Well, that’s us well and truly amazed this morning. We were under the impression digestive biscuits were created to be the first decent dunking biscuits, but it turns out the nation’s favourite snack was created to help stop flatulence.
In a new book by Lizzie Collingham, The Biscuit: The History Of A Very British Indulgence, revealed this fact about the good ol’ digestive biscuit. In the book, Collingham reveals that McVitie’s invented the biscuit to help reduce flatulence and disordered stomachs, or “windy colic”. The name digestive itself comes from “the reduction of flatulence”.
Unfortunately, the tasty biscuit does not really help much with digestion. Dr Michael Houghton, Post Doctoral Researcher for Food Science and Nutrition, spoke to A Voice of London and said: “They do contain small amounts of fibre, which aids digestion, but to follow recommendations to increase our intake of dietary fibre there are definitely better sources.”
“Wholegrain cereals also contain a compound called ferulic acid, which we have shown recently in our lab to exert small but beneficial effects against diabetes and cardiovascular disease… Unfortunately, the sugar and fat outweigh any benefit that might come from any whole grain that goes into the biscuits.”
Trying to add these to your partner’s diet will not stop their farts, you’ll just have to stick to using the good ol’ biscuit to dunk in your brew. Recently, biscuit company… promoted a £40,000 a year job to taste biscuits. So if you’re looking for another excuse to eat more biccies, get applying!
