Oh, I seal banana chips if I'm making a deh. full. same thing - in jars.

What I can tell you NOT to do is FS anything in the cruciferous family. I was making a salad while RVing, so I thought I'd prep all the broccoli, cabbage & cauli ahead of time and seal them with the FS. OH ICK - I never did that again. They were all ruined after just 1-2 days.

I've sealed ginger pieces for the freezer before. I'm trying to think.... Oh, I do seal up seeds for the freezer (I store all our nuts & seeds in the freezer). The nuts & seeds that I have soaked, sprouted & then dehydrated, I will store them in quart jars in the freezer. If they haven't been soaked, etc. - then I store them in the FS bags. This allows me to know what's been soaked and what hasn't.

If I think of more, I'll post back!

[Traceyraw]

I used to get food delivered from Veggi MUNN. There stuff came frozen and it was good. I got 1 weeks worth at a time.

[carefulMom]

I am using mostly for raw food, I think that is the main purpose of food saver, so don't see why you shouldn't put raw vegetables or meat...

[DebB]

Things that are liquidy - or fragile - I put in a FS bag and do not seal. Then I freeze overnight. Once it's frozen, then I FS the package.

This is what I did for our friend's wedding cake topper. I froze it solid for about 2 days, then lightly vacuumed it and sealed. They had it on their 1 year anniv. and said it was just as good as their wedding day. The FS is really a neat machine!