Confessions of a Mylar Bag Addict

Yes, I have a problem. No, I’m not seeking treatment.

Hi, my name is Mimi, and I may have a Mylar bag problem.

Okay...

Considering I’m Mimi from PackFreshUSA, this probably isn't exactly breaking news.

I seal things.

I store things.

I freeze-dry things.

I dehydrate things.

I experiment with things that probably didn't need experimenting with.

And eventually, I put just about everything into a Mylar bag.

For science, of course.

Recently, I decided it was time to go through and organize some of my personal food storage.

Boy, was THAT fun.

What started as a little organizing project quickly became an archaeological dig through years of Mimi food-storage experiments.

There were bags from five years ago.

Six years ago.

Seven years ago.

Some things made me ridiculously happy.

Some made me scratch my head.

Some made me wonder what on earth younger Mimi was thinking.

And some...

Well, some should never be opened again.

The Good, the Bad and the Nose-Hair Curling

One of the fun things about working with PackFreshUSA is that I don't just talk about Mylar bags, oxygen absorbers, desiccants and food storage.

I actually use this stuff.

A lot.

Probably an unreasonable amount.

Going through my older food storage reminded me that there's a big difference between reading that something should store well and actually opening a bag five or six years later to see what happened.

I found some absolute winners.

I opened cereal that had been stored for five and six years that was still excellent.

Six-year-old Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Excellent.

I wasn't expecting to be quite so excited about old cereal, but here we are.

Then there were the losers.

And here's something I've learned after years of storing food:

Always do the sniff test first.

Before I taste an older stored food, I smell it.

If something containing fats or oils has gone rancid, sometimes your nose will tell you everything you need to know.

There's a particular smell that I can only describe as...

nose-hair curling.

You open the bag.

Sniff.

NOPE.

There will be no taste test today.

Mimi likes experiments.

Mimi is not THAT committed to science.

We'll get into those particular cereal adventures in another confession because, believe me, I have some DOs, DON'Ts and absolute YUCKs to share.

There Was Also a Fungus Among Us

Then I found the mushrooms.

Oh, the mushrooms.

I had dehydrated mushrooms dating back to 2019 and freeze-dried mushrooms from 2020 and 2021.

Some were great.

Some weren't.

Some had softened.

And those little mushrooms reminded me how much my own freeze-drying process has changed over the years.

Back then, I didn't routinely add extra dry time at the end of a freeze-dryer cycle.

I do now.

Apparently 2020 Mimi had to learn a few things so 2026 Mimi could tell you about them.

You're welcome.

We'll have an entire Fungi Among Us confession coming because those mushrooms deserve their own story.

❓ And Then There Were the Mystery Bags

Apparently, at some point in my food-storage journey, I believed I possessed an extraordinary memory.

I found Mylar bags with...

No label.

No date.

No clue what was inside.

I picked them up thinking:

What IS this?

Apparently, years ago I thought:

“I'll remember.”

Narrator:

She did not remember.

There's something humbling about holding a perfectly sealed PackFreshUSA Mylar bag and realizing the packaging did its job better than your memory did.

We could have opened all of them and solved the mystery.

But where's the fun in that?

Instead, we left some sealed and wrote a great big:

?

And on a few:

CAN YOU GUESS?

Apparently my emergency food storage now includes entertainment.

Someday we'll open them and find out what's actually inside.

Until then, they're officially Mimi's Mystery Bags.

And yes, I learned my lesson.

LABEL YOUR BAGS.

Write down what's inside and the date you packaged it.

Because “I'll remember” has officially been removed from Mimi's approved food-storage procedures.

Some Experiments Worked Better Than Others

That's probably the biggest thing this whole adventure reminded me.

I've been doing this for years, and I'm still learning.

The way I freeze-dry food today isn't exactly the way I did it six years ago.

I've changed how I check dryness.

I've learned when I want additional dry time.

I've learned more about oxygen absorbers, desiccants, packaging and the foods themselves.

And I've learned something else that's really important:

Good packaging can't fix food that wasn't properly prepared for storage in the first place.

Your Mylar bag can do its job perfectly.

Your oxygen absorber can do its job.

Your seal can be beautiful.

But what's going into that bag matters too.

That's something we're going to explore a lot more in these little Mimi experiments.

Confession Time...

After sorting through all of this food, discovering things I'd completely forgotten about, finding some spectacular successes and a few...

educational opportunities...

you would think I reached one obvious conclusion:

Mimi has enough food stored.

Nope.

Because while I was sorting everything...

I discovered something terrible.

I still had empty Mylar bags.

Well.

We can't have that, can we?

So apparently the experiments must continue.

And this time I'm bringing you along.

Over the next few Confessions of a Mylar Bag Addict, I'll show you some of the things I actually found in my food storage—the good, the bad, the surprisingly delicious and the nose-hair curling.

We'll talk about my five- and six-year cereal experiment.

We'll investigate the Fungi Among Us.

We'll eventually find out what's hiding inside some of those Mystery Bags.

And I'll tell you what I would do exactly the same today...

and what I would never do again.

Because that's the fun of experimenting.

When something works beautifully, I'll tell you.

When something doesn't work, I'll tell you that too.

Now, if you'll excuse me...

I have some empty Mylar bags that clearly need attention.

Until the next experiment,

— Mimi ❤️
PackFreshUSA

P.S. If you're also a Mylar bag addict, you're among friends here. We don't have meetings. We have impulse sealers.`