Where's the Real Ice Cream?
Let me start off by saying that I'm not a health nut. I eat fast food once in a while and I don't exercise all that much. In spite of this I make an effort to read the labels and ingredients of the food I consume trying to avoid overly fatty or salty products. That said a conversation got me fired up just now about an issue that has frustrated and angered me for a while now. The fact that REAL ice cream is going the way of the Dodo.
Have you been to your local supermarket and gazed at the thirty feet or so of freezers containing all sorts of ice cream confections? If you actually looked at the ingredients you'd quickly realize that the vast majority of the products labeled as "ice cream" have artificial ingredients or are entirely artificial containing little-to-no milk product. Now I'm not an expert, but isn't ice cream a simple combination of cream, sugar and vanilla? Why is real ice cream so hard to find, and why is there so much fake stuff?
It only gets worse when you move to the ice cream confections that come in cones or chocolate coatings. The stuff in these products doesn't even pretend to be ice cream. Next time you come across one of these do yourself a favor and separate the white stuff inside from everything else and try to eat it. You'll notice that it's a practically tasteless watery foam that on its own is repulsive. Companies try to hide its horrid flavor with really sweet cones or chocolate coatings, and hope that you won't notice or care.
The fact that 90% of ice cream in a supermarket isn't real anymore makes me angry and sad. Finding REAL ice cream is now a chore that involves lots of label reading and hunting from store to store. Because of this I don't even try to eat ice cream anymore, and I can't remember the last time I did. It's a sad state of affairs and one that consumers should really get behind before real ice cream becomes a faint memory or an ultra expensive luxury item again.
COSTCO-branded ice cream is real I believe. Give it a try - it's very good.
