Delta’s Biscoff cookies were supposed to be temporary
seriouseats.com> a peanut shortage prompted Delta, then America’s fourth-largest airline, to seek an alternative onboard snack
I never knew this was the reason. I had assumed that airlines stopped serving peanuts as an accomodation to the increasing number of people with peanut allergies.
It's both. That's why Southwest stopped, for instance. Literally just opening a small bag of peanuts around people who aren't eating peanuts is enough to bring someone with a severe allergy into anaphylactic shock.
The American Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology disagrees, which I'm surprised by and totally thought they could too. Someone linked to this in another thread.
> What can occur is that the patient smells an allergen, and that smell triggers a strong memory of a past reaction or the fear of having a reaction and signs and symptoms of panic may occur – including an increase in heart rate, tight breathing, flushing of the skin and nervousness, all of which could be mistaken as signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis. ... While smells can linger in the air, the allergen proteins do not, which is why smelling a food will not trigger anaphylaxis.
Interestingly some allergens like those in shellfish /can/ aerosolize in a boiling pot, however according to them peanuts cannot. I can still absolutely see airlines reacting to passengers thinking they're having attacks and eliminating peanut snacks out of caution and to avoid the issues even an imagined attack can cause on a flight. That and the risk of surface contamination probably?
https://www.aaaai.org/tools-for-the-public/conditions-librar...
edit: dang scooped by 5 minutes.
This explains a lot. I always wondered why airlines eliminated peanuts but never ask passengers to avoid eating peanut products they'd brought on themselves, and why peanut based foods can be so common in public if there are "airborne peanut allergies".
Yes, the panic attack thing is pretty real. Know someone that had a severe allergic reaction, basically started choking to death, paramedics involved, all that. The experience imprinted itself deeply, such that she's deathly afraid of it happening again, and gets triggered with panic attacks. She's like two years on from the experience and through a lot of work she's much better, but it's pretty crazy how broadly it has impacted her life as an anxiety disorder. She knows it's not logical, but describes it as a fear of death and of a spiraling nature such that if she can't arrest it in the moment it compounds very badly, which reinforces the phenomenon - panicking about panicking. Anxiety over a panic reaction. So to be clear, it's not an allergic reaction she's experiencing but trauma from one in the past.
When I told my doctor about my oldest having a reaction to a chocolate bar with peanuts, one of his first questions was "did he react before he knew it had peanuts?"
He's pretty anxious about food in general, so it actually made a lot of sense.
I'm not sure it's fair to describe that fear response as "not logical."
It's not logically thought out, emotion is a parallel decision making process to logical thought. It may be that in some circumstances, fear is a logical outcome of a stimulus, but that's not the same thing.
> emotion is a parallel decision making process to logical thought.
No it's not. We know for a fact this is not true.
Here's an interesting story (but you can also find ample published literature on it, or even just like... think about how brains work): https://tomstafford.substack.com/p/reasonably-emotional
Yeah, if I almost died from something I imagine I would have the same response.
Yes. In fact, last time I checked (4 years ago), no one has ever had a reaction from (for example) kissing someone who just ate peanut butter too, which for a while everyone claimed could case a reaction. There was a reported case 12+ years ago in Montreal, but it was soon retracted as a mistake.
I think the key part is the _boiling pot_.
Yeah that's definitely the issue with the shellfish. I'm just more surprised the allergen is sufficiently different from the smell that they are disconnected in peanuts.
Molecules responsible for smells tend to be small, on the order of 100-300 Daltons—otherwise they aren’t able to diffuse easily in the air.
The vast majority of allergens, on the other hand, are proteins, with the very smallest proteins being on the order of 1 kiloDalton. Large proteins get up into hundreds to thousands of kDa.
I suspect that peanut boiling in a pot would also be problematic. The oil and water vapor and would provide a carrier.
I also suspect there's not much reason to boil peanuts in water outside of the very specific (and delicious) snack called boiled peanuts. I can't really think of any other dish that uses them as a normal ingredient. Most of the time you'd toast them in oil for dishes or use peanut oil afaik.
In Indian Cuisine, peanuts are sometimes boiled, and are indeed delicious
Boiled peanuts are staples at baseball games in the south. They are so good.
That is not true:
https://www.aaaai.org/allergist-resources/ask-the-expert/ans...
Interesting, thanks for sharing. Homework shows you are right.
I took a flight inside Mexico (Mexico City to Oaxaca) recently and the in-flight service snack was bagged peanuts. I was so amused, it was almost shocking to see. And, good news, no one died, but I assume if it was on a plane in US there probably would've been a strong emotional reaction by at least one person. It's good to know that the "Airborne anaphylaxis" is not a thing.
I still would not appreciate having airborne panic attacks on a plane.
Many nations are finally pushing back on Americanism and finding themselves again.
As an American, I say good! Every country should have their own identity.
My buddy's gf is allergic to peas.
She visited a friend's house and started getting an itchy throat immediately. Friends knew of her allergy and obviously hadn't prepared any.
Turned out the dog food had peas in it and the bag was open on the other end of the house in the kitchen. (And a supporting role from whatever the dog had slobbered on in the living room)
Sometimes it blows me away how sensitive our bodies can be.
Have you heard of Biscoff spread? It's kinda like peanut butter except, it's made out of cookies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BZsIY6PUPU (might not be sfw)
Yea, I once brought some to game night, and another gamer brought actual Biscoff cookies. Then a third person put them together into a sandwich cookie which I thought was equal parts funny and violating some kind of Kosher rule "Do not seethe a kid in it's mother's milk" I invented in my head.
We’ve strayed further. Sometimes we take the meat of a chicken, bathe it in its eggs, dip it in bread crumb, and shape it in the form of its ancestors.
Dino nuggies are worth it though…
Getting close to oyakodon:
And don't forget the mayochip to dip it in!
My friends and I stumbled into this as it's own food category and I wish I could remember the stranger ones.
I think you can actually buy biscoff sandwich cookies that are essentially this.
You can! And they're delicious.
If you care about your health at all, do NOT buy a jar of trader joe's cookie butter, or their cookie butter ice cream...
Slightly related but you can crumble these cookies and use them as a (cheese)cake bottom. It's nice.
It is indeed excellent; I think it goes well with a bit of whisky in the cheesecake. I also sometimes put a swirl of Biscoff spread through the cheesecake
I use that often as a filling for snickerdoodles, it's quite good.
ChocZero makes a zero sugar version of the speculoos cookie butter and it's amazing.
Wife got the same thing but it’s Oreo cookie spread. The stuff is crack.
lol how could this not be sfw??? I can't open right now because I'm at work but I'm so curious haha
Anything is possible on the Internet.
You can spread it on anything. ANYTHING.
Yes because I read the article.
This is usually the first thing I think of when I think of f**InG BiScoFf.
Wow you must really like them
Oh my
I'd read that there are a few snack items resistant to GLP-1 induced food aversions, when I was on a GLP-1, Biscoff cookies felt like one of them. I may have an Amazon scheduled delivery of Biscoff, which every month, I intend to cancel, and somehow forget to follow through.
I'm not on GLP-1s, but I am on metformin [1] which my wife says has similar food aversion properties to the GLPs, and for me I've noticed virtually anything with peanut butter I can still eat a nearly infinite quantity of. One of the worst things that has ever happened to me was finding out that peanut butter fudge is ridiculously easy to make.
[1] Off label for weight loss. My insurance wouldn't cover GLP-1s, and metformin is out of patent and super cheap, and I read that at least some people have had good success using it for weight loss. I am fortunately one of those happy few.
please delete your comments, this is an infohazard for us on glp-1s
I shouldn't have to suffer through this alone.
When we say food 'aversion', we're implying that a drug like metformin makes you not want that thing, yes?
I've found when I take metformin, and then eat food later, I enjoy the food so much more as a craving/satiation thing. Especially steaks. But I'm not quite sure why that is. I can't say that what peers have told me about metformin is to help with weight loss, but supposedly the benefits/effects on the body are generally positive.
In my case metformin makes it so I just have no appetite, and certain foods are outright kind of revolting to me now. I can't do fried chicken while I'm on it.
I'm sorry that happens, though now I'll be curious to be on the lookout for this when I take it.
Out of curiosity, does that effect subside fairly quickly e.g. once the drug half life and has exited your system, do you crave/can you eat chicken fairly comfortably?
One extreme option if you wanna kick the ‘butter — I ate a small amount of peanut butter immediately before a severe case of norovirus kicked in (48 hours of purge every 15-20 minutes) — can’t even be in the same room with the stuff without flashbacks anymore. Even typing that out made feel rough.
Maybe there’s some way to de-program such strong associations but seems like a way to kick a bad habit..
I have the same reaction to strawberry ice cream. Not actual strawberries, those are still good, but the flavor that candy companies think strawberries taste like.
I got very sick fairly shortly after eating a bunch of strawberry ice cream when I was a kid. 25 years later and I still can't stand the stuff.
How cheap is super cheap? Semaglutide is something like $70 a month now from some online sellers.
Three month supply of metformin is on the order of ~$17 from Amazon pharmacy, without insurance, though obviously depends on the dosage: https://pharmacy.amazon.com/METFORMIN-850-MG-TAB/dp/B0842996...
Biscoff is so filling, imho. like eating chalk. i cannot imagine eating more than a few, versus Reece's which I can eat dozen at once.
Claire Saffitz makes cinnamon rolls with these cookies as the inner cinnamon filling, they’re so good with the spice
They make a great graham-cracker style crust for a skyr cake.
Please, make sure you try these at least once in your life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculoos
As well as ‘taaitaai’, the chewy variety ( https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taaitaai )
And let's not forget the playful variety: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepernoot
Wow. Seems people do love it. My thought was always there could be no cheaper or worse snack that airlines can offer
The first 10+ times I saw these they were airplane freebies. Since I often get motion sick in planes and everything tastes worse at altitude anyway, I kind of developed an aversion to them, and was a bit puzzled to discover people voluntary buy them to eat on the ground.
I moved to America in July 2011, first delta flight in August that year, and have pretty much not bought any other cookie since.
When I was young and shameless back then I would even ask for an extra one! My wife hates the cookie though, so probably in your boat
Grinding them up as bottom for cheesecake is heaven!
Or as a lemon pie crust it's awesome as well!
Yeah I'm so confused in the comments, these things suck.
Same. I feel like i am in bizarro world cause its the worst flight snack ever
same. biscoff is loathsome
like eating chalk. never understood the hype about it
As a Belgian I still dislike this new branding.
If it's any help, the company denies that Delta came up with the name, but doesn't offer an explanation to the origin of the name itself.
It's also funny how they deny that the original deal with Delta was only a temporary short term deal, but that it was always a longterm deal.
Biscoff is a registered trademark of Lotus Bakeries, while speculoos is a generic name. Hence why Lotus markets its under its owned name, and not the generic name; especially outside Belgium/Netherlands where people don't know about speculoos.
Same.
It is at least easier to pronounce for non-Dutch speakers. Here in Toronto, there are a few places that put "Speculaas/Speculoos (Biscoff)" on their menu, e.g: https://www.columbuscafe.com/en/recette/cafe-latte-de-lours-....
But to be honest, as a Belgian living abroad, I'm just happy I can find it at all lol. Was surprised to even find the 'crunchy' spread in my local supermarket.
As a Belgian living abroad I'm waiting for the day prepare/filet americain, proper mayonaise and "broodjes" are available world wide. If people knew about it, it would be as big as sushi!
Yeah, broodjes would be great. But I'd settle for even just decent bread lol.
Huh. That would actually annoy me because speculaas and speculoos are two different things.
During the heights of COVID, the bargain store by me had boxes of trays of American Airlines' Biscoff. They were clearly optimized for weight: packaged in a super lightweight plastic tray with shrink wrap so thin it already had holes in it.
They apparently had enough getting stale to offload them to a liquidator.
Soon after these became ubiquitous in grocery stores, the manufacturer stopped using butter. I don't buy them anymore.
I first ran into speculoos in the south of France where they ground up and in all sorts of things, especially cheesecake crust. All of a sudden I saw "speculoos" every where. How it jumped from Belgium to Nice escapes me.
Once in a while we pick up a pack of these from Costco, when we haven't flown in a while. They're pretty sweet, so we don't get them too often, but once in a while as a treat.
> They're pretty sweet, so we don't get them too often, but once in a while as a treat.
Then a Costco pack should be close to a lifetime supply.
I have two teenagers.
Too sweet. Much would rather p-nuts.
Same. All these snacks have added sugar or oils, I'd rather have something simple.
Are there allergy concerns with nuts?
One of my sons is allergic to peanuts (and a lot more, like dairy alas) ... but Biscoff is a saviour for a little treat! And Biscoff spread is glorious, better than peanut butter IMO
Biscoff spread is a nice treat but peanut butter is much higher in protein, lower in carbs, and is mostly unsaturated fats compared to Biscoff spread which is mostly saturated fats.
Compared to natural peanut butter anyways. Compared to something like Jif though, that difference is probably minimal.
https://www.aaaai.org/tools-for-the-public/conditions-librar...
>Myth: Smelling an allergen can trigger anaphylaxis.
>Fact: While people often don’t like the smell of a food they’re allergic to, smell does not provoke an allergic reaction...While smells can linger in the air, the allergen proteins do not, which is why smelling a food will not trigger anaphylaxis.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33548082/
>Allergic reactions to airborne peanut proteins are rare and cannot be predicted by high levels of IgE-antibodies to peanut or Ara h 2. Only small amounts of biologically active peanut proteins were detected in the air and seem unlikely to trigger moderate/severe allergic reactions.
Cross-contamination risk via surfaces and touch might still remain in such tight spaces. Thanks for the articles about olfactory risks!
I have severe peanut allergy. If I have any exposure, my immune system stays hypersensitised for several weeks. During that period, even the smell of peanuts is enough for my throat to start swelling up. It won't develop into the full anaphylactic reaction but it is certainly bad enough to make me very unhappy.
I don't have a nut allergy.
They're also very chocolate-deficient and therefore not worth my time. Life is too short for anything vanilla, shortbread, or sugar cookie adjacent (which I recall Biscoff to be).
I understand that this is a blazing hot culinary take and might be the most controversial thing I've written on HN. Before downvoting please consider that this isn't elitism or opinion - everybody the world over deserves the joy of flavor in their confections instead of cloying bland sweetness. Embrace variety and live your life. Throw your Biscoff in the trash and buy some Tim Tams or Thin Mints.
That's why you buy the ones with chocolate :) https://www.biscoff.com/us/our-products/biscoff-classic-cook...
You had me till Tim Tams.
Those things have been enshittified to being brown dyed sweet biscuit your decrying and I hate that we (Australians) still talk them up.
The last time I had them (almost a decade ago) they were delicious. Reading that they've been so adulterated makes me sad :-(
Came here to say this. I thought I liked them when I was given just one packet on the airplane. So I bought them at Costco when I saw them there. It's been like two months since I bought it and I barely finished a third of that because it's too sweet.
Title makes it sound like Biscoff was created by an airline or something...
The bakery has been around since 1932, FYI.
The "then passengers fell in love" portion was enough context (for me, at least) to know we were about to read about Delta Airlines, the first place I've had Biscoff cookies, and other than when I get them at Costco, the only place I eat them.
I have been known to inhale entire costco sized sleeves of biscoffs
I don't look at the nutrition facts
Turns out just anyone can call themselves a nutritionist, according to Dr Ben Goldacre, but "dietician" is something you actually have to be qualified for.
So, you can call yourself a nutritionist, run a blog about it, write a book about it, anything really, and tell anyone any kind of bullshit you make up.
I think I'm on pretty solid ground with mine though.
> I have been known to inhale entire costco sized sleeves of biscoffs > I don't look at the nutrition facts
Here's the title:
"What You're Eating Is Probably Pretty Much Fine"
The strapline is "maybe just not so much, and don't do it all the time"
You mean dietitian.
This is meant to be good natured pedantry, but look it up, you may find it interesting.
Yup, typo on my part. End of a long day :-)
This article is kind of one-sided – it consistently makes claims and then has to admit, in brackets, that Lotus disputes them.
I love these cookies
Me too. Have you seen that Kodiak is now making "cookie butter" protein granola? Cookie butter is the US naming of speculoos and they're amazing. Love that stuff. Tried making my own to improve the macros more, but haven't nailed it yet.
I do too, but realized i like ginger snaps, at least some varieties at least as well if not better.
In-flight internet sucks? Have a cookie.
Just like login session cookies.
They are temporary. They have a way of disappearing into my belly.
They were (and are) a huge mistake. Not everyone knows that these Biscoff cookies contain cinnamon! A large number of people dislike cinnamon, and most sources of it contain heavy metals. There's also some early research to show that it causes cancer, although the quantities in one cookie are likely not going to hurt you as much as the radiation from the plane you're on.
Hope they get rid of these, it's always a hard pass for me, and I've seen so many others just skip or bin them after one bit.
Dunking these in coffee is super clutch
That also helps reduce the crumb issues. Though I do prefer the stroopwafels served by another major US airline.
Or hot tea. Along the same lines too, try the ultra-flat and crisp and dunkable Moravian cookies (specifically the spice or ginger flavors) or ginger-flavored Swedish thins.
And now with their popularity, they're almost everywhere now. Mcdonald's, Krispy Kreme, Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's have all had Biscoff partnered products.
Kind of cool to the explosion of popularity and them taking advantage and partnering with other brands to expand their markets.
#1 reason to fly delta tbh
American serves them too.
Only since more recently (2026?) I believe.
Oh no, it's been years. At least the last 10 or so. They usually have either cookies or pretzels, but usually both and if you ask nicely they'll give you the cookies. Two if you look emaciated.
pairs well with a coffee but with a gin and tonic pretzels are the way to go.
Honestly that's one of the few things I look forward to when flying these days, and a serious consideration on picking Delta if other factors are equal between airlines.
You can just buy some from a shop.
Tomato juice is also disproportionately popular during flights compared to what one would normally order grounded. You can also buy tomato v8 juice from a shop, but there’s a reason taste changes when you’re flying, which they explain in the article.
Anticipating it nervously as the attendant distributes them down the aisle and then receiving it for free makes it taste better.
I do, sometimes. But when I can always get them it's less of a "treat".
There are a few things I only get intentionally when traveling for work so it's something to look forward to and brings something positive to the trip.
Sure, there are a lot of things like this you can do. It would eat up a minute of your time and cost a premium to buy a tiny packet of an individually-wrapped biscoff. Or you could spend ~$36 to buy a box of 300 biscoffs that occupy a space in your cupboard, and then every time you fly, you take one out of the box and put it in your carry-on, and resist the temptation to eat it unless you are 10km high.
Keep the box, set a chair in the middle of the living room, strap on a VR headset (viewer’s choice) and put on an airline passenger POV video from YouTube. Crunch away at your Biscoff.
You’re welcome. You just saved thousands of dollars.
Like half the article is about why these cookies are popular in flight
In Hong Kong I've seen a gourmet cheesecake shop selling "Lotus Biscoff" flavored cheesecake, and supermarkets selling Biscoff butter (basically Nutella, but with Biscoff flavoring instead of chocolate).
I know the cookie mainly for being sold at Costco. I had no idea they were given out on flights.
The biggest question I've always had about them was whether the "Lotus" in their name is the same brand as the Chinese supermarket chain Lotus. I think it isn't?
it isn't. It's a really old Belgian company that kind of was slowly there for 80 years being fine dozing off and selling their cookies on the local market. And suddenly an invention show on the local television where a finalist invented biscoff spread woke them up to innovation and it seems that in 10 years they conquered the world.
https://www.gva.be/regio/antwerpen/rivierenland/bornem/vlaan...
>"But until 1986, when Delta Air Lines began serving them as a temporary replacement for peanuts, the cookie—typically something enjoyed with a cup of coffee in a Belgian café—was practically unknown in the US. Today, Biscoff is a global phenomenon, with its manufacturer Lotus Bakeries touting it as the world’s fifth-bestselling cookie."
How do you make your unknown product known?
You put it in front of as many people as you can!
In the above case, cookies in front of airline-passengers seemed to be the winning business formula, but this is only one example of a product meeting a market at a specific interface/connection point, with the Delta customers' drop-down in-flight tray tables being that "connection point".
In the study of business, this is one example (or subcase) of that much broader pattern...
Still, it's a pretty cool example! :-)
> traditional Belgian cookie speculaas
Pardon? You mean the traditional Belgian, Dutch, French, and German cookie? Because it's a cross-border (food) cultural good, it's not something invented by, or to this day cherished in, one specific country.
Can you just let us have this one? The other countries already have plenty to talk about!
More seriously, the biscoff variant is quite distinctively Belgian, as it's using caramel rather than a traditional mix of spices.
Does anyone voluntarily buys them? I find them barely eatable food.
Sure. They even sell a sandwich version with cream: http://nibblesnscribbles.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Lotu...
It's like eating a cinnamon-y, ginger-y oreo.
Yeah, put two of them in a cup of plain yogurt, let them sit for a short while and then stir them it - it's just perfect, not too sweet.
Aren't they supposed to be full of sugar? Each time I've been tempted to pick them up when shopping, one look at the ingredients and nutritional profile is enough to dissuade me. I guess trying them once in a while won't kill me, though.
Apparently, they are a brand of speculoos cookies, and this Wikipedia synopsis is eye opening:
> speculaas [speːkyˈlaːs] ⓘ refers to the more traditional variant, made with a mix of various spices, which is nowadays most popular in the Netherlands; speculoos [speːkyˈloːs] ⓘ refers to a Belgian variant that omits the traditional spices in favour of caramelized sugar for flavour, and which is nowadays the most common variant in Belgium and worldwide
So the Belgians enshittified speculaas to create speculoos, pumping it full of sugar, and presented it to the world as something special.
They're... cookies. A treat.
Looking at the nutritional profile of cookies doesn't make sense. You're supposed to eat them in such low quantity/frequency that it doesn't matter.
Yes, cookies are not the most healthy thing, but there are better and worse ones. It is not just even about it containing some sugar. Why replace the spices that made a traditional cookie special, with more sugar? What is distinctive about sugar?
Biscoff is a highly spiced cookie that's less sweet than most American cookies.
And sugar is special because it's essentially a drug that our brains are programmed to seek out and eat more of.
> So the Belgians enshittified speculaas to create speculoos
Yes and no. This "Speculoos is actually cheap Speculaas" isn't completely true. That's what people like to say today, but the "Speculoos" name has been around much longer than Lotus bakeries. It's just a dialect thing and there is no reason. Some people called it "Speculaas", some people called it "Speculoos", and _then_ a cheaper variant got made and they choose the "Speculoos" term for it.
It all just sounds really fitting because the "-loos" suffix in Dutch means "without".
Thanks for the explanation. I agree the -loos suffix is indeed (amusingly) fitting, if that's what it means. Specu-loss?
Specu-less would be the English etymological equivalent. Like careless or tasteless.
Yes things made with sugar have sugar.