Do Electric Bag Sealers Really Work? One Extreme Reviewer Put 3 To The Test

Giant bags of chips, cereal, or nuts go stale fast — unless you have a party or a house full of hungry kids to help. That's why we don't suggest buying cereal in bulk from Costco. Electric bag sealers promise to solve this problem. Rechargeable, handheld devices, bag sealers work by using heat plus pressure to fuse the plastic together. The same heat-and-pressure method seals the bag at the factory before it ever reaches the store. But the sealers at the chip packaging factory are not the same as the little handheld ones you find online. Which raises the question: Can a handheld sealer do the job as well as the industrial version?

In a video on the YouTube channel, Extreme Reviews, Scott Wilson tested three different at-home bag sealers. He started by running them through some everyday uses: sealing bags of chips, tortillas, and bread, and sealing a Capri-Sun. Two of the three fared poorly — the Comtar and the Hslgove. A third model, a generic Amazon version, achieved the goal of keeping the bags closed. All three needed the right application of pressure and a precise rate of movement along the bag to create a seal and not burn a hole. In the end, none of the sealers won.

After putting the sealers through scenarios no bag of chips would normally face — including a katana, trampoline, and car (all failed) — Wilson's winner was a simple chip clip. Presumably, the clip would also not survive a thrust from a katana with a dragon-wing hilt, but it does keep the bag closed.

In a previous job where I made food for people on the internet, I used electric sealers to make packaged items look untampered with. If you, too, are hiding malic acid in an "unopened" Twinkie for internet clicks, the effort these take to get the seal right could be worth it. If you just want to keep chips crispy, a clip is all you need. Just fold over the top, push out the air, and clip it closed.

If you don't have a chip or binder clip on hand, you can always use our hack for closing a bag with disposable chopsticks, the kind you get with your takeout. Fold the top and push out the air like with a clip, but then slide the folded part of the bag between the two attached wooden chopsticks. If you have a Costco-sized bag on hand that you won't get to for a while, you can freeze your potato chips to extend the shelf life and even make them crispier. Whether any of these options will survive a katana attack has yet to be determined.

Extreme Reviews and Daily Meal are both owned and operated by Static Media.