Best freshness preserving/ smell containing product I've yet encountered Nothing like Mylar for sealing freshness, smell, and preserving. These bags tend flat and are definitely best suited for slimmer or flatter objects. For more three dimensional objects, entire fruit for instance, they are much less graceful and you lose some overall capacity. Also, it is is possible to heat seal the poorly so make sure you leave plenty of room for the iron to make a good solid contact without heating/ melting the contents of the bag. They can also be cut up into smaller bags if needed and heat sealed on all four sides. 5 Mylar goodness, great value for smaller projects! Added these to an order as I'd had them on a list for a while and decided to store some longer term food in case of a hurricane (Gulf Coast).The included 300cc Oxygen absorbers worked as advertised and according to several sites, are the appropriate size for the 1-Gallon bags contained in this product. NOTE: I used a flat iron to seal the bags most of the way, then used a hard plastic straw to suck out as much air as possible, then sealed the remaining opening as quickly as possible. This seems to be a successful process as after about 12 hours the bags were nice and compacted to the food within (Rice in this case). Worked equally well for pasta and beans.Overall I'm very pleased with this product, and will be ordering more in the future for other projects. These bags would also be useful for sealing in a first aid kit, clothes, and anything else you wanted to protect while outdoors, hiking, etc... definitely alot of possible uses for these. 5 Excellent product. High quality. Fast shipping. Good price. I'll buy again! Excellent 5ml bags which Amazon shipped fast. They seal easily with a standard iron on the wool setting or a bit higher. I also use a a Welch vacuum pump and placed a 1/4" aluminum pipe at the end of the hose. Simply fill your Mylar bag with product. Insert an Oxygen Absorber. Seal the bag right up to the aluminum pipe (don't use plastic by the way). Turn on the vacuum and gently pull the pipe out. You'll see the bag completely form around the product you have inside. Rice for example will show its outline on the outside of the bag and there will absolutely be no air inside the bag. Items inside will be hard packed. As you slide the pipe out of the bag, keep your finger on the hole and simply hit it with the hot iron and you've product which will last many years!I filled many of these bags with various products and then placed them inside the 6 gallon plastic containers with the so-called "gamma" lids. I also printed labels to stick on the outside of the plastic pail. I printed labels with sticky backs to place on the bags but they fell off so I used a Sharpie pen to write labels on the bags prior to filling them. I also made complete lists of what was inside each plastic pail and placed that inside. I mean, in a few years one won't know what's inside unless you make comprehensive inventory lists. 5 THESE ARE THE BEST SIZE I had gotten some 5 gallon bags, which worked fine, but I quickly noticed that I was putting 10 or 20 pounds of the same food in each bag. I realized that if I actually have to use this in the future to live on, I will need to eat a lot of the same type of rice or beans or oatmeal or pancake mix, etc. in a relatively short time before it goes bad since the bag will be open. It could be resealed, if there is electricity available, but the whole point of having this kind of food storage is to survive in a situation where things might not be normal--and resealing each bag constantly would be a chore I would be better off without, even if it were possible. These one gallon bags hold a pound or two of most kinds of food. The oxy absorbers pull the oxygen out, and most of the time, the bags pull tight within a day or two (like a vacuum sealed bag) and give the impression that the food inside will last for a really long time. These smaller bags allow for smaller portions of a large variety of dry foods which means if I ever need to rely on them, I can open a dozen different bags, eat a varied diet for a few weeks and still have lots of freshly packed bags available to open later. You can get quite a few one gallon bags out of a 20 pound bulk bag of rice and the same is true for lots of other types of food. I have found that the easiest way to store the bags is in new steel trash cans with lids. Each 30 gallon trash can can hold maybe 50 or 75 bags of food, depending on how full you make each one. This is a lot easier than using and sealing individual 5 gallon buckets that only hold 6 or 7 bags each. I have a feeling that any rats in the area would have a harder time getting to the food as well. Overall, these one gallon Mylar bags and oxy-absorbers are a near perfect solution for long term food storage. I would give them 5 stars, except for the hassle of having all the oxy-absorbers vacuum sealed in a single container which means you pretty much have to be prepared to use them all in a short period of time--having a mason jar handy to keep them mostly fresh as you seal all those bags. Apparently, all the companies that sell these package them the same, so it is not a problem specific to this company--I just wish you could buy them packaged one or two at a time so it would be easier to pack up just a couple of bags at a time now and then. When I checked with one company who sold oxy-absorbers, they recommended I buy a vacuum sealing machine for about $100 to reseal the unused absorbers so they would last longer if I wanted to use less than 20 at a time. It seemed to me like an enterprising company would realize a consumer need and charge a little more for more convenient packaging. Then you would be able to buy both the 20 pack and some spare smaller packs. Just my opinion. Generally, the overall cost of storing a lot of food yourself in one gallon Mylar bags compared with buying prepackaged long term storage food is much better. For bulk, dry foods it is the best solution I have found. If food ever gets hard to come by, I know the more I've put away, the happier I'll be. 4 Worked perfectly; product as advertised. Ordered from SilicaGelProducts. These were as advertised, 5-mil thick with an inner foil layer. Not sure where the one-star ratings bought from.Regarding oxygen absorbers not working because they didn't vacuum shrink some bags, do a little research. I was skeptical of one bag of dry milk that shrank, while another didn't. I opened the one that didn't after a week, and sure enough the oxygen absorber was stiff. It had worked. One bag wasted, but lesson learned. 5 Mylar food storage bags... I have just gotten into long term food storage. I like what I have read so far but have just sealed my first set of bags.No matter what you read about mylar bags and your FoodSaver... the FoodSaver cannot suck the air out and/or seal these bags!There are other methods to sealing these bags, such as a flat iron (one that is made for your hair), a clothes iron/ironing board, or an impak sealer.There is one vacuum sealer made by Impak Corp that I found that will vacuum seal your mylar bags and it is made for home use. I have purchased one and have sealed several bags so far and Love It!! 5