Food Storage Gadgets

Over the years, we’ve used up a lot of plastic bags, plastic wrap, and aluminum foil for the sake of saving a few morsels of food—only to end up tossing browned avocados and other moldering leftovers. So when we noticed a number of gadgets on the market promising to extend life, reduce refrigerator odors, and let us easily spot a range of food and drink in our overstuffed refrigerators—from avocados, to beer, to butter—we crossed our fingers and headed into the test kitchen. We monitored leftovers in these specialty reusable containers for several days. We like to do our bit for the environment, but some were so hard to open that we didn’t want to use them again. In the end, we concluded that three of the six items we tested weren’t worth buying, and a fourth we could recommend only with reservations. But the remaining two items—both from the same company—offered small solutions to small problems and are worth the small investment.