Sugar Savvy

We have ice cream on the mind. This shouldn’t come as a great surprise given we’re in the middle of the h-o-t Summer months. But that begs the all-important question - do you go for the full fat, full flavor ice creams for the high payoff? Or do you take a risk and try a low-fat version in the hopes that the flavor doesn’t taste low-fat?

Leading ice cream companies like Edy’s, Haagen-Dazs and Breyers spend considerable money year after year trying to develop low-fat ice creams that do anything but scrimp on flavor. As a recent article in the New York Times reports, “New industrial processes, including one that involves a protein cloned from the blood of an Arctic Ocean fish, have allowed manufacturers to produce very creamy, dense, reduced-fat ice creams with fewer additives.”

Probably more than you might have wanted to know about what’s going on with your ice cream, but however the manufacturers get the end product, the public is still clamoring for tastes that go a bit easier on their waistlines … and their guilty conscience. Breyers’ Double Churned line, which was only introduced last year, has now doubled its offerings. Not one to miss the boat, Haagen-Dazs debuted their line of Light ice creams last year as well, and now boast 14 different flavors at half the fat.

“Double Churned” is not just fancy marketing-speak from Breyers. From their own website, “Traditionally, ice cream is made by continuously churning a liquid ice cream mix in a freezer. The new Breyers process is uniquely different. Instead of continuously churning the mix all at once, we blend the mix a second time using a proprietary technique. The result is ice cream with a much smoother texture and a noticeably creamier taste. In addition to regular flavors, the technology is used to make Light, No Sugar Added, and 98% Fat Free products, producing a rich, creamy taste with less fat, calories, and sugar than our regular ice cream.”

So have the ice cream manufacturers succeeded in delivering high taste with low-fat numbers? You be the judge. The, ahem, research is going to be fun.