Many snack products retailed in bags carry the information "Packaged in a protective atmosphere" ("... to preserve freshness").
Well, maybe ... but what it actually means is that the manufacturer has puffed up the bag with (very cheap) dry Nitrogen before sealing it, preventing the purchaser from determining just how little product they're actually getting for the extortionate price, because the bag is inflated. Combined with an opaque bag (again, "to seal in flavour") the scam is near-perfect.
The answer is to compel producers to prominently label all such bags with the warning "Packaged In A Deceptive Atmosphere".-- 8th of 7, Aug 16 2017 Here... https://www.youtube...memade+potato+chips [FlyingToaster, Aug 17 2017] or, of course https://www.youtube...de%20potato%20skins [FlyingToaster, Aug 17 2017] You'll be happier if you just don't eat that junk.-- normzone, Aug 17 2017 // completely empty of actual contents, merely a puffed-up bag. //
Jeremy Corbyn ?-- 8th of 7, Aug 17 2017 Oddly, when I buy espresso coffee, I can choose between a leading brand that is "vacuum packed for freshness", and another leading brand that comes in a sealed tin, "pressurized for freshness". Presumably, ambient pressure would combine the best of both worlds.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 17 2017 Go on crunch the numbers. The weight is labeled on the outside.-- wjt, Aug 17 2017 Humans are notably unreliable when estimating the relationship between low-density items to a specific mass.
That's what the manufacturers rely on, of course.-- 8th of 7, Aug 17 2017 Actually, most of that bag of potato chips is empty space. Just saying.-- theircompetitor, Aug 17 2017 And yet strangely, a potato is entirely filled with potato and yet is cheaper.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 17 2017 // most of that bag of potato chips is empty space. //
That's inevitable - to a certain extent; but there's no need to make it worse than it needs to be ...-- 8th of 7, Aug 17 2017 The alternative is Pringles, which have a high packing fraction but, curiously, no potato.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 17 2017 Perhaps you'd prefer your food packaged in a reactive atmosphere, such as oxygen? Sure, it'll have gone stale before you open it - but on the plus side you can make it explode.-- Loris, Aug 17 2017 Hmm, dried starchy flakes with a larrge surface area, and liquid oygen …
<snigger>
Actually, that would be "Packaged in a destructive atmosphere" but we don't really care …-- 8th of 7, Aug 17 2017 Meals, Ready to Explode.-- theircompetitor, Aug 17 2017 Quality ... nutrition and weaponry in one neat, easily-deployable package.
We would bun that ...-- 8th of 7, Aug 17 2017 in August 2007, Lays crisps in Tucson accidentally took delivery of N20 rather than N2. For three weeks, all of their products were packaged in laughing gas. Once the error was discovered, they decided not to recall any product, because N20 is permitted (for instance, as the propellant in several aerosol foods).
There was a peak in sales once people knew about it, and many people reported getting high on Lays crisps long after the N20-packaged product had vanished from the supply chain.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 17 2017 We wonder if we should mention that "laughing gas", Nitrous Oxide, has the chemical formula N2O, whereas NO2 is Nitrogen Dioxide, an unpleasant, aggressive acidic gas used in the production of Nitric Acid ...
If your potato chips were packaged in NO2, we suspect that the flavour would be somewhat unattractive to most consumers.-- 8th of 7, Aug 17 2017 You're right, of course. The reports specified laughing gas, and one too many bottles of cava led to a misplaced 2.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 17 2017 Um, do these potato chips smell like chloroform to you?...-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 17 2017 No ... more like ... almonds ... ?-- 8th of 7, Aug 18 2017 Do you think a hermitage in the desert might help, [bigs]? Or do you still want to see and hear people, but without smelling them?-- pertinax, Aug 18 2017 Smell is over-rated. If forced to choose a sense to lose it would be a toss up between smell or taste. I would probably choose taste because smell is more useful but it's hard to say.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 18 2017 I wonder if self training would allow a smell to be disassembled into it's different notes. Probably the subconscious would know a lot more but doesn't let the conscious in on full disclosure.-- wjt, Aug 19 2017 I think that's what real noses (perfumiers, oenologists) learn to do. It's not that they have such extraordinary senses (though maybe they're a bit better), but that they've learned to use them and dissect smells.
If you taste a wine with someone who really knows what they're doing, and they point out all the notes, you can generally smell them even though you wouldn't have noticed them by yourself.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 19 2017 // with someone who really knows what they're doing //
We can see the flaw in that idea, though. You have to let them have some of the wine.
This is unacceptable - unless it's their wine, and they've paid for it, of course.-- 8th of 7, Aug 19 2017 SF6-- FlyingToaster, Aug 19 2017 Those puff-paks around amazon stuff are in modest competition with the flavorless corn extrusions known as "puffins"
Eating a puffin* is not too bad.
* in the vegetarian sense-- beanangel, Aug 19 2017 random, halfbakery