Monday, August 9, 2010

All Ice Cream is Not Created Equal

Courtesy sodahead.com
My awesome fiance brought home dessert last night. He does a great job when he goes grocery shopping when it comes to buying natural, but is sometimes a little unsure -- I think mostly because his job keeps him so busy and I'm the one sitting on my tush doing the research and most of the buying. SO, when he showed up with two brands of ice cream, I couldn't really complain, could I? ;-)

One was mint chocolate chip, and it was all natural -- by Breyer's. I looked over the ingredients and was pretty pleased; aside from using raw local milk and making it myself, it did as well as it could. Plus, it was my favorite flavor and definitely won't go uneaten (ie inedibly freezer-burned).

The second kind was one that we rely on quite a bit from Hannaford --Nature's Place (a Hannaford specialty that often is slightly cheaper than other healthful alternatives; we also get their organic milk, among other items) chocolate and vanilla. Upon looking over the ingredient list, I noticed that one of the ingredients was corn syrup. Oye.

While it's not as bad as high fructose corn syrup, seeing the term sends alarms off in my head. It's still a corn-based product used for sweetening, but less "dangerous" -- I'm still concerned that our intake of corn isn't a "natural" amount, and after seeing Food, Inc., I'm wary. I prefer agave nectar or raw sugar for sweetening, but I'll even take refined white sugar to corn syrups. It may be correct, it may not be, but it's my level of comfort.

*** This post requested by above-mentioned fiance. Not the compliments about him, just the "surprise" about the ice cream. :-) ***

2 comments:

  1. Meg - do you have a subscription to Nutrition Action newsletter? It's by the Centers for Science in the Public Interest and is fascinating. They have no ad revenue, so they report exactly what they find, in an unbiased way. I have been reading it for several years and they always rank Breyers towards the top of the list. Also, Men's Health has consistently said if you have to choose an ice cream, go for Breyer's - they say it is all natural and makes the best use of real fruit. So, I always check for Breyer's first - then will occasionally sway if I see peanut butter-something-or-other flavor in another brand that is on sale (though, I have put some of that back after reading the nutrition label and getting paranoid with all the fat). So, Breyers is always a good choice! :-)

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  2. Thanks for the heads-up, Bob! I'm looking up the newsletter as I type. :-)

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