Imagine buying your favourite chips snack, then later finding out that it’s stale.

What can you do?

According to the Washington Post, chips go stale when they’ve gained too much moisture.

That’s because chips lose most of the moisture inside them during the frying process, creating a crunchy network of starch molecules.

Those starch molecules are hydrophilic, meaning they attract water from the air around them.

Therefore, if you purchase chips and they turn out to be stale, it’s really due to the fact that they’ve spent such a long time on the shelf that they started to absorb ‘sweat’, losing their quality, or the chip’s packaging was left open, bringing them in contact with moisture from the air.

How to revive your stale chips

If you don’t want to throw them away, wasting your hard earned cash, Our Today’s advice is to simply place the stale chips in the refrigerator (or freezer for faster results) overnight and then, believe it or not, voilà, you now have fresh chips!

Our Today conducted its own experiment to confirm that this life hack works and came to the conclusion that it definitely does.

In the meantime, lifestyle expert Kim Conte advises three different ways to remove moisture from chips.

She suggests microwaving or baking the chips for about two minutes.

She also suggests reheating the chips in a deep fry as frying them in a skillet can work just as well, just use a very hot pan with a little oil.

“The key to crispy leftover chips is to start dry and cook on a high heat – or just eat them all in the first sitting!” Conte advises.

But, if you’ve stocked up on chips for a rainy day and you prefer a healthier option, the best thing to do is to keep them from going stale in the first place, so store them in an air-tight container or freeze them.