diff --git a/examples/accept/accept.zig b/examples/accept/accept.zig
index 4fe6d26..477e973 100644
--- a/examples/accept/accept.zig
+++ b/examples/accept/accept.zig
@@ -6,11 +6,15 @@ var gpa = std.heap.GeneralPurposeAllocator(.{
 }){};
 
 fn on_request_verbose(r: zap.Request) void {
-    const allocator = gpa.allocator();
+    // use a local buffer for the parsed accept headers
+    var accept_buffer: [1024]u8 = undefined;
+    var fba = std.heap.FixedBufferAllocator.init(&accept_buffer);
+    const accept_allocator = fba.allocator();
+
     const content_type: zap.ContentType = content_type: {
-        var accept_list = std.ArrayList(zap.Request.AcceptItem).init(allocator);
+        var accept_list = r.parseAcceptHeaders(accept_allocator) catch break :content_type .HTML;
         defer accept_list.deinit();
-        r.parseAccept(&accept_list) catch break :content_type .HTML;
+
         for (accept_list.items) |accept| {
             break :content_type accept.toContentType() orelse continue;
         }
diff --git a/src/request.zig b/src/request.zig
index 0f97877..c4b9338 100644
--- a/src/request.zig
+++ b/src/request.zig
@@ -600,8 +600,14 @@ pub const AcceptItem = struct {
     }
 };
 
+/// List holding access headers parsed by parseAcceptHeaders()
+const AcceptHeaderList = std.ArrayList(AcceptItem);
+
 /// Parses `Accept:` http header into `list`, ordered from highest q factor to lowest
-pub fn parseAccept(self: *const Self, list: *std.ArrayList(AcceptItem)) !void {
+pub fn parseAcceptHeaders(self: *const Self, allocator: std.mem.Allocator) !AcceptHeaderList {
+    var list = AcceptHeaderList.init(allocator);
+    errdefer list.deinit();
+
     const accept_str = self.getHeaderCommon(.accept) orelse return error.NoAccept;
 
     var tok_iter = std.mem.tokenize(u8, accept_str, ", ");
@@ -638,6 +644,7 @@ pub fn parseAccept(self: *const Self, list: *std.ArrayList(AcceptItem)) !void {
             try list.append(new_item);
         }
     }
+    return list;
 }
 
 /// Set a response cookie