# Are English Digestive biscuits food or medicine? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 24, 2018, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843 "2018-09-24T17:10:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/21 "2018-09-25T22:54:57Z")
If you have a cold, a diet of tea and Digestive biscuits is a traditional remedy. And yes, they’re delicious with cheese. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/22 "2018-09-25T23:13:49Z")
> [@GreedySmurf](#): > > Chocolate ones are nice, but plain ones with lashings of butter on top is where it’s at! To clarify for those in America, the chocolate coating is only on the bottom of the biscuit, they’re not completely enrobed. > > The name digestive does originally come from the idea that they had an antacid affect via the bicarbonate in the recipe. That was the intention of the inventors anyway. I don’t know how long that idea lasted, but it’s just treated as a semi-seeet biscuit (cookie) now. > > FYI, crushed up digestives make a great cheesecake base. 😃 What is a lashing of butter, anyway? How does one lash butter? ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/23 "2018-09-26T00:11:40Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > What is a lashing of butter, anyway? How does one lash butter? Like whipping cream but entirely different. 🙂 And one must also lash ginger ale. And beat eggs. Come to think of it, cooking is a bit violent, really. :eek: If you get a digestive biscuit and some quark or cream cheese and some good jam, you’ve practically got a little mini cheesecake. Well, sort of. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/24 "2018-09-26T00:19:06Z")
They’re also similar to Graham crackers in another way, that they were originally meant as a health-obsessed person’s food but turned out to be just tan-coloured cookies. 🙂 Little symbolic pictures of fibre. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/25 "2018-09-26T01:49:07Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > What is a lashing of butter, anyway? How does one lash butter? If anyone doesn’t know what a lashing of butter is, it’s only because, in their part of the world, one slaps on some butter instead of lashing it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TPWombat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbce88/32.png) [@TPWombat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPWombat)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/26 "2018-09-26T09:24:26Z")
> [@WotNot](#): > > This came up on last week’s episode of QI, and has been part of a few “Did You Know…” type web articles in the last year or so. > > If you look at a plain Digestive, it’s pretty clear which way up it’s meant to be: the bottom is flat, with an imprint of the grid it’s baked on, while the top is more rounded, and has writing and often some design imprinted on it. > > Chocolate Digestives have the chocolate on the flat side, and the side with the writing is uncoated. Therefore, the chocolate is on the bottom of the biscuit. This has been confirmed by McVities — that’s how they make them. > > Nobody ever serves Chocolate Digestives chocolate-down, though, so obviously the only correct way to eat them is upside-down. I have learned something! ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/27 "2018-09-26T09:34:17Z")
The digey is / was a craftily marketed biscuit - like others have said it seemed to have a wholesome, healthy, plain vibe to it when we were kids, when really it’s just a sugary snack. I say ‘was’ because now we’re all more aware of sugar in the diet [now that we’re all fat], but attitudes were different then [when we were all thin]. I live near a Mcvities factory - very pleasant aroma, think it’s the jaffa cakes though, not sure if the digestive is crafted there. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/28 "2018-09-26T09:56:09Z")
Me, I prefer Hobnobs to Digestives (both as a treat, and for tummy-soothing ability). Although, if you’re going to add chocolate, I’ll take the Digestive…it adds nothing to the Hobnob. Kind of fucks up the texture, in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/29 "2018-09-26T14:32:24Z")
Just because it has sodium bicarbonate as an ingredient doesn’t mean that it’d be antacid. When soda is used in a recipe, it’s usually already completely neutralized by some other acidic ingredient, with none left to neutralize stomach acids. Most bases are so bitter as to be completely unpalatable. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/30 "2018-09-26T15:18:52Z")
So, are soda crackers medicine? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/31 "2018-09-26T15:27:46Z")
My grandmother always had digestive biscuits at home (Canada). Sometimes a full Peak Frean’s assortment but often only Digestives. I saw them occasionally at other places but mainly at Grandma’s. Then when I started working in long term care there were always a lot of them around, (also those wafer cookies… and almost always those horrid pink ones…) I figured it was the bran in them that made them digestive. But that older generation is bowel obessed anyway. My Grandma had a “conniption fit” if I moved my bowels at any other time except after breakfast (her prefered time) or after supper (Grandpa’s time). I once told her I had to have a b.m. in the middle od the night…the next day she phoned my mom (her daughter in law) demanding i be taken to a “doctor.for my insides” (I miss you grandma, with your weird cookies and bowel hang-ups and misgided devotion to my health. Its been 10 years this month, you would be 102 this year.) Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2018, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/32 "2018-09-26T15:29:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Just because it has sodium bicarbonate as an ingredient doesn’t mean that it’d be antacid. When soda is used in a recipe, it’s usually already completely neutralized by some other acidic ingredient, with none left to neutralize stomach acids. Most bases are so bitter as to be completely unpalatable. Yeah, and if you add too much baking soda and leave some unreacted, you can definitely taste it in the cookie/biscuit as a salty, chalky type of taste. Not good eats. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/33 "2018-09-27T09:17:03Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Aren’t they pretty high in fiber? Maybe they’re “digestive” in the sense of the very end of the process? Yes. Traditionally the English regarded ‘regularity’ as next to Godliness, and definitive of good health. Which perhaps says something about the traditional English diet… or maybe it was just a random cultural artifact. In any case, ‘digestive biscuits’ were understood to be an aid to ‘digestion’, understood to mean regular and comfortable bowel movements. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/34 "2018-09-27T10:36:53Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I’ve had a ton (maybe literally?) of Maria cookies, and I can see why something like that might be called digestive. Digestives are a cross between a Maria and a piece of cardboard, says my tongue (and I say this as someone who according to doctors used to present papyrophagy). A few years ago one of those always-ongoing mergers and acquisitions brought Fontaneda and McVittles under the same ownership and someone decided to stop making María Fontaneda, start selling Digestivas Fontaneda, and make an advertising campaign which was the translation of the UK one: something along the lines of “Digestives, like we’ve always had them”. Only, in Spain we hadn’t always had Digestives: the campaign left a lot of people looking confused, the disappearance of Marías Fontaneda meant that Marías AnyOtherBrand saw raises in sales and eventually Fontaneda started making Marías again. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/35 "2018-09-27T10:41:00Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Digestives are a cross between a Maria and a piece of cardboard, says my tongue (and I say this as someone who according to doctors used to present papyrophagy). A few years ago one of those always-ongoing mergers and acquisitions brought Fontaneda and McVittles under the same ownership and someone decided to stop making María Fontaneda, start selling Digestivas Fontaneda, and make an advertising campaign which was the translation of the UK one: something along the lines of “Digestives, like we’ve always had them”. Only, in Spain we hadn’t always had Digestives: the campaign left a lot of people looking confused, the disappearance of Marías Fontaneda meant that Marías AnyOtherBrand saw raises in sales and eventually Fontaneda started making Marías again. They look more like a [Rich Tea biscuit](https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rich+tea&rlz=1C5CHFA_enGB766GB766&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjd19W7_9rdAhWpBcAKHW58AioQ_AUIDigB&biw=1680&bih=917) (also made by McVitties). ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/36 "2018-09-27T12:39:19Z")
Well, for some reason McVitties decided to replace Marías, not by Rich Tea biscuits (which I agree do look more like Marías) but by Digestives. What I still don’t understand is why did anybody think that an advertising campaign based on the notion of “you’ve always had these cookies!” made sense for a product which, in that specific market, was new. Stupidity, probably. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/37 "2018-09-27T13:40:02Z")
Amazon sells McVitie’s. I’ll order a package the next time that I need a small add on purchase to get free shipping. This thread has gotten me curious to try them. ---
**Author:** ![blob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blob/32/489_2.png) [@blob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blob)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/38 "2018-09-27T13:58:48Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > This thread has gotten me curious to try them. Get Hobnobs, they’re delish. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/39 "2018-09-27T16:05:15Z")
Thank you for the tip. ---
**Author:** ![WotNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e19b73/32.png) [@WotNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WotNot)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2018, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843/40 "2018-09-27T16:28:16Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Well, for some reason McVitties decided to replace Marías, not by Rich Tea biscuits (which I agree do look more like Marías) but by Digestives. What I still don’t understand is why did anybody think that an advertising campaign based on the notion of “you’ve always had these cookies!” made sense for a product which, in that specific market, was new. Stupidity, probably. It does seem a little odd. A very similar approach was a huge success for Werther’s Originals, though, so maybe that’s what they were thinking. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-english-digestive-biscuits-food-or-medicine/821843.md?page=3)