The recipe? You combine the dry ingredients first. You then add the wet ingredients to that and voilà: you have a basic pancake mix that will give Aunt Jemima a run for their money.
A homemade basic pancake mix recipe usually looks something like this:
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
300 ml milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons butter/vegetable oil
Optional: sugar, vanilla
When it comes to store-bought pancake mixes, however, the issue is very similar to that of ice cream nowadays: many of them are packed with additional ingredients, and there are definitely different ingredients in them than your usual flour, milk, baking powder, sugar, salt, and eggs.
The list of ingredients on a store-bought pancake mix reads something like this:
Sure enough, that “nice and fluffy” texture doesn’t come without its fair share of less benign ingredients in Hungry Jack mixes.
Let’s take a look at three of the ingredients in the list, shall we?
Enriched bleached flour: white flour is grounded from the endosperm of a whole grain of wheat, which is the least nutrient and the resulting flour is mostly starch nowadays.
In the past, white flour was produced more slowly, and because of this, the flour still retained some nutritional value. Today, however, mills are using more aggressive processes that basically remove all the remaining nutrients in the endosperm.
In addition, because the flour is slightly yellow, chemicals such as chlorine oxide is used to bleach and whiten the product. Chlorine gas is recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency as an irritant dangerous to inhale. The milling industry claims there are no residues in bleached flour, however.
Partially hydrogenated soybean oil is one of the most common ingredients to be found in processed foods today. It is made by adding hydrogen gas into the soy oil at high pressure. The process makes the oil more solid, it provides a longer shelf life and a particular texture in products.
There are a number of reasons why partially hydrogenated soybean oil is unhealthy. For starters, it contains trans fat – the thing that makes food taste good and health take a turn for the worse. Trans fats lower the level of good cholesterol in the body and increase the level of bad cholesterol, among causing other damage.
Second, partially hydrogenated soybean oil is derived from soy, and many soybeans nowadays are genetically modified.
Phosphates: additives again found in many processed foods, phosphates have been associated with heart disease and increased cardiovascular risk when consumed excessively.
Although researchers admit further studies have to be conducted in order to confirm that they are harmful to humans, there are scientists who demand that phosphates be labeled as dangerous.
Now, should you or should you not buy pancake mixes? You decide.