How To Keep Food Fresh

How to keep food fresh is necessary. Any food wrap will keep a sandwich moist until lunchtime or a batch of leftovers fresh overnight. What really separates foil, plastic wrap and plastic bags is how fresh they keep food for the long haul, especially meat kept in the freezer. Price, too, separates one wrap from another.

Recently, Consumer Reports' engineers tested a variety of wraps for strength, leaking, convenience and how well they held moisture in foods. The engineers also checked to see which plastic wraps and bags kept oxygen away from food, because oxygen can turn fat rancid.

Any type of aluminum foil does a near-perfect job of holding moisture in foods and keeping oxygen away. But foil does have shortcomings.

Foil should not be used with acidic foods such as tomato sauce, for example, because the food may react with the metal. Foil doesn't stretch, and you can tear it easily as you rummage in freezer. And although you can scrunch foil around that leftover drumstick, foil will not stick to itself to form the airtight seal that plastic wrap will. If you are using foil, double-wrap food or tape the edges to help prevent freezer burn.

As you would expect, the heavy-duty foils are thicker than the regular kind, usually are twice as strong and therefore preferable for long-term storage.

Foils are expensive, though, especially the heavy-duty varieties. Plan on spending from 16 cents to 24 cents for 10 square feet of regular foil and from 30 cents to 39 cents for heavy-duty foil. The extra-heavy-duty variety of Reynolds wrap costs about 57 cents.

Plastic wrap also can be used to keep food overnight in the refrigerator, and most brands will keep food fresh for weeks in the freezer. And because plastic wrap clings, you do not need to tape the edges.

Saran Wrap stood out in the tests: It held in moisture as effectively as aluminum foil and was nearly as strong as extra-heavy-duty Reynolds Wrap foil. Saran Wrap also was the only plastic wrap that kept nearly all oxygen away from the food. But it costs two to three times as much as the other brands tested.

Plastic wrap also holds moisture in food being heated in a microwave oven, but take special care. Poke a few holes in the wrap so steam can escape, and keep the plastic at least one inch away from the food. Any wrap can melt if it touches hot food in a microwave oven. Also, the chemicals in Saran Wrap, Borden Sealwrap and Reynolds can soak into food if the plastic touches the food for a long time. Therefore, keep those wraps away from any food while you are cooking it.

Sandwich bags were as good as aluminum foil or plastic wrap at holding in moisture in tests. Any brand would do justice to a sandwich. The real issue is cost: Ziplock bags are more expensive than bags that close with a twisted tie or have a fold-in flap at the top.

For the most part, the food-storage and freezer bags were strong and held in moisture well. As with sandwich bags, the major consideration is price.

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