The healthiest of the lowest branded digestive biscuits (Asda Smart Price Digestive Biscuits)

Member Name: HonestBob

Product:	Asda Smart Price Digestive Biscuits
Date:	09/09/08 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Straight A's on the dunk test.

Disadvantages: Bland taste and texture.

These digestives are lighter in colour than the leading brand and less crumbly. They are packaged in the usual Smart Price white and green packaging, which makes reading the ingredients and dietary information a little hard on the eyes, particularly when green writing is printed on a slightly lighter green brand. Larger print would be appreciated in this instance. There is no 'tear here' or 'open here' band so the packaging has to be opened with a sharp knife or nimble fingers. It's simple additions like the 'tear here' strip that separate the cheapies from their labelled rivals.

These biscuits are less crumbly than similar biscuits so would make poor cheesecake bases, it does however mean that eating them makes less mess and reduces the risk of dunk-drop accidents.

I put this brand and the Sainsbury's Basic Digestives brand to comparison test (see my other review), comparing them for size, texture, taste, nutritional value and dunkability.

Sizewise the Asda Smart Price Digestives compare favourably with the leading brand for diameter, but are a little thinner. In terms of texture they are less crumbly and must be kept in an airtight container or they go stale and soft very quickly. They are less sweet than other brands and do not hold the flavour of coffee well and, like all digestives, can get boring to eat in a short time (good for dieters I suppose!). Being less sweet than other digestives I find these go nicely with a bit of cheddar.

These biscuits contain 2.9g of fat per biscuit, 2.3g of sugar per biscuit and 0.1g of salt per biscuit , generally making them the healthier option of the two brands that I have compared. The biscuits were successful in all of the 2 second dunk tests (trial by two people over two days and an entire packet, either dunked for two seconds or eaten dry), this could be due to the consistency of the biscuit and its less crumbly texture.

Overall these biscuits were satisfactory. Health wise they have less sugar, salt and fat than their other cheapy rival but this does have an effect on taste. At 38p per packet they're a useful store cupboard addition. But don't expect the kids to thank you.

Summary: Better for those on restricted salt diets, but Sainsbury's Basics taste better for the same price.