Eater's Digest

A good friend of mine studied abroad in London  a few years ago. She told me that she constantly carried a roll of chocolate covered digestives with her. I found this concerning, because the word "digestive" connotes "helpful with digestion" aka fiber. She assured me that they are actually just cookies and that they are delicious. After a few days in Scotland without eating any chocolate, I was suddenly overcome one day at the store with the need to buy everything tasty, which is how I ended up with my first roll of digestives. The next day we spent a whole day in Edinburgh and I decided to take my digestives along as a snack. Thus began my love affair with digestives. I could feel the judgment from others as they believed I was eating some type of laxative all day, and despite my protests that "they're just cookies!" I knew people were concerned about my proximity to restrooms. A few people were willing to try them and became firm believers in the way of the digestive, but the doubt coming from all other sides caused me to become worried. So I Wikipedia'ed "digestive biscuit" where I discovered how they got their off-putting name. Digestives were first produced in the 19th century, when people didn't know science, and because they contained sodium bicarbonate, people thought they would have antacid properties. In summary, old-timey people thought anything with baking soda would work like Tums and a delicious cookie got cursed with a weird name. So, all the judgment I should receive for finishing that roll of digestives in one day (I shared some, okay!) is from the fact that I just ate that many cookies.