Digestive biscuit

A digestive biscuit, sometimes described as a sweet-meal biscuit, is a semi-sweetbiscuit that originated in Scotland. The digestive was first developed in 1839 by two doctors to aid digestion. The term digestive is derived from the belief, around the time the biscuit was first introduced, that they had antacid properties due to the use of sodium bicarbonate as an ingredient. Historically, some producers used diastaticmalt extract to "digest" some of the starch that existed in flour prior to baking.

First manufactured by McVitie's in 1892 to a secret recipe developed by Sir Alexander Grant, their digestive is the best-selling biscuit in the United Kingdom. In 2009, the digestive was ranked the fourth most popular biscuit for "dunking" into tea among the British public, with the chocolate digestive (produced by McVitie's since 1925) coming in at number one. The chocolate variant from McVitie's is routinely ranked the UK's favourite snack.