Biscuits, again

Mr. Tidbit has struggled several times — most recently last week in discussing the debut of Kellogg's Nutri-Grain Breakfast Biscuits — with this burning question: What exactly is a "breakfast biscuit"? With now three examples under his belt, so to speak — including those from the Nature Valley and BelVita brands — he concluded (the following reminder is for those who weren't paying attention last week) that a breakfast biscuit is a thin, cookie-like item not sweet enough to be a cookie.

Immediately after writing that, he encountered Quaker's new Oat & Yogurt Sandwich Biscuits, little tablets of an oat/wheat/crisp-rice mixture, pairs of which are held together with a layer of a vanilla-flavored yogurtlike substance. Absent the word "breakfast," he wondered, were these perhaps lunch or dinner biscuits? No. A close examination of the box revealed, in small type, this suggestion: "Enjoy with breakfast."

He also noticed that — whereas the BelVita breakfast biscuits contain 18 or 19 grams of whole grains per four-biscuit serving (depending on flavor), the larger Nutri-Grain items contain 21 or 22 grams of whole grains per two biscuits and the four-biscuit serving of the Nature Valley version contains 26 grams of whole grains — the two-sandwich serving of Quaker Sandwich Biscuits contains just 10 grams of whole grains. (Partial explanation: There isn't any whole grain in the yogurt filling.)

But do the Quaker Oat & Yogurt Sandwich Biscuits meet Mr. Tidbit's "not sweet enough to be a cookie" definition of breakfast biscuits? Noting that the issue is the dining experience, not the reported sugar content, Mr. Tidbit opines that the Quaker Oat & Yogurt Sandwich Biscuit is definitely not a cookie.

Al Sicherman