People are only just realising there’s a ‘secret’ ingredient in Digestives that gave the biscuits their name
HAVE you ever tucked into a Digestive with your cuppa and wondered where they got their name from?
Well, one man did, and was left stunned when he Googled the reason, and discovered the origin.
“In Scotland it’s normal to eat biscuits called Digestives,” he began his TikTok video.
“I never thought about the name before.
“But I’ve just Googled it, and it turns out that in 1839, two Scottish doctors developed these to aid the digestive system because they’ve got sodium bicarbonate in them, which is a laxative.
“So essentially, we have been eating biscuits that help make us s**t!”
When they were first invented, Digestives were sold by chemists alongside indigestion remedies.
However, it has since been claimed that the cooking of biscuits removes the digestive powder of the sodium bicarbonate.
Regardless, Sodium bicarbonate is still listed as a “raising agent” in the ingredients list of McVitie’s Digestives, alongside Malic acid and Ammonium bicarbonate.
Sodium bicarbonate is said to have a “slightly salty, alkaline” taste, so the continued inclusion of the ingredient in the biscuits could also be down to the fact that it contributes to Digestives’ delicious taste.
Digestives remain the UK’s most popular biscuit, and an incredible 80 million packs are sold annually.
People took to the comments section to weigh in on the discovery, with many admitting they’d had no idea about the name origin until watching the video.
“Not a single clue this was the case!” one person wrote.
As another added: “Every day is a school day!”
“I’m 50 yrs old and just learnt something new,” a third marvelled.
“Omg – I never knew this!” someone else admitted.
“I found that out last week I had acid reflux they are great for it!” another said.
“Coffee makes you go too, so having a digestive with a coffee is double bubble,” someone else laughed.
“So that’s why my tummy is doing the rumblies after eating a couple of those? Nice to know!” another giggled.
But others insisted they’d known about the interesting fact all along.
“They’re called digestives for a reason, I don’t know how ya missed the mark,” one wrote.
“I mean the clue is digestive,” another sighed.
“Who doesn’t know this?” a third said
As someone else wrote: “The clue is in the name.”