WWF's First Product Review: Tutti Gourmet!

OK, I'm straying a bit from Walking With Freddie's usual fare in this post ... but what the hell. It's my party, and I'll write about food products if I want to. :)

So, without further ado ...

a product review!

As a follow-up to my first mention of yummy Bana Krisps*, the friendly folks at Tutti Gourmet in Hudson, Quebec sent some samples of their gluten-free biscotti for my consideration. Disclosure: these friendly folks — Cara and Michael, whom I don't know personally — did send me free food, but they are neither paying me for this endorsement nor threatening to abduct my dog if I don't say nice things!

Now, I'm a fan of biscotti with my morning coffee, but, for a Type 1 diabetic who tries to keep carbs to a minimum and who no longer eats wheat products, the standard baton-sized, gluten- and sugar-laden biscottus (that's the singular of biscotti, right?**) that cafés store in big glass canisters just doesn't work so well. Yeah, I know I could deal with the size issue easily enough, but there's still the ingredient problem.

I've tried various rice flour baked goods in recent years, and the adjective that comes most readily to mind for such products is mealy (which of course makes me think of mealy bugs ... eww).

Enter Tutti Gourmet's two-bite biscotti. There is rice flour, yes. But it's tastily tempered by organic coconut flour, arrowroot powder, and tapioca ... not to mention the other groovy ingredients in the four varieties: almond, pistachio/cranberry & anise, orange & chocolate (my fave), and chocolate & almond. The carb count is about 7g per biscuit — about half a unit of insulin's worth, in my case, and definitely "shot-worthy" on those mornings when I'm hankering for a little something yummy to dunk in my coffee.

Which reminds me ... biscotti are designed to be dunked, and Tutti Gourmet's product holds up exceptionally well in a hot beverage. No disappointing disintegration or sludge at the bottom of the cup.

Gratuitous photo of Leah, Kali, and flowers at the dog beach!

Oh, they're also free of other common allergens out there — the biscotti, that is. And Leah. I won't speak for the hypo-allergenic qualities of Kali or the flowers. :)


In the interest of giving the most impartial review possible, I offered my Tutti Gourmet biscotti to Paul and various non-diabetic, gluten-tolerant friends. Given a choice between high-quality wheat flour biscotti and Tutti Gourmet's products, I sensed most of them would probably opt for the traditional recipe. However, all agreed that Tutti Gourmet biscotti are really tasty and way better than other gluten-free products. Paul says, "These are by far the best gluten-free baked goods I've tried" (and he has tried quite a few!).

Freddie says, "They don't smell as good as day-old tripe, but for human food they're not bad!" (The bag he's sniffing above is empty, by the way. No biscotti left inside, just crumbs ... hint, hint.)

Blood sugar-wise, Bana Krisps are still the better snack choice for me — impressively short ingredient list, wheat-free, low-carb, über-tasty — but woman cannot live by Bana Krisp alone. Especially if — like right now — her blood sugar is trending low. Bring on the Tutti Gourmet biscotti!

Here's a nice young Italian-Canadian man going out for coffee and biscotti with his nonna.

Buon appetito!

Next post, we're back to walking with Freddie!

* Since I mentioned (in my previous post) being impressed by the error-free French on the Bana Krisp packaging, I'll just add here that I was a teeny bit bummed to find a noun/modifier agreement error on the biscotti ("votre boissons préférée"). Zut alors! But I've seen much worse.

** Hmm ... according the Wikipedia entry on biscotti, the singular is biscotto ... but it comes from the medieval Latin biscoctus, meaning "twice-cooked/baked." So my guess wasn't completely absurd!