Anyone who remembers Jeff’s foreign exchange student also remembers the awesome look on his face when he opened a bag of potato chips to find it was puffed up with air, and was over half empty inside.  We tried to explain to him the chips were sold by weight, not by volume, but it didn’t translate well.  I think it had to do with the metric system.

Well, according to Unwrapped, a show hosted by Marc Summers which airs on Food Network, that puffed up bag is not a conspiracy to make it look like you’re buying more chips… it’s protection!  Two-fold protection, even.  The show claims that the bags are filled with nitrogen (atomic weight ).  The nitrogen serves to keep the chip from going stale, and the puffed up bag helps protect against chip-breakage.

I’m not 100% convinced that the these reasons aren’t fabricated, but they do make sense.  And I can’t see Marc Summers lying!