Bisquick, Add Water, Shake, Pour, Make...Toss The Container

There's a slew of Bisquick Shake & Pour Pancake mix ads currently running on the TeeVee. American corporations never cease to amazing when it comes to producing more and more products meant to be used once and then tossed. There are thousands of these products and more coming out in spite of global warming and our trash problem, especially with plastics.

What surprised me was that this Bisquick product has been around since 1989. It was called out in a NYT's article for it's packaging. They obviously didn't care then and they don't care now.

I wrote an e-mail to Bisquick expressing my dismay over their throw away product and this is the response I got:

Thank you for contacting General Mills regarding the packaging of Bisquick Shake 'n Pour pancake mix.

Our packaging design group continually experiments with new ways to offer our present products to our consumers. A successful package is one that provides greater convenience for the consumer, improves the freshness of the product it protects and/or provides a new way to present the product.

We appreciate your comments and will share them with our product team.

Sincerely,

Rakeb Abeba / Consumer Services @ Betty Crocker.

Anyone interested in contacting Betty Crocker, here's the link:
http://consumercontacts.generalmills.com/ConsolidatedContact.aspx?page=http://www.bettycrocker.com

Fuck off, Profit trumps the Planet. But buy our stuff!

so you can reuse the shaker

It's not like it's lasagne or something you have to sandblast out of the pan.

My favorite stupid wasteful product is still the disposable baby washcloths. Oh, if only they'd had those when my son was a baby, I could have been freed of the drudgery and expense of washing 4" squares of thin terrycloth with the rest of the laundry.

I liked those things. They were wet, they smelled good, there wasn't much to them mass-wise, and they were biodegradable. Most people probably don't recycle the container, though.

It was good they responded in some form.

I don't cook much other than my George Foreman grilling machine, but can you rinse out the jug and fill it up with mix again?

Just mark the mix level when you first get the jug and fill the jug up to the same line with mix the next time.

I feel bad about purchasing bottles of water, but I will reuse the same bottle many times. Its better than single use and throwing it away.

the design is not conducive to easy washing. You got to figure, the person who buys this product isn't gonna be washing this thing. I found a few sites where this is recommended for campers. I wonder how many Bisquick bottles have been left on camp grounds since 1989.

Here's how you can have all the "Bisquick" you want with NO PLASTIC THROWAWAY CRAP ATTACHED:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,174,150184-249198,00.html

BTW, I recommend using lard rather than shortening. Shortening is 100% trans fats and IMHO is not a safe food ingredient.

But it sure tastes good.

olive oil and canola oil exclusively in my cooking for years, and have shockingly good blood lipids.

Trans fats are the biggest offenders when it comes to clogging up the arteries.

Rule of thumb: NEVER put into your body any fats that are not liquid at normal human body temperature.

In my family, we are not.

Just get a vegetable shortening with no transfats, or use oil if it's something that doesn't need a solid fat.

We already know that lard is horrible for people. jeebus.

shortening substitutes usually contain coconut oil, which IIRC is "known" to be absolutely terrible for you.

Lard didn't hurt the pig, and it won't hurt me. I use it, and all fats, in moderation if not downright sparingly. But highly saturated and trans fats are BANNED from my kitchen.

The idea that lard is fundamentally unhealthy is a myth perpetuated by the shortening industry. If lard is ok, that means anybody with room for a pig can grow their own fats, and WE CAN'T HAVE THAT! We have to make sure people are forced to purchase factory-manufactured substitutes.

Excellent article in Food and Wine magazine about the controversy:
http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/lard-the-new-health-food

Seriously, how many pigs live long enough to die of coronary disease?

Agree about the transfats, but is not lard solid at body temperature? :shrug:

natural lard, not partially hydrogenated stuff.

IIRC lard has about 40% monounsaturated fats, the stuff that olive oil has. SERIOUSLY, is is far preferable to shortening, which is a vein-clogger supreme.

Email sent, K&R!

If you're too lazy to put some flour & stuff in a bowl & mix it up.

I had the same reaction when I saw that commercial. What a friggin waste.

You might get a better response if you say that you are an investor in the company. They do care about people who own the stock, cause if they start to sell off due to bad publicity, it hurts their bottom line.

Here's a company selling pancake batter in a pressurized can:

http://www.batterblaster.com/

But the batter is organic, so it must be good for the planet. :sarcasm:

the current social and ecological moment for me. Batter Blaster. We blast your batter so you don't have to.