Unitasker Wednesday: Vegetable and Fruit Savers
All Unitasker Wednesday posts are jokes — we don’t want you to buy these items, we want you to laugh at their ridiculousness. Enjoy!
There must be a large contingency of people in the world who loathe using basic square and round food storage containers because there are an insane amount of products dedicated to very specific food storage needs. Along these lines, I present the Vegetable and Fruit Savers:
I’ll admit that these Savers are really cute, and they seem to be more practical than their seat-belted competitors. However, as luck would have it, my onion would end up being too big for the onion container and I’d have an orange needing storage instead of a lemon or lime. I’ll be sticking with my BPA-free Rubbermaid Easy Find Lid Containers that can be used for any foods, regardless of size, shape, or type. I prefer Easy Find’s high-utility, multi-use, and nested storing to these adorable, but unitasking Vegetable and Fruit Savers.
Thanks to reader Sandy for introducing us to this week’s unitasker product.
22 comments posted
Posted by Meg - 07/07/2010
Wow.
I just use glass jars that I save, especially Mason jars if I come across them (e.g. some pasta sauce brands like Classico use Mason jars) since the lids are all compatible and the jars are even compatible with my mini blender.
Posted by Kevinsky - 07/07/2010
I agree, recycled glass jars are the best storage. Partly because they’re glass, but mostly because they have a smaller footprint in the fridge than your average storage container, and they stand up tall so they’re easier to spot! And they’re dishwasher friendly.
Posted by Mario - 07/07/2010
Glad Wrap. A mile of the stuff is two bucks. Wrap the food. Transparent, fits any size.
OMG I just love uni-tasker wednesday. Gives me the happy shakes to see this junk and so happy it’s not in my life!
Posted by Kimberly - 07/07/2010
3rd vote for using mason jars. Everything is washable, the tops are all the same and inexpensive to replace. When I get too many in the cupboard. I take a bunch back to the farmers market. The jam and pickle people will take them and give me a discount on my purchase.
Posted by Kathryn - 07/07/2010
“Not only are they a fun way to store fruits and veggies…”
I’m just giggling to myself imagining sticking a half-lemon in the fridge as “fun.”
Wheeeeee! Woo-hoo!
I mean, seriously. If that’s someone’s idea of fun, they really should get out more.
Posted by Mario - 07/07/2010
@Kathryn
LOL!
You haven’t truly lived until you’ve put away half-LIMES in the fridge. Lemmon ain’t got nuttin’ on that kinda fun. Off the charts.
Posted by bpod - 07/07/2010
I agree with most of the opinions above, but I do make an exception for my onion saver (http://amzn.to/d9hwbV). Here’s why:
– it’s cute! (confession: this is why I bought it in the first place… ha!)
– it’s large enough to accommodate most leftover onions I have on hand
– because of its shape, it’s easy to quickly see in the refrigerator
– my existing lidded glass containers are either too small or too big for an onion (i.e. I’d need to buy a specially sized container anyway)
– plastic lids/containers I’ve had tended to absorb some of that residual onion smell, so I’d want to have a dedicated container for this purpose anyway
– I’m trying to reduce my consumption of disposable plastics, so plastic wrap is not a viable alternative for me
– onions are a staple ingredient in much of my cooking; I almost always have a half or quarter going, so this container rarely ends up as “clutter” in a cabinet
So for me, my onion keeper is a keeper. Everything else gets stored in boring, non-representational storage containers.
Posted by Nimue - 07/07/2010
I think you’ve said before that Unitaskers are useful for some people, and this is mine: I have a visual processing disorder that makes it hard to see items among a group – can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak.
As soon as I saw these, I actually felt myself relax a little! I usually have all four of these foods in fractional states in the kitchen. And that’s the lesson I take from all your posts: is it truly, really going to improve my life in a way that I cannot accomplish without bringing another Thing into my home?
On the flip side, a few months back there was something that I owned and considered useful, but as soon as I saw it in the Unitasker post I realized that it was kind of ridiculous for the occasional use it got and donated it.
Posted by kristen - 07/07/2010
I have vegetable savers (not the exact ones pictured, but similar) and I love them. I used rubbermaid containers from lunch meat to store half-used onions and tomatoes for a long time, but received these awesome containers as a Christmas gift. I know someone joked about these being called “fun” but they really are! It’s just a little thing in my fridge that perks it up… the playful nature always makes me smile, and it’s super easy to access your vegetables when you’re looking for the shape of the vegetable, not just it inside a clear container.
on the flip side, I also use mason jars for storing lots of things. God bless the mason jar!
Posted by Lee - 07/07/2010
In their defense, they’re really cute. I appreciate the bright colors, as sometimes my frig is cluttered or my husband puts something away that I don’t know is there and don’t see when I look, and I start another one. Perhaps it’s an issue similar to Nimue’s – thanks for the info. I could have paid for several sets with the money I tossed out in the form of dried up lemons, limes, and onions.
Since I would use them, I consider them a good gift for wedding showers or for someone in their first apartment or house.
We have used storage jars from Crate and Barrel for many years. They’re round, but actually have many flat sides, and have a red plastic snap on lid. I can see through them and they are easy to store. Downside is they break when dropped on tile floors and perhaps I don’t know I’m looking at a lemon when it’s also wrapped in Saran.
Posted by Michele - 07/07/2010
Okay these are not for me but I would LOVE one that fit a whole banana. My nearly 4yo will almost always eat them though they get smashed more often than not in my bag.
Posted by Maura - 07/07/2010
@Michele
Go to amazon.com and enter search words “banana saver” and you will have several options
Posted by Awurrlu - 07/07/2010
Another vote for the banana saver! Sure, it’s a unitasker, but nothing fits a whole banana and fits in my bag. For most half pieces of fruit or non-liquid items I might want to store in my fridge, I just pop them into one of my pyrex containers and flip it upside-down. Much easier than using xray vision on those opaque lids.
Posted by cv - 07/07/2010
As long as you stop with these, it might be okay. It’s when you get to these that I start to really worry:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi.....tterer-20/
Posted by Mary C. - 07/08/2010
LOL! I think they are kind of cute myself! I probably won’t buy any, but I can see why someone might buy them.
Posted by Jen - 07/08/2010
I think my biggest problem with them would be what to do when my orange is too big for the orange container? I could see if my lemon was too big for the lemon container – I could put it in the orange container. But then of course, I might confuse it for half an orange instead. The quandary continues…
Posted by Anita - 07/08/2010
I see various versions of these things everywhere and it baffles me!
I can sort of understand having a specialized container for something like onion or garlic so your regular plastic ones don’t absorb the smell (although using glass containers would solve this, no?), or for people with special needs, but for everyone else, I just don’t get it. It’s like we’re an entire society reverting back to kindergarten and needing to have everything colour-coordinated and shape-matched.
Posted by Leonie - 07/08/2010
These are cute. However, you might get the same result using a rubbermaid or any other brand of round plastic container, and printing a picture of the fruit and then sticking it on the top.
Posted by Maria - 07/08/2010
I kinda like the onion one! I don’t mind putting yellow or white onions in a ziplock and tossing it back in the fridge but RED ONIONS??!!? Ugh they stink up the whole fridge and make everything taste like onions. I’d love a dedicated container that is non permeable for them. Wonder if they have these at Bed Bath and Beyond, I’ve got one of those 20% coups that I could use.
Posted by Carmen - 07/08/2010
I wouldn’t buy these, but we do have an onion keeper. Ours looks like it is larger than the one pictured above, and would fit a medium sized onion (whole). I like it because, like bpod, we use onions a lot and often times don’t need to use a whole onion for a recipe so it sits in the refrigerator for a couple of days. I *could* use plastic wrap, but that doesn’t prevent the odor of the onion from permeating throughout the fridge.
Posted by finallygettingtoeven.com - 07/08/2010
They are cute but I think it is just something else that I don’t need to have, so I won’t. Ah, living a life of deprivation…
Posted by Onepot - 07/10/2010
I highly recommend the onion one and have used ours since the day we got it as a gift. It’s a dedicated place to keep onions, so who cares if the plastic becomes onion-scented. As for the onions not fitting: well, I never put a whole onion in there anyway. The idea is to put whatever is left over into the onion keeper, and that fits 98% of the time; the rest of the time, it’s easy to cut the remainder in half to make it fit.
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