Product Review : FlapJacked Protein Pancake Mix

If you’re at all interested in eating better (http://www.examiner.com/article/avoid-processed-foods-for-proper-triathlon-and-endurance-sports-training) to go along with all those hours you swim, bike and run, then you have probably realized the importance of breakfast. Don’t think that just heading out the door on instant oatmeal or a slice of toast with jelly is going to get you through an hour of swimming AND get you to lunch without a serious wall at some point.

But, how do you make sure you are getting what you need from your breakfast without the empty calories that the great tasting, yet nutritional lacking donuts, processed pancake mix or some syrup slathered french toast might offer?

You could go basic with old fashioned oats and adding in supplements like flax seed and protein powder to make sure you are getting enough fuel to get you to the next meal without a severe crash and burn. Or, you could find products already geared towards the health conscious in mind. That’s how we found FlapJacked.

Forget about trying to figure out all of the ingredients you need and where to find the most natural components for a sustainable breakfast, and then mixing is all together. Just grab a bag of FlapJacked and start cooking. That’s what we did with a sample box of their 3 main flavors. Read on to find out what we thought about FlapJacked from an Ironman athlete perspective and a family with small children perspective.

Packaging / Shelf Appeal / Marketing

When you look at their website, Facebook and other social marketing outlets, they are uniform, clean and crisp and appealing. Their logo ties into their family values and all of their graphics are very high quality. It’s not a cracker box website.

One issue is finding the products in person. Unless you live in Colorado, you will be buying online. That’s not a bad thing, but you won’t be able to handle, sniff and grope their packages in person until the postman delivers.

Once you get the pouch in your hands, you will get a glossy plastic pouch that is re-sealable and very visually appealing. It’s also convenient to carry around, travel with and store.

The actual powder is very similar to your run-of-the-mill pancake mix. The various flavors do have their own tinges of color depending on the spices or ingredients mixed in, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary. It’s also not a one size fits all operation at FlapJacked. They offer mix portions in a 4 oz, 12 oz and 24 oz size pouches to accommodate families or groups of any size. Want more than just the standard buttermilk pancake mix? Well, FlapJacked has buttermilk, banana hazelnut and cinnamon apple. They also have mix tips to add your own flavors to their mixes to make even more flavors at home.

Want more than just pancakes? FlapJacked web site contains numerous recipes using their mixes that achieve the same nutritional goals and you don’t need much more past their protein pancake mix. One stop shop and it’s not pancakes every morning. They hook you in and won’t let you go.

Form / Construction

FlapJacked created their protein pancake recipe with the following standards in mind:
NO GMO ingredients
NO Preservatives
NO Artificial color
NO Artificial flavoring
NO Artificial ANYTHING

They smartly use coconut flour, whole oats and whey isolate protein powder. It’s subtle, but using more “natural” ingredients such as these instead of the large corporate manufacturing components often littering pancake mixes will result in better sustained energy, feeling fuller longer and putting more good than bad down your gullet.

From a mixture perspective, FlapJacked contained everything our family looks for in a healthy breakfast. We avoided pancakes in the past due to the processed mixes do not have the ingredients we wanted and the time and cost it took to make a mix from scratch to get what we wanted in our pancakes and to get them to taste right.

Fashion / Appearance

When you mix them up, cook them and serve them, they look as appealing as any pancake commercial out there.

Just as with any pancake mix, you can add and subtract water to make the pancakes more or less moist, crumbly or whatever you need to get the food in your mouth.

There’s really nothing different than other pancake mixes after you cook them up. It’s all up tp the cook to not burn them or cook them just right. Obviously if you are cooking up the cinnamon apple mix or another recipe, the color will vary depending on what’s mixed in.

Fit / Function

When it’s all said and done, if the food isn’t good, what’s the point in eating it? Sure, you might want to think of eating as “eating to live” and not “living to eat”, but surely most of us want to enjoy what we throw down our throats.

Well, FlapJacked fits the bill. We tried all three flavors they had to offer and we ranked them in order of our taste:
1. Cinnamon Apple
2. Buttermilk
3. Banana Hazelnut - we did add chocolate chips to this one

They served us well to keep our family of four on the run for a Saturday and a Sunday until lunch. We ate, we cleaned, we ran errands, we played outside, we worked out and we had no hunger issues getting from breakfast to snack and lunch.

We fed two adults, 1 kindergartner and 1 toddler with three-12oz packs amply for two mornings. It was almost a free-for-all getting enough pancakes of our favorite flavors. Luckily no one lost a finger or hand in the testing of these pancake mixes.

As mentioned, FlapJacked pancake mixes contain ingredients we look for when making our breakfast choices. Instead of creating a mix from scratch and finding all of the ingredients to make our pancakes, we just had to open the pouch, add water and cook.

Cost

If you can buy in person, the prices range from $3.99 to $19.99 before tax. If you have to order online, you will need to account for shipping unless you order $24.99 or more of products.

If you check out prices of mixes online, you can get around 28 oz for around $15. But, remember that’s not including the ingredients you might want with health in mind and limited protein content.

We found that pretty comparable to buying separate ingredients to make the mix healthy ourselves. It’s not all that absurd in price from what you could get from the store that’s not as healthy.

Final thoughts

We loved FlapJacked at our house. It serves the many roles that we require at our house. It serves as a simple breakfast, easily made, healthy ingredients, more protein than standard pancake mixes, sustainable energy for a triathlete training for an Ironman and fulfilling enough to get kids and adults to the next meal without hunger pains. It also appeals to adults and kids alike and magically the kids are eating something they think is a treat all the while the adults know it’s healthy and nutritious.

With 3 flavors and many recipes to choose from, consumers won’t get bored with the same ole FlapJacked every day and can find their favorites that keep them eating healthy.

Disclaimer

* Writer's note - FlapJacked provided the products for this review at no cost and did not influence this review.