My Love Affair With McVities (McVities Milk Chocolate Homewheat Digestives)

Member Name: Multtinems

Product:	McVities Milk Chocolate Homewheat Digestives
Date:	23/11/04 (5071 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Delicious, Always want more

Disadvantages: Fattening, Always want more

I would like to tell you a secret...... despite my recent dieting efforts I too have a weakness. This weakness is exposed each time I visit a supermarket or my local corner shop. This weakness is exposed by one company and one company alone.
They are ' McVities. '
More specifically my achilles heel is the
' Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuit '
Before I go into too much detail of my personal favourite I'll tell You some more about these two evils namely Chocolate and Digestive Biscuits came to be;

* The History of Chocolate

The origins of chocolate can be traced back to the ancient Maya and Aztec civilisations in Central America. Christopher Columbus is said to have brought the first cocoa beans back to Europe from his fourth visit to the 'New World' between 1502 and 1504. There were many other treasures on board his galleons were of far more importance, and the humble cocoa beans were not considered anywhere near as exciting.Chocolate was only ever consumed for drinking purposes until the early Victorian times.
Up until this point all chocolate recipes were based on plain chocolate. It was an English doctor, Sir Hans Sloane, who - after travelling in South America - focused on cacao and food values, bringing a milk chocolate recipe back to England.

I'm not such a huge fan of plain chocolate, never have been its far too bitter for my liking. But Milk chocolate I do like. Not too much, but not too little.When I do treat myself to a hunk of chocolate, I love the dreamy taste as it melts in my mouth. The rich consistancy disolving on my taste buds.......I'll stop im salivating on my keys!


* The Digestive Biscuit:


A digestive biscuit is a semi-sweet biscuit known for its qualities that enable it to be easily digested. The typical digestive biscuit contains wheat flour, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, sugar, wholemeal, cultured skimmed milk, partially inverted sugar syrup, raising agents, and salt. An average of around 70 calories are present in a given digestive biscuit, although this varies according to the factors involved in its production. I love the wheaty almost malty taste of these biscuits and they are by far my favourite of the plain brigade.

So there we have it two products on their own which are particular favourites of mine. I'd have been happy to indulge every now and then in the odd piece of chocolate, the odd digestive to dunk in my tea. Quite happy, I wouldnt have the problem I have today if it hadn't been for a certain person at a certain factory getting clever one day and combining the two. Now this is where my boundaries of self control get somewhat confused and blurred. This is where the 'one more won't hurt ' syndrome kicks in.........

* McVities:

The first ever biscuit that found McVitie's on the road to success was the McVitie's Digestive – the first ever digestive biscuit created by Alexander Grant. Who at the time was a relatively new employee. This was around a hundred years ago.....so McVities have been in the seduction game a long time now. The name was derived from its high content of baking soda as an aid to food digestion.
The McVitie's Digestive is still to this day a household favourite and is the highest selling brand in the everyday biscuit segment.
McVitie's first attempt into the blending of biscuit and chocolate resulted in the Homewheat Chocolate Digestive brand (now simply known as McVitie's Chocolate Digestive) in 1925. Over 71 million packets of McVitie's Chocolate Digestives are eaten in the UK each year – that's an astounding 52 biscuits per second.Now this fact does not suprise me one bit....why as you read this how many of you are reaching for another nibble of a biscuit?

The McVitie's brand has recently had a makeover - 'McV' now features across McVitie's best selling product lines. This is by way of a large arrow shaped logo with a yellow border and royal blue background. The word McV is picked out in white, with a smaller MCVitities on the top left corner.These are now in place on the more favourite brands of McVitie biscuits such as Digestive, Chocolate Digestive, Hobnobs and Mini Cookies. Unfortunately for me, two lovely new products have been added to their range – Munchbites and McV Cookies.

* My Packet:

I was in Tesco's yesterday and there it was on the shelf a packet of the afore said biscuits.
" Now even more chocolate! " It says helpfully on the packet (Not!) So that was it SOLD to the lady with a penchant for a bit of choccy and digestive biscuit. They were £1.38 for a 600g packet.

When I got them home I investigated further. The biscuits are wrapped in cellothane with its familiar brown choclatey coloured wrapper. It was 29cm long and had a circumference of 22cm. They have been sold in hard cylindrical shaped boxes with a resealable lid. Which is handy for storage.
Inside is around 35 biscuits. On this fact I cannot be sure as I'd devoured a couple whilst putting them into the biscuit barrel. The Digestive biscuit withthe top side coated with a generous layer of Milk Chocolate. On the packet is a display of the ingredients:

* Ingredients:
Wheat Flour,Milk Chocolate,Sugar,Dried Whey,
Butter Oil,Vegetable Fat,Natural Vanilla Flavouring,Vegetable Oil,Wholemeal,
Glucose Fructose Syrup Raising Agents


* Nutritional values:
Calories per Biscuit: 84
Calories per 100g (for those who like the slack handful)487.

There is also a customer careline printed on the packet I considered phoning it and abusing them for making such a delicious biscuit....
McVities Careline: 0500 011710

Or possibly a letter with a similar content? Write to:

McVities
PO Box 7249
Ashby De-La-Zouch
LE652ZH

Or maybe I should just shut up complaining a resign myself to my fate and have a cup of tea and a couple of my favourite biscuits.

I specially like these biscuits after they have been in the fridge for half an hour or so. Not too cold that the biscuits is hard but cold enough to make the chocolate hard and slightly crispy. One bite into this biscuit and you get an immediate taste of the wheaty sweet almost malty goodness associated with the Digestive and the sweetness of the chocolate all blended in together. Its crispness is to perfection. And the smell is mainly of chocolate with wheaty based overtones. The overall taste is delicious a fantastic combination. The main problem being one is never quite enough. They are quite pricey compared to other leading brands, working out that each biscuit costs nearly 4 pence each, but I consider this to be acceptable given the high quality of the biscuit.

Well done McVities I conceed defeat! I can't resist them, no matter how I try. Once a packets opened all good intentions go out of the window. There are lots of copies out there of the chocolate Digestive Biscuit but this is a true king amongst biscuits.

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