Food Containers

 

 

Try as I may I could never develop a great interest in food containers until I found out how restrictive some were with some of my favourite foods. Over the years I must have thrown away a relative fortunes worth of cheese, fruit, meats and sauces because the containers used proved inadequate and had a short shelf life in the fridge. For someone born and brought up in Scotland where the phrase 'waste not want not' was a regular echo, the thought of such wasted money hit me in a vital place, my pocket!

It was Sue, the font of all knowledge for the kitchen who suggested I write a feature on food containers, and how, for the modern home, the purchase of some of the very latest could be viewed as an investment, not a mere decorative item for occasional use in the kitchens of today.

'She who must be obeyed' suggested that the modern kitchen could not function in the 21st century without professional food containers, so there you are! My search had started.

I, as someone who has been known to listen at times, immediately set about the task of finding the best in the land, trialling and testing to ensure that you could benefit. Fruit, salads, cheeses and soups were all saved, stored, sealed and secured in a variety of food containers in order to bring you the very latest advances to help you create the perfect system of food storage and organisation.

Every modern home should have a selection of food containers, designed to prolong the life of certain foods by protecting them from the elements, as well as providing safe and secure storage in the fridge or freezer. There are, of course, a number of vital criteria when selecting food containers, important factors if you are to purchase a loyal friend. They should be adaptable, questioning if they can be used in the freezer, fridge or in the microwave? Are they durable, able to stand the test of time, with repeated usage in selected circumstances? Can they be purchased in sizes for the task in hand, for small but delicate cheeses, or for large amounts of fresh soups? Are they safe, will they leak if turned on their side by accident, are they reliable for the tasks you want to use them for? Can they stack easily, once used for one purpose it's amazing how quickly you want to be highly organised, ensuring you store everything safely and securely and therefore the ability to stack reaches paramount importance.

In addition the fridge, when used in conjunction with effective containers, will smell fresh and totally odour free, a valuable bonus for any home.

After exhaustive work, and a great deal of pleasure, the two names which I thought worthy of mention, and very positive comments in addition were Lock & Lock and the Genius Vakset, both head, shoulders and upper bodies above others in the marketplace.

The Lock & Lock range does, in the words of a popular television advert, exactly what is says on the product. With four effective fold over locks to use to preserve your food in fridge or freezer this excellent range of containers provides the answer to all question that could be raised over food storage problems. The locks are easy to use, simply folding over the base container and snapping into place. I have use a range of containers over the past weeks to store salads, soups and some fine French cheeses. With organisation and a selection of containers the fridge has never been better, tidier and without the various smells that leap out at you when food is simply stored on a plate, often with ineffective plastic film covering it. The see through containers mean labels are not required, the salads, cheeses or soups are easily recognised and retrieved.

Many of the range have dividers in them, allowing the user to separate food for kitchen storage or for a lunch box for the office. I kept cheese, eggs and a salad in the three section of one Lock 7 Lock container and combined then on the plate when lunchtime eventually came round, each part fresh and tasty! I can testify to the fact that they are certainly leak proof as I had to perform an emergency stop because of a driver failing to use his signals and my container of pasta sauce took off from the back seat of the car. Fearing the worst, a complete redecoration of my grey car seats I was delighted to see the container, upside down on the floor in the front of the car intact, and my grey seats still in their original condition. Not something for anyone to copy, but a reflection of the professional quality of the containers, as opposed to my driving!

We are fortunate in having an American fridge/freezer dominate our extended kitchen, and that means my new friends, my food containers, can be stored in the fridge or the freezer, depending on the requirements. They also, as a major bonus, can be removed from the freezer and placed in the microwave without fear of damage or staining. This is particularly handy for sauces for pasta which can leave both their colour and smell on some containers, but not these. They are even safe from damage in either boiling water or through cleaning in the dishwasher.

What more can you ask?

The list of attributes for the Lock & Lock range is nothing short of impressive. Save food, save space and save money!

You can obtain a wide range of Lock & Lock containers in the better known High Street retailers, before you do have a look at their excellent website, www.locknlock.com where you can see small, medium, large, round, square, in fact almost any shape and size you could possibly need for home use, in and out of the kitchen.

The second of my two suggested food containers is an innovate collection called the Genius Vakset, containers which are great for storing, attacking and preserving. Whilst the range at this moment is nowhere near as extensive as the Lock & Lock brand, there are sufficient to handle most everyday requirements in the kitchen.

The ingenious design allows the user to place the food in the container, fold the clips down to provide a seal and then use the vacuum pump to withdraw the air from the container. An easy to use operation can then ensure a greatly extended life of the food in the container, in many cases by a very large margin.

In the food preservation table found in the instructive leaflet here are a few examples of extended life through use of the vacuum storage set.

This, of course, is offered as a guide and the preservation of food depends on its initial freshness and the type of preparation. What it does give you is an idea of the extended life you can achieve.

Sue found them in her variety of kitchen tests to be reliable, easy to use and very handy indeed. Again, like the others they were see through, apart from the white lids, enabling you to see the stored food without need for labels, and once you have moved the valve to the side, allowing air to return to the container, the lid will unlock and off you go!

They can be used directly from the freezer straight into the microwave if required, as we did with some home made tomato soup, and then, as a bonus, you can put them straight into the dishwasher without fear of damage or discolouration.

One of the great benefits, apart from the ease of use from one kitchen appliance to another, is the quality of the food being retained during storage, retaining its freshness, the efforts and energies expended in creating the original dish should be appreciated a week, or in some cases a month after the dish was made, if the containers are used properly, carefully and storage instructions followed.

Don't forget biscuits, rice, coffee, cornflakes and similar foods can be stored in these containers, although chocolate biscuits, in my household, rarely are around long enough to require extended storage!

You can call Geniusuk on 0208 997 1854 or log on to www.geniusuk.com to see these containers as well as a selection of other innovative products for the kitchen.