Banana Seal
Banana Seal by Seal-A-Bag is more than your common chip clip clothes pin approach to keeping food fresh and closing those bags with its two piece design that keeps bags sealed air tight.
Ease of Use/Performance: 24/25
Convenience/Storage 24/25
Appearance/Design 25/25
How much I enjoy 23/25
Total: 96/100
The problem with your common chip clip or any other spring loaded chip closer along with others I have seen that tries to keep your food fresh is they don't create an air tight seal. Using a seal to keep your food fresh that is air tight all along the bags opening means some kind of device that is the length of the bag, not just part of it.
Folding bags or just clamping part of the opening does not ensure freshness and that is what the Banana Seal is all about. Even bags or products like cheese or cereal that have that built in zip lock seal do not close well enough to keep your food fresh.
Using a built in zip lock seal like those Kraft cheese blocks don't always work, the cheese blocks especially do not work well due to the small size of the plastic wrapping. With those delicious cheese blocks I always end up throwing out the supposedly convenient zip lock closing wrapper because it never works after you first open it.
The Banana Seal is a two piece flexible device consisting of a round hollow tube and a curved piece that the tube fits into. The curved piece is shaped so that the round tube fits snuggly inside a semi circular opening and seals the piece of bag or whatever is in between the two pieces securely.
The round tube fits snuggly into the curved piece and creates that air tight seal along the entire length due to the curved piece being flexible and the round piece snapping snuggly into it. The Banana Seal comes in a variety of lengths at 7.5, 9.5 and 11.5 inches and sells for about $1.50 a piece.
You can find them at online sites such as Amazon and in local stores such as Target in 4, 9 and 18 packs for $5, $10 and $15. I received 2 of the 11.5 inch size and have been using them for a couple of months to keep my snacks fresh and a few other things.
The Banana Seal works great for snacks like chips and candy or those bags of cereal inside the cardboard box, let's face it the flaps on a cardboard box do not keep that inside bag fresh. The chip clip also does not work like the Banana Seal due to not being able to seal along the whole length of an opening as well as not giving the same amount of pressure along its entire length.
The Banana Seal makes an airtight seal along its entire length instead of just in spots on even double and triple thick paper products like flour and sugar sacks. I have used my Banana Seals on a variety of foods to ensure they were as fresh as when I first opened them and even some bagged lettuce products.
The bagged lettuce was probably the best use of the Banana Seals as lettuce only stays fresh and crisp for a relatively short time and keeping the air out extends that time. I definitely could not find a down side to using the Banana Seal on any foods but you can also use it on small bags of fertilizer like those houseplant food bags.
Miracle Grow has several different plants food and garden products that come in smaller bags and the Banana Seal makes a great way to keep the bags closed and sealed. Even plant food goes bad over time, losing its fertilizing power so to retain the potency of the product as well as avoiding spills I cut a Banana Seal in half for the smaller fertilizer bag.
You can easily cut the Banana Seal parts into shorter lengths to create a smaller sealer for those small bags but I would only do this for the longer Banana Seal. The smaller lengths of sealers would work great at the sizes they are but if you do purchase the larger length in a 9 or 18 pack you can easily cut a few in half for those smaller bags.
I highly recommend the Banana Seal for a great and convenient way to keep those bagged foods fresh and it works equally well for things like smaller bags of pet food or garden products.