A woman says one bag of Zombie Takis felt heavier, so she weighed both on a store scale and told her friend ‘I have a way with the bags’

A TikToker went viral for checking the exact weight of snack bags in a grocery store to find the best deal. In the video, the woman compared two bags of Zombie Takis on a store scale and found that one contained more product than the other, as reported by BroBible.

The clip opened with the woman and a friend standing in a grocery store aisle. She picked up a bag of Zombie Takis because she suspected it felt different from the others, then placed it on the scale and noted there was a little more in that specific package.

Her friend encouraged her to test another bag to compare the results, and the dial showed a clear difference in weight. Her friend then said, “You were like, lowkey right!” The woman replied, “I told you, I have a way with the bags.”

Shoppers want their money’s worth

Text on the screen during the video read, “Fattest thing I’ve done all week.” In the caption, the creator added, “Need that extra 0.05 oz of seasoning bro.”

Many commenters shared their own tactics for picking the best snacks, and some suggested stores should provide scales in the chip aisle for everyone to use. One person wrote, “I hope every store sees this and starts putting a scale in the chip aisle.” Not everyone was on board with the extra effort, though, as another commenter joked, “My fat *** did not need to know about this.”

Zombie Takis are a habanero and cucumber flavored rolled tortilla chip sold in the US by Barcel. Like other packaged snacks, the bags are sold by net weight rather than by how full they look, and H-E-B, for example, lists the flavor in a 4 oz bag.

It is easy to assume companies are tricking shoppers with too much air in the bags, including one shopper’s complaint about On the Border chip bags, but there is a technical reason for it. The space inside the bag is called functional slack fill, and it is not regular air but nitrogen gas, according to EatingWell. The gas acts like a pillow during transit and keeps the chips from getting crushed before they reach the shelf.

Nitrogen also helps keep the chips fresh. If the bags contained oxygen, the chips would oxidize and go stale much faster, so using nitrogen gives the snacks a longer shelf life.

Federal rules draw a line between that kind of space and empty filler. Under federal food regulations, a container that doesn’t let shoppers fully see its contents is considered misleading if it holds nonfunctional slack fill. That means empty space left for reasons other than accepted ones, such as protecting the product or the natural settling of contents during shipping and handling.