A HEALTHY DOSE OF SUGAR.

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I'm a 4th year undergraduate student in the Applied Human Nutrition program at the University of Guelph. I plan to work in the food industry specifically in the area of product development with the goal to ensure that product innovations will not compromise but encourage nutritious food choices for Canadians. This profession is the perfect union between my passion for food and my aspiration to pursue a career that focuses on empowering people to live out a healthy lifestyle. My favourite thing to do in my free time is to cook! If I had someone to wash my dishes every time I baked, I would most likely be found in the kitchen all day long!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Is "real" ice cream healthier?

Since I am a nutrition student, I thought I would expand more on the differences between  "fake" and "real" ice cream in terms of their nutritional value.  If you recall from my previous entry, I mentioned that frozen desserts were made up of mainly palm or coconut oil instead of cream or milk.   Take for example the two varieties of Breyers chocolate ice cream:


I'm not sure about you, but the BREYERS Classic ice cream contains a whole lot of ingredients that could not be found in my kitchen!  In contrast, the BREYERS Naturals consists of ingredients that can probably be found in the majority of people's home.   It is no wonder, why they named it BREYERS Naturals.

Both of these versions contain the same number of calories and total grams of fat.  The only downfall of the BREYERS Naturals is that because it consists of all milk ingredients as oppose to plant sources of fat (ie. palm oil), it does have more saturated and trans fat than the BREYERS Classic.   Not to fear though, this type of natural trans fat may actually have potential health benefits.  I'll be mentioning more about natural trans fats in a later blog entry so make sure to stay tooned! 

The last benefit of BREYERS Naturals is that it contains 6% more calcium than its wanna-be version. This means that for every 1 1/2 cups of ice cream you eat, you would be consuming the same amount of calcium as in one cup of milk.  However, at the same time you would also be consuming more than three times the calories.  Therefore, although true, authentic ice cream does provide a good source of calcium, it should only be eaten as an occasional treat and not to be counted as one of your daily servings of milk products!

If you want to learn more about how to read a nutritional facts table or what %Daily Values means, check out the EatRight Ontario website, which has a 5 part series on nutrition labelling.
Posted by Amanda Li at 11:24 AM

3 comments:

  1. Sara LumOctober 22, 2009 at 7:15 PM

    I love that you keep talking about ice cream! I guess we share a common love for it. I think it's very true that the "Breyers Naturals" ice cream would be better for you. The ingredient list are definitely contain those ingredients that can be found in your own kitchen.
    I used to work at Caffe Demetres, which makes their ice cream on site. However, they still use an ice cream mix. They provide nutrition facts for this based on 100 grams on their website: http://www.waycoolcafe.com/fyinutritional.htm
    I was not very impressed with it. The ingredient list looks something like this, similar to the Breyers: MILK INGREDIENTS, SUGAR, WATER, GUAR GUM, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, XANTHAN GUM, CARRAGEENAN.
    Anyways, per 100 grams, there is 17 g of fat with 11 g being saturated fat.
    This is without the additional chocolate, syrup, toppings that is added to the base to create different flavours...and I'll just leave it at that. Wait...the most popular dishes there are waffles and crepes. So, I guess we don't want to go adding the ice cream plus the crepe/waffle plus the EXTRA toppings, syrup, icing powder, and whipped cream. All in MODEration i guess...

    :)

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  2. UnknownOctober 28, 2009 at 8:19 PM

    great entry!
    after that last one you wrote about real and fake ice creams, i became very curious about them...especially since i LOVEEE ice cream and could never imagine life without it!!!
    i do wish it was much healthier for me. at least i'm getting my calcium count! as for the extra calories, well maybe i can cut it out somewhere else =p
    thanks for teaching me so much about my faveee dessert =)

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  3. MirandaOctober 30, 2009 at 9:13 AM

    Great entry, it's always interesting learning about whether or not buying the natural product as opposed to the classic makes a difference!

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