My particular “dietary demons” lead me to avoid dairy foods, but I love to indulge in tea and biscuits. I want to be able to buy quality biscuits and yet as an awkward eater it can be tricky. Biscuits generally contain wheat and gluten, many contain Soya or eggs, and really nice biscuits almost always contain butter. In fact, the presence of butter or indeed that they are made using ‘all butter’ is often a major selling point.
On a recent shopping trip I spotted the Waitrose Love Life Free From range. I didn’t realise at first that they were dairy free as the labelling was all about their lack of gluten. However, finding no mention of anything that sounded even remotely milky I came to the conclusion that I could safely snack on these. Excellent! With six varieties I had to spend a little time making a decision about which to buy, but in the end I bought three packets - the stem ginger cookies, the chocolate chip cookies and the lemon shortcakes.
Having tried them and soliciting views from friends and colleagues our reactions were fairly universal. They taste good and we would buy them again. The lemon shortcake is a bit weak in the lemon department and maybe in need of a touch more sweetness. Eaten with a cup of tea they all dunk well and although they are gluten free I don’t think you would know unless told. The red traffic lights on the packet highlighting the levels of saturated fat reminded us to go easy on them, but in all thanks to Waitrose for some half decent biscuits that dairy free as well as gluten free awkward eaters can enjoy.
One thing puzzled us though. The packets declare the biscuits to be gluten free twice on the front – once at the top in a box to highlight it. The important gluten free message is repeated on the base and again on the back of the box. Yes, they definitely are gluten free! The allergens listed don’t include milk products and some don’t list Soya either. Why then isn’t this highlighted alongside the gluten free labelling? My question to Waitrose, and to all food manufacturers, is: if you can do it with gluten, why not with dairy and other major allergens? At the moment the labels (and in this case Waitrose) aren’t really getting the message across to anyone other than those looking only for gluten free.
By Gilly Weaver | 26th January 2013