Yet another one to cross off the list! I’ve just been contacted with this news. I don’t know how long it’s been since the recipe changed; I don’t get up to a large Tesco very often, so the last time I bought a packet was quite a while ago.
If you have a packet in the cupboard, CHECK ITS INGREDIENTS! If you have friends who also need to know about the change, please let them know.
I shall update our review page. It’s depressing that the vast majority of the changes I have to make to that page are removals from the safe list rather than additions.
I’ve just come from Morrison’s (don’t know whether you have one of them near you), and they have quite a range which are labelled “may contain traces of…” as usual. It depends how careful you need to be with the dairyfreeness of your biscuits. By and large, the labelling is just lawyer-speak for “We cannot prove that no trace of milk has made its way into the mixture and therefore, since we have no intention of being sued, we are covering our backs.” However, if you have someone who is severely, anaphylactically allergic to milk protein, it would not be worth the risk. If you’re avoiding the milk because of lactose intolerance, there isn’t the same degree of risk associated with consuming tiny traces (assuming there might be contamination from the factory) since this isn’t an allergy and, while the gut symptoms are unpleasant, they’re not going to cause anaphylaxis. I’m lactose-intolerant, as is one of my children, and we can eat most of the “may contain” biscuits without any repercussions. However, my husband is allergic to milk protein and I always keep his biscuits rigidly milk-free as we have had incidences of contamination occuring in biscuits labelled “may contain”. I also store them separately from ours. We are a two biscuit tin household!
As for cheap biscuits that are dairy-free, you’re almost always safe with gingernuts and rich tea biscuits. If you want a fairly cheap treat, Bourbon creams (bizarrely I’ve always felt, given they’re a ‘cream’ biscuit) are always milk free. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the company making them won’t opt for the lawyer-speak labelling. I’ve found coconut rings at Morrison’s today, so it might be worth looking for other brands of those.
Do check our reviews pages for reviews of lots of different dairy-free biscuits which may give you other ideas. If you find something that’s good out there, please let us know so that we can spread the good news! Likewise we’re always keen to hear about foods which have become toxic.
Good hunting!
Marks & Spencers own brand digestive biscuits are dairy free and taste really nice.
Thank you for that suggestion, I shall have to try to find an M&S to investigate. Have you seen my recent post updating the Tesco Value situation? They’re now OK again. At least they were when I looked last week! I’m sure the M&S ones are better quality than the value end of Tesco’s output, but they may also have a price tag which goes with that! I might go for the M&S ones for eating whole and use the Tesco Value ones for crushing and using in cooking. Thanks for leaving your comment.