Digestive biscuit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Digestive_biscuit".

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 1799 by Alexander Grant.citation needed They were advertised as aiding digestion, and subsequent scientific research has concluded this is true. 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), partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, sugar, wholemeal, cultured skimmed milk, partially inverted sugar syrup, raising agents, and salt. A biscuit averages around 70 calories, although this sometimes varies according to the factors involved in its production.

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, 7001 million 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 one side 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 topping of caramel, mint chocolate, orange-flavored chocolate[2] or plain chocolate. The US travel writer Bill Bryson described the chocolate digestive as a British masterpiece.[3]

References

  1. ^ [1] [2] [3]
  2. ^ EnglishTeaStore.com: McVities Milk Chocolate & Orange Digestives 300g Accessed 2007-01-21
  3. ^ Bill Bryson ; Notes from a Small Island ; William Morrow, 1996 ; ISBN 0688147259

See also

External links
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