Food keeps a lot longer in a freezer than it does in the fridge, but the freezer that comes with your fridge may not fit all the food you need to save! When you need more room, a stand-alone freezer is a big help.
One of the best types of stand-alone freezers is a chest freezer. As anyone with a chest freezer will tell you, buying one is an incredibly smart idea. Here are the top five reasons it’s worth the purchase!
Reason #1: You Can Keep Garden Vegetables For Longer
If you have a garden or love the flavours of summer, you may end up with more vegetables than you can handle. Rather than letting them rot on the vine or in your refrigerator’s crisper drawer, you can prep the veggies and keep them frozen in your chest freezer! Even if the garden bounty piles up, you’ll have the room to store all the vegetables safely, and you’ll appreciate them when winter comes.
Reason #2: You Can Store Larger Quantities Of Meat
Purchasing a whole animal or a share of one is a great way to save money, support local farmers, and keep your family fed. There are only two ways to store that locally raised and slaughtered pig or cow: build a walk-in meat locker in your basement, or get a chest freezer! If you’ve prepared the cuts properly, the meat will last for as long as a year without getting freezer burnt.
Reason #3: It Reduces Food Waste
As our previous reasons mentioned, there’s no reason for the garden flavours of summer or your supply of meat to end. But you might find other popular fridge items going to waste when you’ve bought too much, or there’s not enough room in your fridge’s bottom or top freezer. When there’s a lot of food to save, store it in a chest freezer, so none of it goes to waste!
Reason #4: You Can Plan Meals Months Ahead Of Time
Meal planning is another way to save money, but it’s a lot easier to do when you know you have the space for all that food. With a chest freezer, you can menu plan and grocery shop for an entire month without worrying about storage!
Combine this with the bounty you get from your garden, and you’ll be able to save food for years! Some good ideas include turning your tomatoes into sauce, chopped up veggies make prepared soup mix, and you can turn basil into pesto – because, as any gardener could tell you, basil can quickly grow out of control.
Reason #5: It’s The Best Type Of Stand-Alone Freezer!
Reason #5: It’s The Best Type Of Stand-Alone Freezer!Chest freezers stay cold more consistently than upright ones, and this type is less likely to cause freezer burn. They are also more efficient than other types of upright freezers! As well, they have more than enough room for everything needed to feed a family: a 15-cubic-foot chest freezer – large enough to store an entire butchered steer – for around $500.
For the amount of space and the savings you’ll get, a chest freezer is an incredibly smart buy!
