Reese's salt is not the only product that has done this to mee, it was just the last one before I submitted the article. It has also occured with cheap spices purchased at Dollar General stores and Lawry's Season salt. So it does not appear that the price of the product is the soul determining factor in the problem.
As for your work_arounds, I make my living punching, bending and forming steel products and have always considered plastic mold work to be witchcraft anyway, so I bow to your superior knowledge.
Ralph, normally excess salt intake can cause a high BP in long run. Now container also can increase the BP, so moral of the story is both salt and containers are not good for health.
Many years ago, on my first trip to Houston, TX, I noticed the salt shakers had rice in them. When I asked why, I was told the rice absorbed the humidity, so the salt would not clump. However, re-filling of the salt shakers was done with more of the salt/rice mixture. So eventually, the salt shakers were full of rice, with a few grains of salt in between. Apparently, no one realised that only the salt needed to be replaced.
I guess I've been lucky. I use dozens of these types of shakers for everything from salt to habanero powder (which would be quite a problem if it came out in a gush). I have not run into the problem. My guess is that it's a rare occurrence.
It's funny – there are probably a dozen work-arounds to improve that design. Change the gate locate on the cavity; or make the part a compression molded part without a gate; just to immediately think of two alternatives --- but food and drug packaging design has been a long standing irritation of mine. This is just one good example.
When I buy headache or cold remedies for example, I ALWAYS choose the store brand generic equivalent. The labels always say, "Compare to the Active Ingredient of ,,,{such-and-such}". And of course the pharmaceutical ingredients are always identical. How then, can the generic be sold for a fraction of the national brand-? The answer is in the packaging. Pill bottle tops that are painful to twist-off. Low grade adhesives on safety membranes that cause the membranes to tear before the adhesive gives way. Foil bubble packaging that cuts your fingers before it yields the drug within. Its ALWAYS inferior packaging, whether by material or by design.
Recently, when I was forced to actually purchase a Name-Brand because of the generic having been sold-out, I was so happily impressed with the ease of opening the product, that I had forgotten how well engineered the originals often are.
Ralph, you bring up a good point. The title of the article was what got me to open it. It seems that we often run into problems with these injection molded parts. If you make plastic models you will be familiar with the situation. Trimming is important. As for the popcorn salt, I would look at other brands. It is bad enough that the salt will raise your blood pressure. The packaging should not on top of that.
I've had the pleasure on numerous occasions of applying salt or some other spice element to food and having the plastic cap come off and dump well beyond the desired amount onto my preparation, only to have to ditch it and start again. I join with Ralph on lamenting this Made for Monkeys design.
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