Self-rising Flour - Two Thumbs Down

This is just a brief post so that I can vent a frustration. I think that self-rising flour is a travesty for the world of baking. It has entirely too much salt and leavening in it, and I can almost always taste it. The British are really big on using this product, but perhaps Americans and Australians are also. There's been a lot said of late about how good the British cooking is getting, but I think that as long as they keep using self-rising flour in their baking they have not yet refined their taste buds enough to really appreciate good cooking. Even Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson use the stuff.

So this is just to say that I would like to see absolutely everyone out there avoiding the use of self-rising flour. I've even seen it used in recipes that wouldn't call for any leavening anyway. So what's the point? Maybe they just like the taste of baking powder and salt - or is it baking soda? When they tell how to make it if you don't have any, they tell you to add 1 1/2 tsps baking powder plus a pinch of salt to a cup of flour. And I should also imagine that most self-rising flours are using bleached flour, which doesn't taste nearly as good as unbleached flour. So all in all you would get a flat slightly chemical taste from using self-rising flour.

Also - I am totally against using Bisquick.  For a review of this product go here.

But now for the real problem - what to do when a recipe you are interested in calls for self-rising flour. Certainly adding as much leavening and salt as is in the self-rising flour is not the answer, otherwise one would just use self-rising flour. Well unfortunately I do not immediately have a preferred answer, but I am looking into this problem and well get back to this post with an answer some time soon.