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A digestive biscuit, sometimes referred to as a sweetmeal biscuit, is a semi-sweet biscuit or cookie, popular in the United Kingdom, in other Commonwealth countries, and the Republic of Ireland. The name "digestive" derived from the belief that they had antacid properties due to the use of bicarbonate of soda when they were first developed.
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History
The digestive biscuit was invented by McVitie's in Edinburgh in 1892 by Alexander Grant. Although they were advertised as aiding digestion, subsequent scientific research has concluded this is untruecitation needed. While rumours exist that consequently it is illegal for them to be sold under that name in the USA, in fact they are widely available in imported food sections of grocery stores and by mail order. The Original Digestive biscuit is still the ninth-biggest biscuit brand in the UK.
Ingredients
The typical digestive biscuit contains coarse brown wheat flour (which gives it its distinctive texture and flavour), sugar, vegetable oil, wholemeal, high-fructose corn syrup (sometimes referred to as "glucose-fructose syrup") or partially inverted sugar syrup, raising agents (usually sodium bicarbonate, tartaric acid and malic acid) and salt. Dried whey, oatmeal, cultured skimmed milk and/or emulsifiers such as E472e may also be added in some varieties.
A biscuit averages around 70 calories, although this sometimes varies according to the factors involved in its production.
Digestive biscuits may not however be suitable for nut or soya allergy sufferers due to peculiar production methods. Also, such biscuits may contain milk and wheat gluten.
Consumption
Digestive biscuits are frequently eaten with tea or coffee. Often, the biscuit is dunked into the tea and eaten quickly due to the biscuit's tendency to disintegrate.
In the UK alone, the annual sales of chocolate digestives total about £35 million. This means that each year, 7 billion packets of these are sold - and each second, 51 biscuits are consumed. Digestives are also popular in cookery for making into bases for cheesecakes and similar desserts. 1
Chocolate digestives
Chocolate digestive biscuits also are available, coated on the bottom in plain, milk, or white chocolate. Originally produced by McVitie's in 1925, other recent varieties include the basic biscuit with chocolate shavings throughout, or a layer of caramel, mint chocolate, orange-flavored chocolate2 or plain chocolate. The US travel writer Bill Bryson described the chocolate digestive as a British masterpiece.3
References
- ^ [1] [2] [3]
- ^ EnglishTeaStore.com: McVities Milk Chocolate & Orange Digestives 300g Accessed 2008-01-05
- ^ Bill Bryson ; Notes from a Small Island ; William Morrow, 1996 ; ISBN 0688147259
See also
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 14 November 2008, at 14:32.
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