(A.K.A. Non-Original Rants)
–Co-opting good stuff from all over the ‘Net and maybe some original thoughts—ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE
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At the grocery store the other day and B was buying some corn chips.
I asked the guy to be careful with the bag because we wanted the chips to be mainly intact.
He laughed and said, “I’ll be careful, but look on the bright side if something happens. At least you’ll have more chips.”
Ya know, he’s right and it’s all in how you look at things.
LOL. FWIW those of us that are / were “Packagin Men” know the story behind the seemingly EMPTY… or HALF FULL bags of chips.
It’s two-fold actually. Firstly, oils used to cook chips are prone to absorbing oxygen. A process that’s called “Rancidity”…. Mind, that is the OTHER definition of the word.
The result of that info is that most chip makers flush and INFLATE the bags with? NITROGEN. Our favorite, most common of the Noble Gasses.
The INFLATION (which is what makes the bags seem short-filled) is so that the BAGS will provide structural integrity around the product through shipping. Imagine if you didn’t have that fully inflated, cushiony bag around your chips and they were packed flat, stacked in a shipper, shippers stacked on pallets… and driven over the road a thousand miles?
Yeah…. Potato DUST is what you would have., OR… to the original point of the posting… a LOT of “Micro-Chips”!!!!
Gotta hand it to the guy… and accurate observation.
Nitrogen is indeed used to flush out oxygen, which when present is part of the chemical reaction that causes rancidity. And it’s an excellent cushion in a sealed bag.
What nitrogen is NOT, however, is a noble gas. The noble gases (so called because they are generally not reactive, and thus the other term for them: inert) are helium, neon, krypton, argon, xenon, etc. That lack of reactivity is not strictly observed: a sufficiently reactive element (eg fluorine) under sufficiently aggressive conditions do form compound with some nominally inert gasses.
Nitrogen, contrariwise, is quite reactive and amongst other things makes a variety of compounds with quite ordinary elements like oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon as well as many others.
@Doc… Senior moment,… I meant INERT gas. Thanks for pointing that out.
Though NEON chips might be kinda cool, no?
Not inert, just not oxidizing.
A bag of potato chips at the grocery store is an IQ test most seem to fail:
factory,
delivery,
shelf stocking,
and checkout.
Whew!
I tilt the bag back and forth, and if it sounds like it has sand in it, then it’s back to the shelf.
I’ve contacted a potato chip company when I couldn’t find a bag that wasn’t crushed, and told them they need to talk to delivery drivers and locate the problem. They responded. They weren’t happy to hear that.
At checkout, I hand it to the clerk, holding the bag by a corner, and if their hand reaches out for the middle of the bag like a gorilla, I pull it back, and explain, “I would not like my potato chips crushed, please”.
If they get mad, so what! It’s their fault for being stupid, not mine.
I guess there is a reason for self checkout that actually benefits the consumer.
N in and of itself is pretty reactive as Doc said. Nitrogen gas, at least pursuant to the applications in Food Science, is considered to be inert. Not oxidizing IS the goal in this application.
And I’m still stuck on NEON chips… 😉
The problem with NEON chips is that they soon ARGON.
🤣
Yeah, that checkout kid DID make me laugh.
Made my day.
@Wheels – LOL
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