Perhaps one of the biggest issues for students in the dorms and even for those with apartments is how to keep their food fresh. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Chip bags and other plastic containers often rip open, creating a mess and making them difficult to properly seal again. As a result, food is liable to go bad fast. Here are two tips to seal your containers better and keep your food fresh.
For pourable foods:
What you’ll need: a pair of scissors, a plastic soda bottle with a cap and the plastic bag your food came in or a Ziploc bag.
1. Rinse out any leftover soda residue from your plastic bottles.
2. Using your scissors, cut the plastic spout off of your bottle and then dry the top portion thoroughly.
Photograph by Daphne Chen
3. Place the spout of the plastic bottle over the plastic food bag and pull the ends of the bag up through the spout. For some foods that come in thick plastic bags you may need to dump them into a Ziploc bag made of a thinner plastic. Thick plastic bags can make it difficult to pour food from the spout.
Photograph by Daphne Chen
4. Pull down tightly on the edges of the plastic bag and screw on the bottle cap.
Now you have a perfect resealable container to use for tons of different foods. These pourable containers work great with foods like rice, cereal, chocolate chips, dry beans and quinoa.
Photograph by Daphne Chen
For chip bags:
1. Lay the chip bag out flat and remove excess air.
2. Fold top of the bag down about ¾ of an inch. Repeat this step as many times as necessary until most of the excess chip bag has been rolled up.
3. Fold in both sides of the rolled up edges about an inch. The two folded edges should not touch in the middle.
Photograph by Daphne Chen
4. Holding the folded edges together, push with your thumbs and inverse the rolled edge.
This should create a tightly sealed chip bag that can be turned upside down and thrown about a dorm room or apartment without falling open.
Photograph by Daphne Chen