Betty Crocker broke recipes by shrinking boxes

Shrinkflation, Trust, and Pricing

• Many commenters are frustrated that packages are shrinking instead of prices simply rising. They see it as deceptive and “enshittifying,” especially when physical tricks (recessed trays, changed stacking, “value size” labels) hide the loss.
• Some think consumers rarely notice net weight, only that products run out faster, and most don’t change buying behavior, which is why shrinkflation persists.
• Unit-price labels are seen as a partial defense, but often inconsistent: different units (per kg vs per piece vs per volume), missing on sale tags, or too small to be useful.

Boxed Mixes vs From-Scratch

• One camp argues boxed cake/pancake/brownie mixes are unnecessary: cakes are easy, mixes are overpriced flour/sugar/leavening, and from-scratch gives control over ingredients, cost, and health.
• The other camp says mixes are genuinely valuable: engineered emulsifiers, modified starches, and industrial milling produce very consistent, tender results that many home bakers struggle to match; even some professionals use premixes as a standard base.
• There’s tension and some class overtones between “purity/skill” arguments and “convenience/real-life constraints,” with accusations of snobbery on one side and “learned helplessness” on the other.

Recipes, Drift, and Measurement

• Shrinking boxes break “1 box” recipes that became de facto standards over decades, including many “family recipes” and back-of-the-box hacks. Some people now hoard old instructions or re-scale new boxes by weight.
• Others respond by rewriting family recipes from scratch, in grams, decoupled from brands and exact package sizes, and note that ingredient properties (egg size, flour protein, fat, bananas, canned soup) naturally drift over decades anyway.
• Long subthreads dig into baking precision: weighing vs cups, packing flour, egg scaling, oven calibration, altitude, and the balance between “baking is science” and “you still need intuition.”

Culture, Convenience, and Inequality

• Several point out that boxed and canned “recombinant cuisine” is a distinctly American tradition, rooted in WWII rationing, midcentury “scientific food,” and nostalgia.
• Others note that many households lack functional kitchens, storage, or access to affordable fresh food; for them, premixes, fast food, or frozen meals are pragmatic rather than lazy choices.
• Some argue that altering a long-stable box size ignores how deeply such products are embedded in cultural and family practices, and may erode brand loyalty long-term even if it improves short-term metrics.