Why won’t ice cream melt anymore?

Why won’t the ice cream melt anymore?
An American woman got a surprise when her kid had left an ice cream outside in the sun – and it didn’t melt. A TV channel did their own tests and confirmed the finding. While real ice cream quickly melted, the cheap ice cream from Walmart didn’t melt.
The secret behind this is the ingredients: less real cream and more sugar and more stabilizing agents such as guar gum and cellulose gum.
According to the manufacturer, the non-melting ice cream is “healthy” and meets all requirements from FDA.
Besides, who doesn’t love the taste of warm gum in the summer?
PUT TO THE TEST: Why don’t ice cream sandwiches melt anymore?
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A New Way to Get Fat in Sweden
ICE CREAM: MILKFAT AND NONFAT MILK, SUGAR, CORN SYRUP, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, BUTTERMILK, WHEY, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, GUAR GUM, CAROB BEAN GUM, POLYSORBATE 80, CARRAGEENAN, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS AND ANNATTO (FOR COLOR). WAFERS CONTAIN: BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, SUGAR, CARAMEL COLOR, CORN SUGAR, VEGETABLE SHORTENING (PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OILS: SOYBEAN, COTTONSEED), YELLOW CORN FLOUR, COCOA, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, MODIFIED CORN STRACH, BAKING SODA, SALT, MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES, SOY LECITHIN
http://www.hood.com/products/proddetail.aspx?id=657&lb=921
And yes, the "STRACH" misspelling is from the maker.
The real problem is the amounts consumed and the fact that HFCS is added to food types one normally does not expect it's there certainly does not help.
HFCS itself is a sugar substitute with some advantages for the food industry. It should not be demonized, but avoided in big amounts...
Regarding above list of ingredients, I'm at least as concerned about partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils. Overconsumption of sugar and its substitutes has been getting some awareness lately, but different forms of vegetable oils are still hiding in almost all processed foods without many noticing.
In other countries I have no idea what is available and I would be curious to hear the options.
Murray, a lot of people have problems with guar gum. Don't have links handy but Google will come up with a ton of them.
I was astonished when I read the story about the ice cream sandwiches earlier this week, but after I thought about it, it's not surprising.
Well, it's easy to find dissident nutrition sites opining on that, such as:
http://authoritynutrition.com/why-is-fructose-bad-for-you/
and the rise in the production of HFCS does correlate perfectly with the rise in non-infectious chronic diseases (esp. obesity), but then so does the rise in the consumption of semi-dwarf hybrid wheat, PUFA seed oils, and some other usual suspects in modern diet.
The fructose in HFCS is free fructose, which probably exacerbates the metabolic problems it presents. That HFCS probably came from GMO corn is likely irrelevant. I doubt any Bt genetics or glyphosate uptake survive the extensive refining process.
But the bottom line is that there is zero need to consume added refined sugars of any kind, and added refined fructose in particular. I confine my fructose consumption to that occurring naturally in fruits, as whole fruits, and subject to interval net carb targets.
XXX Chocolate
http://relievemypain.blogspot.com/2012/12/xxx-chocolate-ice-cream-low...
Lemon
http://relievemypain.blogspot.com/2012/07/non-dairy-low-carb-lemon-ic...
Of course the more common HFCS is up to 65% fructose. So-called agave nectar (actually extra high fructose agave root syrup) can be up to 90%. For the truly demented, you can buy pure fructose in so-called health food stores, and it would be an equal error to leave the added sugar in but make it all glucose (which you can also buy).
> There is some energy needed to hydrolyze sucrose to
> fructose and glucose, but it is still at least as high in fructose.
Sugar researchers like Lustig (referenced earlier) and Johnson ("The Fat Switch") might disagree, but I concur that the extra hazards, if any, of fructose vs. glucose are minor compared to the important (and challenging) business of getting added sugar out of the diet. Just going LCHF turns the saccharide danger dial down significantly.
> ... they just seem to be equally bad due to the overconsumption in SAD.
Yep, and very hard to avoid in processed foods. If it isn't contaminated with wheat, it's got sugar, and if not those then PUFA oils, unfermented soy, or a long list of other toxins including several seriously questionable artificial sweeteners (and that might include the Splenda used in a recipe above, due both to the dextrose filler and the sucralose).
Thinking about it, I don't approve of artificial sweeteners at all. These things tend to come out a chemical plant and may lead to over-consumption, because they are perceived as safe.
If you want something sweet eat the real thing (fresh fruit) in small amounts. I wonder what your chocolate ice-cream would taste like without the sweetener, served with a couple of cherries. True low-carb people would probably find the cherries sweet enough to sweeten the ice-cream when mixed in.
I don't know much about physiological effects of artificial sweeteners though.
Otherwise we are exactly on the same page.
If you're going to cheat on low carb - much better to eat the Haagen daz. The Mango flavor is to die for.
Also, Frito Lay offers a 3 ingredient potato or corn chip. Either potato or corn, oil, and salt. While still not healthy - it is a better overall alternative.
If I had to choose between eating sugars in moderation or consuming heated vegetable oils I would definitely go with the former...
And its nothing that one want to give to ones child.. in any circumstanses!
And.. if it dont melt at room temperature.. is it not "arterycloggingicecream" then by the old dogma?
I think that transfat is more arhteryclogging.. anyway!
If you don't approve of artificial sweeteners, then don't eat them. Many of us don't have any problem with them.
Anything with any significant amount of Splenda may not even be low carb, in terms of not provoking blood sugar. Only the glucometer knows for sure.
> Certainly doesn't fall into the category of "real food".
Commercial ice cream rarely is. Adulteration of it 100 years ago was a factor in the creation of the U.S. FDA.
> ... I don't approve of artificial sweeteners at all.
Be sure to warn us if you get nominated to be Surgeon General. :) I do approve them, for people who understand the wider issues.
> These things tend to come out a chemical plant
> and may lead to over-consumption, because they
> are perceived as safe.
Yep. The fattest people I know always have a diet pop in hand, sweetened with aspartame. The main risks associated with alternative sweeteners are mostly related to what the consumer knows about sane human nutrition, and not so much the sweetener per se.
Even aspartame is preferable to sugar, but there are safer choices, like stevia, monk fruit, erythritol and (with attention to the GI of 15, xylitol).
Sucralose may eventually turn out to be a gut biome antagonist, and in Splenda, the dextrose and maltodextrin it is commonly padded with are both around a GI of 100 (same as sucrose, table sugar), which at least partially defeats the whole point of it.
> I wonder what your chocolate ice-cream would taste
> like without the sweetener, ...
You got an answer for that. Although it's theoretically possible to make an LCHF ice cream, without adverse thickeners and sugars, with a reasonable freezer life, nobody has done it yet for retail sale. The sweetener in particular is a big challenge.
> ... served with a couple of cherries.
Raw cherries are often pretty tart. Most people think they are sweet because the usual exposure finds them marinated in sugar syrup (now why would that be necessary?).
Regarding cherries, sweet cherries even raw are far too sweet for me. Even tart cherries I find too sweet. My son likes them though.
Indeed. The problems are taste and texture. Certain foods need sugar or something comparable to fluff them up; hence my choice of Splenda instead of other sweeteners I had around the house. It also tastes better in combination with chocolate than stevia does. Chocolate plus cherries or raspberries? Tasty, but you're right back to adding carbohydrates (and gastric problems for some of us). And they're not very sweet on their own. Erythritol is tasty, but it gives some of us gas and an upset stomach.
Just for some perspective, one serving of my chocolate ice cream has three teaspoons of Splenda. For anyone worried about sweeteners, may I suggest unsweetened coffee for dessert.
There is always a long line outside the shop of people wanting to get inside. Tourists have also found the shop and joined the queue.
this is proper ice cream!!
http://www.yelp.nl/biz/banketbakkerij-van-der-linde-amsterdam
it was mentioned so prominently in the feature that I hope it does not receive a bad reputation.