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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Gadgets: Food Huggers

I think I've mentioned before that I hate buying things like plastic bags or plastic wrap just to throw it out after a short use. I'd much rather have something reusable, and it's a bonus if it's something I can toss in the dishwasher so I don't have to put any extra work into it.

So, when Food Huggers ($19/4) got their Kickstarter funding and went into production, I figured it was worth giving them a try.

They're designed to push onto the cut portion of a fruit or vegetable, keeping air out to keep the food fresh. They also work as covers for things that don't have their own lids, like glasses, cans you've opened, or small serving bowls.

I don't end up with lot of half-used fruits and vegetables, with the exception of onions, so that seemed to be the perfect test of long-term storage. I popped a Food Hugger onto half of an onion and chucked it into the crisper to test its survival.

The first thing that surprised me was that when I opened the crisper I didn't smell even a whiff of onion.

After a week, the onion looked almost as good as fresh, so I tossed it back into the crisper and promptly forgot about it. It was nearly two weeks later when I fished it out and checked it. The cut surface was a little dry, but the onion was still perfectly usable. Not soft or mushy, like sometimes happens wrapped in plastic.

I used the huggers for shorter term storage of some citrus fruits, and that worked just fine, but what I thought was handy was snugging a Hugger onto small containers. I wouldn't use them for permanent pantry storage, but when I'm making a sauce ahead of time, I'd rather have it in its serving container. Although the Huggers are round, they're flexible enough to fit on non-round containers.

The Huggers nest together for storage and they're dishwasher safe.

The product was supplied for the purpose of a review on Serious Eats; this was previously published on Serious Eats.