by Dale Morris

Created on: January 15, 2009   Last Updated: January 28, 2009

Product Review: Debbie Meyer Green Bags

I found this product this last summer, and don't know how I survived without them. Well I do know, I threw away an awful lot of uneaten produce. I love these bags and would give them an A+ rating.

There are only two drawbacks that I have found with these bags and they just boil down to a learning process. First, the directions on the box say to rinse the bags after use and that they are good for 10 uses. Well how do you know when you've used them ten times? I started making hash marks on the bag each time I use it with a Sharpie marker, when there are 10, I throw it away. The other thing that I seemed to miss in the instructions, or maybe I didn't read it, is that you don't want to close the bag with the produce in it. Twisting the top of the bag or tying it with a twisting renders it a plain old plastic bag.

These bags work by absorbing the gases produced by all things green and growing that speed up the ripening and spoilage process. But the bags need to vent those gases, so as strange and habit breaking as it is, just set your bag in the fridge or on the counter open.

The second trick to these bags working is to know which produce to store on the cabinet and which to store in the fridge. Some things, like bananas just don't do well in the fridge.

Now, for some ways that the Debbie Meyer Green Bags have saved me money and heartache; I first started using them when we started getting our first produce out of our garden. The produce that we can't eat immediately, I can for later consumption. But what do you do with 3 tomatoes or 4 squash? You put them in a green bag in the fridge until you have enough produce to can. I had no loss of produce, even if it took two weeks to gather enough to can.

The handiest trick that I've learned with the green bags is for those bags of premixed salads you buy at the grocery. You know how sometimes you buy one with yesterday's date on it and it's still perfectly fresh, while the one with next weeks date is not edible? When faced with the holidays and needing to buy groceries early for over a weeks worth of company meals, I bought several mixes, checked them in the store to make sure they looked good and when I got home, I immediately opened the bags and dumped them all in one green bag, left it open and set it in the fridge. As I needed a bowl of salad for a meal I pulled some out. The salad stayed garden fresh for two weeks. It was amazing.

I highly recommend these bags for anyone who buys produce. They work! You don't have to order them off the TV advertisement or the website either. Wal-mart carries the bags for the same price as the TV add, but without the shipping charges.

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