Is crumpet healthy?

Crumpet is a small round bread that commonly people eat at breakfast in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Are crumpets healthy? How much of nutrition does one get from it? All this and more here.

Crumpet

Crumpet is a British staple that probably originated in Wales. In places where there were no bread or baking ovens, people baked this special bread on a griddle or girdle on a stove. A girdle or griddle is a flat iron pan that bakers heat over fire. Crumpets are made from unsweetened batter in milk or water, flour, and yeast with salt.

Thinner, small, oval pancakes made in this similar way were called picklets. Elizabeth Raffald first used this term in her book The Experienced English Housekeeper that she released in 1769. Normally, crumpets are 8 cms in diameter and 2 cms thick. In order to get the round shape the batter poured on the girdle is limited by a shallow ring.

The bread cum pancake has a soft texture with many small pores on the top layer. These pores allow butter to permeate inside and this gives more taste to the dish.

Nutritive value

Crumpets can make a hearty traditional British breakfast. One can have them at anytime of the day as a filling snack too.

An average 55 g crumpet has 97 calories in it. Total fat is 0.4 g and saturated fat is 0.1g. Carbs are 19.4 g with 1.1 g of sugars. It has 3.3 g of protein and 1.1 g of dietary fiber. Salt is 0.81 grams.

Calories in it constitute 5% of the daily allowable intake for an adult. Total fats and saturated fats are 1% of the daily intake that expert nutritionists recommend. While sugars are also 1% of the daily allowable limit for an adult. But salt is around 14 to 15% of the daily limit set. Commercial crumpets have fortified B complex vitamins (niacin, thiamine) in it along with certain minerals like calcium, magnesium, etc.

Are crumpets healthy?

Crumpets are made from refined flour and is a processed foods item. In homemade crumpets, you can add ingredients as per your choice and not overload it with salt. One can also use whole wheat flour for making crumpets at home. This would provide carbs, protein, dietary fiber, and some B complex vitamins and minerals. The fats would come from the butter that one adds on the top of this food dish.

But the commercial crumpets on the shelves of grocery shops, bakeries and supermarkets have high amounts of salt in them. Warburton’s and Kingsmill are famous for their crumpets but they contain nearly 15% of your recommended daily salt intake per crumpet.

Read also: Sourdough bread: Process, nutrition, and health benefits

Crumpets have less calories and make you remain full longer. One can have one crumpet at breakfast if you love them. Have them in moderation. Toast it or butter it. Honey it, jam it or put a spread or fruit slices on it. In this way, they can be part of a balanced and healthy diet.