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Review: Tesco "free from" ginger cookies (with gluten-free oat flour) wheat, dairy and gluten free

Tesco "free from" ginger cookies 


http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=268624669

Hello everyone!

Winter is here and it's been snowing in Norfolk - as well as in the rest of the U.K.  This is the time when all the resolutions of eating only fresh, nutritious food, raw and healthy, disappear at the same speed that the outside temperature decreases.

Two weeks ago I decided to go wheat free - just like that - or cold turkey, someone would rather say more idiomatically. Anyway, after reading the first 90 pages of The Wheat Belly recipe book by Dr. Davies, anybody with a brain will start wondering if wheat is such a healthy food after all.

This is not to say that Dr. Davies is 100% correct in his assumption, but let's discuss this in another post - suffice to say that in the middle of January, when most people enjoy wheat-based dishes such as pasta, bread, pasties, cakes etc. I suddenly decided to see if I would feel any different by ditching wheat.

As Dr. Davis wisely warns us, if we resort to "free-from" products we will fall into the trap of a higher G.I. as they are usually full of sugar and fat, or even worse, dairies, to make up for the lack of gluten (which is what makes wheat products so soft, bouncy, desirable and addictive).

However, Dr. Davis can talk as much as he wants of the dangers of higher G.I. foods  for those who are diabetic, pre-diabetic, sedentary, old, overweight etc but as for me, I am not ready to give up at the same time quinoa, amaranth, rice and corn just because of their glycemic index.

This is because I am slender, I work out regularly, my blood tests are normal and diabetes does not run in my family, nor I will wilfully stuff myself with sugar - I don't even buy sugar.

Having said that, I must have been ravenously hungry last week when, right after buying some spelt bread (a glorious alternative to wheat bread), I spotted and bought some 'Free from' Ginger Cookies, which are gluten free and wheat free...

Which is why you are getting the benefit of a review!

Ingredients:
Gluten Free Oat Flour, Crystallised Ginger (20%), Sugar, Palm Oil, Tapioca Starch, Gluten Free Oats, Golden Syrup, Ginger Powder, Raising Agent (Sodium Bicarbonate), Stabiliser (Xanthan Gum), Crystallised Ginger contains: Sugar, Ginger, Preservative (Sulphur Dioxide)

Energy: 484 calories, (91 calories per cookie) Sugars 7.9g per cookie.

Here is my opinion, for what is worth:

Taste: 8/10
Texture: 9/10
Crunchiness: 10/10
Look: 10/10
Allergy friendly: 10/10 (no dairies either, wow!)
Diabetic friendly: 1/10

However, I must warn you that, as you might have gathered by reading the nutritional label, this cookie is sickly sweet. In fact, I'd personally would have liked 50% less sugar, or maybe even less than that.

It's a bit hard to chew, just like any other ginger biscuit, it resembles perfectly well a normal biscuit, it tastes like any other biscuit, but the sweetness is over the roof. I was able to eat two because I was rather hungry, but that was it. Ugh!

I could also add that I am concerned regarding the use of Palm oil, and I'd rather Tesco used coconut oil, which is healthier and fights fungus, helps joint mobility etc.

Plus, dates or stevia could have been used to sweeten it without adding refined sugar.

This comment can easily be applied to most biscuits on sale, especially the 'free from' ones, which are un-necessarily loaded with refined sugar. 

How can one imagine that a person who has an allergy, or is celiac, or is into health foods, would want to eat regularly something with so much sugar, which is itself a cause of allergies (i.e. candida infestation), obesity, decay and more than I can type?

Clearly, food product creators need to be in touch with the reality of nutrition and what sugar does to one's body: it creates havoc.

Food companies: please eliminate refined sugar, lower the G.I. of your products and give customer a choice! And please, do not add aspartame (a well-known neuro toxin) to your so called 'sugar-free' products. Just use Stevia, or Xylitol!

For more info about sugar-laden products that you would not think of, go to:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2301135/15-WORST-health-drinks-Orange-juice-Innocent-smoothies-sugar-13-Hobnobs-3-half-doughnuts.html

And now that I have gleefully ruined your appetite, may I wish you a good night, as it is, after all 21:30.

A presto!


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