You’ll often find silica gel packets (moisture-absorbing desiccants) in commercial food products. A desiccant is a hygroscopic substance used to induce or sustain a state of dryness by absorbing or adsorbing moisture from the surrounding air. They’re added to packaging to prevent mold growth or other degradation to the food.

Typically, silica gel packets are added to:

·         Baked Goods & Crisps (crackers, cookies, and potato/shrimp chips).

·         Powders & Spices (milk powder, seasoning mixes, and ground spices).

·         Nuts & Grains (mixed nuts, dried seeds, and containers of oatmeal).

·         Dried Meats & Snacks (beef jerky, seaweed snacks, and dried fruits).

·         Other (pet food, seaweed, and tea).

These packets are actually useful for all sorts of things, so when you open a food product and find one or two in the packaging, you might want to keep ‘em instead of tossing them out.

 

Besides protecting food freshness, they’re also used to prevent mold, rust, corrosion and other degradation in various household items. Silica gel is extremely efficient at lowering humidity (a key cause of rusting and corroding) in sealed environments. Thus, these packets are always found in the packaging of electronics, cameras, phones and cables.

Silica gel is used to protect jewelry, tool boxes, tackle, razor blades, and silverware from oxidation, rust and tarnish. And they’re exceptionally useful for eliminating odors in shoes, gym bags and luggage. People will place them in storage containers holding clothing, blankets, or leather goods to prevent mold and mildew.

They’re terrific for storing seeds, preserving dried flowers, preventing metal garden tools from rusting, and protecting anything in long-term storage. They can also help remove musty smells from books, and prevent foggy car windshields.

Lastly, this product is highly relied on in document and photo preservation: Silica gel keeps old photos, important documents, or books from fading, sticking, and smelling musty.

There’s one important safety note to using it, however. While silica gel is generally non-toxic, the packets are not edible. So, they need to be kept away from young children and pets.

One last bit of information: They can be revived for re-use! Once a packet is fully saturated, it can often be reactivated by removing it from the paper pouch and drying the beads in a low-temperature oven (200 degrees F) for 1-2 hours. Most folks just toss them out, but considering their usefulness, it can be smart to save and revive them for future uses.

It really is a product that keeps on giving!