Strawberries, 9 days in a vacuum bag

[MickinMD ★]

On June 17, I bought a pint of strawberries for the purpose of sweetening my unsweetened, 3% sugar, Cheerios.

In the past, strawberries kept in the fridge and good past 5 days was a lucky occurrence.

Washing my hands and drying them with a paper towel to avoid getting germs on them, I moved the strawberries to a Sous Vide vacuum bag, about the size of a 1 gallon Ziploc bag and pumped the air out of the bag to the point where it wasn't quite squishing the berries.

Here's how things went over the 9 days it took to use them up.

Here's the set of 30 mixed-sized bags and pump with clips if needed that I got for $17+ at Amazon. claimed to be reusable 50+ times:

Here are the uneaten berries in the vacuum bag after 3 days, all crisp and like new with no marks on the skin. The blue circle at bottom left is where you plsce the end the pump (bag on a flat surface) and manually pump out the air after each time the bag is opened:

Here's the sealed bag and the pump on day 7:

Here are the strawberries in the opened bag on day 7. Their color looked a little dull from day 1, no doubt because of the dry, vacuum conditions. The leaves on the berries were drying up, but the berries were fine. Two of the larger ones felt slightly soft in very small, less than 1/2" locations, so I had them that day with Cheerios:

Here's the breakfast-for-lunch fruit assortment: strawberries, blueberries, and a banana:

With the Cheerios on top, I can pour in the milk until it reaches the bottom of the Cheerios. That way, I can dunk the cheerios in the milk as I eat them and keep them mostly crisp:

The strawberries in the vacuum bag on day 8.  All were as crisp as new with no mold, etc:

The strawberries in the vacuum bag on day 9, today June 26th.  All were as crisp and unmarked as new:

The same last 3 strawberries out of the bag:

I bought another pint of strawberries on 6/23 and stored them in a vacuum bag as I did the pint I finished today, so I may have a chance to see if they last longer.

As long as the vacuum bags work, I'm not going to try the other method: soak them for a few minutes in a solution of 1/4 cup vinegar and 2 1/2 cups water.

The vacuum bag maker's blurb says they also make lunchmeat and other perishables last longer in the refrigerator. I'll try it in the future.

I usually divide a pound of sliced ham, roast beef, etc. from the deli counter into 1/3 pound amounts, put them in quart Ziploc Freezer Bags. squeeze the air out, freeze them. and thaw them as needed.

[Prophet Zacharia]

My vacuum is bagless. So I save the trouble and just throw the strawberries directly into the trash can to mix with the dog and cat hair and dirt.

[Airehead]

Each day when you opened it, did you reseal it with the pump?

[MickinMD ★]

46 minutes ago, Airehead said:

Each day when you opened it, did you reseal it with the pump?

Yes.  Sometimes you have to pull on the pump handle several times and reposition the bag and pump again to get it to catch and start pulling the air out, but it only takes a minute altogether and the bags reusable.

I've seen ads for some of those plastic-film heat sealers that show it sealing fruit, meat, etc.  Of course, the flaw is that it's expensive if you don't use the food up all at once and have to reseal.  This way works cheap enough for cheap me.