Sterilization/canning question for Pathm an, et al

“I used to watch my grandmother can foods in mason jars, and I was recently wondering why I couldn't do the same thing with my vaccuum-sealer and bags. Any help on whether or not this is a worthwhile idea would be appreciated.

Here's the method I have in mind:

1. make some sort of really high-calorie, really tasty food.
2. Pack said food into vaccuum bag and double seal the ends.
3. Boil said bag to kill any nasties that might still be alive.
4. Freeze bag until day of trip.

Assuming I can keep the thing from getting any tiny punctures or tears, will this preserve what's inside?

I've seen foods that have come in pouches, and such (like the tuna pouches), and I just wanted to see if I could do this at home.

And yes, I would be willing to carry the extra weight of, say, a grilled steak in a sealed pouch, just for the goodness of it.”

“My wife is the canning/preservation expert, but I think it should work if you can reach canning temps.

I gave her this book and she used it with great success. It might be of use. We lost our copy moving.



Putting Food by
by Janet C. Greene, Ruth Hertzberg (Contributor), Beatrice Vaughan (Contributor)

I also know that people used seal-a-meals for smoked salmon etc.”

“i read that vacumn seal or not..if it needs to be refrid'd you still have to keep it cool...i read something to this effect somewhere”

“I've heard of people vacuum sealing stuff after dehydrating them, never fresh foods to "boil."”

“Opie yes you are on the mark. Also if you have already vacuum sealed it, how would boiling it make it vacuum. When preserving one puts the food stuff in the jars the cooling pulls a vacuum on the sterilized jars. By the fact that the jars were sterilized no refrigeration is needed. If you could sterilize the inside of the bags it might possibly work.”

“Too bad you can't vacuum seal it then irradiate it. It would be shelf-stable for years.”

“Yeah, Opie, the idea is to kill anything bad in the food and inside the bag by boiling it at a high temp, after sealing it.

I'm going to give it a test try here at home.

Thanks, Pathman! I'll let you know how it turns out!”

“boiling a "vacuum" sealed bag - this is on a par with stuffing vacuum sealed bags in a bear canister and then hiking up to 12000 ft. - the bags expand and you need to pop the bags to get them out of the bear can. My guess is that boiling the sealed bag would result in the bag going pop on its own in the boiling water.”

“maybe a pressure cooker method would prevent that, HOI?”

“No, actually, HOI. They expand a little bit from the water vapor in whatever's inside, but tey don't baloon. Almost all the gas is taken out of the bag when it's vacuum sealed.

The experiment starts in about a half-hour.”

“What are you making, "Eggs Erroneous"?”

“And here I thought you'd forgotten about that. Oy.”

“Bitpusher, that truly would be the way to go wouldn't it?”

“Absolutely. No muss, no fuss, just vacuum seal it and stick under a cesium source. Toss it on the shelf, done deal.”

“I've got to get me a cesium source!


We used to use the autoclave in the micro lab to vacuume seal stuff. It was not for eating later though, so I couldn't address the food safety issues. The temp/pressure needed for sterilization usually melted the bags. Very messy!”

“Darn terrorists. I'll never get a cesium source now. Grrr.....”

“Maybe the FDA can tell you where to get food irradiated.”

“Why are you boiling the bags with food in them? To kill "nastys"? Is this food precooked or what? If so, all the nastys should be dead. I don't think boiling the bags of food will do anything that vacuum sealing them didn't.”