Pay attention to certain types of biscuits, the tricks for choosing the "healthiest" ones and the advice of the nutritionist

Some tips for choosing the best biscuits at the supermarket paying attention to the label and nutritional table

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For those with a sweet tooth, cookies are an irresistible temptation. If we are unable to prepare them at home with quality ingredients, due to time or availability problems, we find ourselves buying them at the supermarket and the choice can be difficult. So let's see what to pay attention to to choose the best.

In any supermarket, the department dedicated to biscuits is often very large and there are possibilities for all tastes. But how to orient yourself in the choice? Are there products better than others and what to look out for in the ingredient list?

Index

sugar

The first thing we must note is definitely the amount of sugar. We try to prefer, when possible, biscuits that have little sugar. Maybe compare several labels with each other to highlight the differences.

Reading carefully and comparing different products, you may find for example that some cookies have sugar at the top of the list of ingredients and this means that it is present in a greater quantity than all the others.

Even better would be to choose cookies that contain rice or corn malt, vegetable syrups or other natural sweeteners.

Oils and fats

For several years there has been talk of palm oil in biscuits and we had also compiled a list of products that did not contain it. Now the focus on the topic has dropped a bit, also because several brands of biscuits have actually stopped using it in favor of other types of oils or fats.

But it is not certain that the change is always in our favor. So be careful to evaluate the type of oil or fat used in the recipe and the total amount of saturated fat that you find in the nutritional table.

In fact, there are biscuits that mix together different types of fats: butter, vegetable oil, cream, etc. with the result of creating a biscuit that is really too rich in saturated fats.

Flour

It would be good to choose biscuits made from wholemeal flours as they ensure a higher fiber intake but also to vary with cereal flours that are not wheat. Obviously, if you are celiac or gluten intolerant, you will need to choose suitable biscuits, made for example with rice flour or other "gluten free" flours.

The advice to choose biscuits with the fewest possible ingredients and from organic farming remains valid.

The nutritionist's opinion on cookies

We asked Irene Tornisello, nutritionist, to advise us on how to choose the best quality biscuits and what to pay attention to on the label. Here is what she told us:

“To choose the healthiest biscuits for breakfast, it is good to read the list of ingredients, remembering that the shorter the list, the fewer ingredients are used for production. The nutritional table is also a useful aid in the selection, especially to choose those containing less simple sugars and to limit the glycemic impact they could have. Then prefer products with wholemeal cereal flour (be it wheat, rice, kamut). Watch out for the words 'multigrain' or 'enriched in fibers' which does not necessarily mean that they are whole. Reading the label and the order in which the ingredients are inserted is important because the former are found in greater quantities. Pay attention again to the fats used, prefer those obtained with vegetable oils (eg EVO) and without hydrogenated fats. Finally, biscuits are not low in calories, so it is important not to overdo the consumption "

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