The Ice Cream Experiment: Take One
ByIs all ice cream created equal? Should we go with the cheap stuff…or is it worth it to pay a little more to make our own or buy brands that have more wholesome ingredients?
I recently read an ice cream story that left me with my jaw on the ground. With Randy’s permission, I will share part of his story (taken from a monthly newsletter I receive from North Star Neighbors)…
On February 25th, I went to [a grocery store] and purchased 2-quarts of ice cream. It tasted so-so. I went to try again and when opening the cartons, it just didn’t look right and fresh! So, I set both cartons in the sink to melt.
The [first brand] took 2 days to actually melt. The [second brand] NEVER did melt. Three days after sitting on the counter, I stuck a spoon in it and it ‘stood up’ all by itself.
I read through the rest of this email and was shocked that an entire month later, the second brand of ice cream had still not melted!!!! Ice cream that doesn’t melt?! Whoa! I knew that many store brand ice creams contain some funky ingredients, which is why I avoid them, but funky ingredients that actually keep the ice cream from melting?! Kinda makes you think that maybe this frozen stuff in a box is possibly…not real food?!?!
And so, I decided to do a little ice cream experiment of my own, and blog the progress for you. Only for you (and because I’m weird enough to want to see this for myself) would I buy two cartons of ice cream that I wasn’t planning to eat and leave it on my countertop for days and days to watch it’s progress.
At the risk of sounding like Dr. Seuss, please allow me to introduce to you…Brand One and Brand Two:
Brand One Ingredients: milk, cream, sugar, skim milk, corn syrup, whey protein concentrate, mono- and diglycerides, guar gum, sodium phosphate, cellulose gum, sodium citrate, polysorbate 80, carrageenan, vanilla extract, artificial flavor, annatto
Brand Two Ingredients: milk, cream, buttermilk, whey, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, guar gum, mono & diglycerides, sodium phosphate, cellulose gum, sodium citrate, polysorbate 80, carrageenan, natural flavor, annatto
We took a scoop out of each, just to show the texture.
Brand One:
Take special notice of the layer of gunk (for lack of a better word) on the top of the box of Brand Two:
We set the ice cream out at precisely 10:40 am Saturday, March 27 (2010).
Exactly one hour later, Brand One looked like this:
And Brand Two looked like this:
They appear to be melting don’t they? Oh dear, maybe we should stop the experiment right now and eat the ice cream before it melts all over the place! But no, let’s not. Let’s wait and see what happens.
Two hours later…Brand One:
Brand Two (notice again, the lid gunk that hasn’t changed a bit):
As the familiar saying goes, a watched ice cream carton never melts…so we put a towel under it and walked away for the evening.
The next morning…
Brand One:
Brand Two:
The towel underneath the cartons was wet and clearly the cartons were slightly less full than when we first started this two days ago. So, I will give it this much: the ice cream was melting somewhat.
Moving on to Monday morning…
Brand One:
Brand Two:
At this point in the experiment, it had been almost 48 hours since we’d taken the ice cream out of the freezer. When we gently pushed on the contents of the cartons, it resembled a sponge. A sticky sponge.
What could we do now, but make Homemade Ice Cream with all natural ingredients to make a comparison! And so, we lugged out our ice cream maker and got it whirling.
Homemade Ice Cream Ingredients: Cream, milk, real maple syrup, egg yolks, vanilla, arrowroot powder
Okay…yum.
I know this experiment isn’t exactly apples to apples (or ice cream to ice cream as the case may be) because I just wasn’t willing to part with an entire quart of homemade ice cream to see how long it would take to melt. Instead, we scooped some out into a small bowl.
Here’s the Homemade Ice Cream at 11:40 Monday morning:
Homemade Ice Cream at one hour later at 12:40 pm:
And the homemade ice cream on Monday at 1:26 pm:
The homemade ice cream melted in our mouths too…but that goes without saying.
So let’s review:
Homemade Ice Cream…melted in just under two hours.
Brand One and Brand Two…72 hours later, we’re still waiting to find out.
Check back here in a few days and I’ll share the ice cream melting progress (or lack thereof)!
And um, just in case it never melts…how long do you suppose I should let it sit on my countertop?
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that is unbelievable. Now I’m could really craving some yummy homemade ice cream! =)
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ROTFLOL! We went to a kids birthday party a few months ago where the cake HAD to have come from a box and the ice cream was called something like “frozen dessert”…both tasted more like chemicals than food. Nothing like the real thing!
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You just reconfirmed why we will be making our own ice cream again this year! EEWWWW!
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Ummm. Eeeeeew! Have you also watched the “Good Eats” episode about ice cream? On there, Alton Brown mentions that ice cream manufacturers are allowed to add up to 100% the quantity of air when they’re making the ice cream. In other words, they’re allowed to add enough air to make 1 quart of ice cream mix into 2 quarts of ice cream. So, usually the more expensive brands add less air and the cheaper brands add more. Supposedly if the ice cream ever DOES melt, and you compared expensive to cheap, there would be more expensive ice cream soup than cheap ice cream soup. Neat (gross) experiment!
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Emily Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 10:00 am
Love that episode!
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Ok, that’s just CRAZY! I really can’t believe it… and yet, I can! (And now I really want ice cream, but I want YOURS!) :-)
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Umm, that may be one of the grossest things I have ever seen, mostly because of what it does not do.
So grateful to have an ice cream maker!
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My hubby calls himself an ice cream snob. He will only eat Breyers. The ingredients on French Vanilla are: milk, cream, sugar, egg yolk, natural flavor, natural tara gum. I would like to try the experiment, but I don’t know if either of us could watch a qt. of Breyer’s ice cream melt on my counter!! Curious, though!
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Amy Lynne Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 5:09 am
My boys left out some Breyers and it was melting when I found
it on the counter a while later.
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Sarah Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 2:18 pm
I buy breyers all natural too and it melts. I was mighty upset when I saw it on the counter melted to soup. It was basically full too!
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Wow. That is just disturbing. We go with Blue Bell and it melts quickly, but there are still ingredients that I don’t like. I guess it’s time to dust off the ole ice cream maker. :-)
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Ewwww. That is just a bucket of wrongness. Good thing I really don’t care for ice cream (I know, I’m completely weird, just not into sweet stuff much) and we never buy it.
I saw another blog where they left a Happy Meal containing a cheeseburger and fries on a shelf for a year…A YEAR….and it didn’t change at all. Bugs never bothered with it, it never got moldy, never got rancid smelling, you would never know it was a year old save for the captions under the pictures.
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lisa Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 12:01 pm
look on youtube for “four year old cheeseburger”. Watch it. Be disgusted. Send it to all your friends!
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I am a total ice cream snob (hence the name of my blog). I will only buy the super premium brands with no chemicals or, preferably, make it myself. I would like to know how much ice cream actually melted. I saw the same Good Eats episode another commenter mentioned so I’m curious how much of the empty space in the container was due to ice cream melting and how much was from the air escaping.
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Yuck! Are you kidding me? This makes me sick to my stomach, learning more and more how big companies expect the public to basically eat garbage. I am so going to look for an ice cream maker. I know they’re pretty expensive, maybe I’ll luck out and find one at a yard sale or thrift store.
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Gross! I only eat Ben & Jerry’s (stay away from the few that have HFCS), organic, or homemade.
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Wondering if our Aussie versions are like this… but no I’m not really worried enough to waste my money buying any to test it! LOL
Now…where IS the icecream maker? ;)
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Oh my, that is so nasty. Would you please share your homemade icecream recipe?
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Laura Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 5:39 am
My homemade ice cream recipe is: http://heavenlyhomemakers.com/homemade-ice-cream-so-healthy-you-could-eat-it-for-breakfast
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That is so disturbing. I posted a recipe for homemade ice cream yesterday and listed some ingredients used in commercial ice creams. Yet one more reason to make your own!
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Its the stabilizers, both natural and non natural that give it the appearance of not “melting.” They’re added to help keep consistency as it travels, so that while your ice cream may leave the factory “creamy” it won’t end up all crystallized by the time you get it home. The guar and cellulose gum leave it with that “odd” spongy texture after it melts since its… doing what gum does, hold texture! Its near impossible to find ice cream in your grocery store that won’t at least somewhat end up this way… because you really wouldn’t want to eat it after its thawed going from factory to truck, truck to store, stockroom to freezer case and then freezer case to cart, and cart to home. Unfortunately while the additions that cause this is natural, the thawed result isn’t pretty to look at. If you set some out to melt and stirred it so the ingredients didn’t separate you would see it melt completely, the gums just don’t allow everything to come together quite as you’d expect since they’re added to keep ingredients from separating and refreezing in layers (or they wouldn’t be doing their “job” so to speak for transit.)
Homemade ice cream certainly is better in its own respect, but you’ll never get the same kind of results from something in the store because its just not possible.
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sally Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 11:55 am
love your reply! i added my own perspective in a separate comment.
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Super cool!
-but I can’t IMAGINE how you kept four boys out of it for 72 hours, however, now that its sat there for 72 hours and they’ve had a good look at it……but my boys would’ve have never been able to leave it! hee hee
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The children of our parish did an experiment like this using fast food. The took hamburges, chicken nuggets, and french fries and placed them all in jars.
Actual weeks went by and none of the food broke down. It was very disgusting a quite a lesson!
Thanks for doing this!
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Laura Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 8:43 am
What a great idea for an experiment for my kids! No lecture about healthy eating needed. Just look at the science experiment!
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Hunie Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Corrections:
*They
and*
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I’m not much of an ice cream fan myself, but my family LOVES it. I don’t think I can buy any of the cheaper stuff now…my conscience won’t allow it! That was so amazing. Thanks for sharing the progress…who knew?
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My kids have been asking for icecream and I have been to lazy to make it. I was seriously considering buying some today, but now I will just buy the ingredients and realize it is time to keep the icecream maker in easy reach.
Are you linking this to “Real Food Wednesday” at Kelly the Kitchen Kop?
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Wow, that is enough to make even me not want to eat store bought ice cream (and I love ice cream)
That reminds me of the experiment someone did where they left a McDonald’s meal sitting in the pantry for YEARS and it never got moldy, buggy, etc. because…it isn’t real food!
Crazy, thanks for doing this little experiment for us Laura!
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Eeeewwww! Now I really want to buy an ice cream freezer.
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Oh. My. Goodness!!!!! Wow.
Thank you so much for sharing this experiment. Now… where to find an ice cream maker!!!!
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This is why I either make my own (a big treat!) or I wait for Breyer’s to go on sale! Frankly, if they added a little more to that cr*p in your experiment, it would be bubble gum.
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Ugh! This makes me never want to eat store bought ice cream again! I’ve read in Nourishing Traditions about the additives but never tried it out to see what happens. Now we need to get an ice cream maker! :)
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That is so gross. My husband and I have been talking lately how it’s so much better to buy expensive ice cream you can taste the difference. We usually buy breyers or Ben and Jerrys but I think we will be making a lot of our own this year. I’m glad to know this information so I can tell others. I’m definately thinking about doing the food in jars thing to show my 4 year old why processed foods are bad for you.
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Gross. Thanks for this! You’ve convinced me. It’s warming up here to so good time to get out the ice cream maker.
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LOL, I actually knew this. My husband is Schwan man and they do an experiment in training. They take the best all natural ice cream they can find from the grocer, and their own vanilla and put a couple of scoops in separate clear glasses and leave it to sit and separate for two days. It’s nasty how many layers are in regular ice cream, Schwan is just creamy. Schwan ice cream is not organic, or natural, but they do have really high quality ingredients first being “cream” not milk, then “buttermilk” Also you don’t have the problem of freezing and refreezing, because they deliver it right to your door! A little sales pitch for hubby.
That being said, we don’t eat ice cream very often, but we never eat the cheap stuff any more….can’t stand it. :P
on a side note Breyers all natural vanilla is really nasty looking melted down, as to be all natural they can’t just use the vanilla extract, they have to grind up the whole vanilla bean. ewwwww….though, I’m sure it’s not bad for you to eat the whole bean.
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That is so nasty! Thanks for sharing!
I don’t have an ice cream maker, so we’ll just stick with blended frozen fruit for now. Frozen bananas give it a nice, ice-cream texture, and I know exactly what’s in there!
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Oh dear. Ice cream is my favorite dessert and we go through it all the time around here…but it’s store-bought. I’ve never made homemade ice cream. Now I think I have to. I know what I’ll be asking for for my birthday…an ice cream maker! Thanks for always showing us the things that I am too lazy to look up and learn for myself!
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Wow, what an awesome, yet disgusting experiment!
Thanks for sharing it on Real Food Wednesday!
Kelly
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I noticed the same thing years ago after one of my son’s birthday parties. He had chosen the ice cream (speaking loosely) in individual plastic cups from Walmart. It was like the kind served in school cafeterias. Some of the kids dumped their’s out on their plates in the little scalloped mold shape, and then didn’t eat it – probably a wise choice. This was when they were little, prob 4 or 5 – there is never any leftover food at a teenage guy’s party, as I’m sure you know. Anyway, little boy parties are wild and it was hours, like that evening, before I got back in the dining room to clean up. And there was that “ice cream”, still sitting there in it’s little scalloped shape! We poked at it, and it was warm, and about the consistancy of shaving cream. Some anemic-looking clearish-white liquid had oozed out the bottom, but not a lot. It was mostly just shaving cream. (Maybe the HFCS is what leaked out.) I called the kids in to observe, and they were all grossed out and had a great time playing with it and forming it into attractive shapes. They called it “alien ice cream”. We have never bought that stuff again.
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B. Keefer Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 8:44 am
You “poked at it”. ROFLMAO
“what IS it?”
“It’s supposed to be ice cream”
“Let’s poke it, get a stick!”
“Ewww….look at it”
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Tami Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 9:04 am
Yes, it went pretty much like you imagined, and then:
“It must be ALIEN ICE CREAM!”
“Maybe now we will glow in the dark!”
“Cameron, I can’t believe you ATE yours!”
“Mommy, am I GOING TO DIE?”
And Grandma nearly wet herself laughing. It was perhaps the most memorable part of that birthday party. I know I’ll never forget it. (My youngest two, who weren’t born yet, are asking me now, “Did tthat really happen, Mom?” I said, “Ask your brother!” It’s a genuine family legend.
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melanie Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 1:07 pm
LOVE this story! =)
Thank you for showing this so people will know what they are really eating in the cheaper brands. My husband and I have noticed that before, when we used to buy the larger buckets for birthday parties. It’s just not worth it in the long run.
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I’m so glad we make our own ice-cream! We have a goat so do goat milk ice-cream and usually do a fruit ice-cream that just has goat milk, frozen fruit, a little bit of lemon juice and some evaporated cane juice crystals. It is so yummy!
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Thats just gross.
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Wow. Now I have the proof I need to buy an ice cream maker.
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I can’t count the times I haven’t bought ice cream at the store as I thought it would melt before I made the 30 mile trip home Amazing information
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I had a science teacher who had us make it in plastic bags (inner bag with milk, etc and the outer bag with salt and ice). I found it online and SO plan on making it :)It’s another fun way to make it if you have kids at home.
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Kori Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 12:32 pm
You can also use coffee cans or something similar. Smaller can inside
with ingredients; lid thoroughly taped on. Put smaller can inside
larger can and surround with rock salt and ice. Put on lid and roll
back and forth with a partner for a LONG time. Usually get tired
while it’s still at the smoothie consistency. But it’s so yummy!
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One more reason to take out my ice cream maker. That is disturbing. I do buy Haagen-Dazs strawberry though (pregnancy craving!). I know it isn’t organic and contains white sugar, but at least it only contains ingredients that I could get my own hands on. Cream, Strawberries, Skim Milk, Sugar, Egg Yolks. They have a whole list of “5 ingredient” ice creams. But nothing is like homemade!
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We ONLY eat Breyer’s! I bought some on sale last week 1/2 gallon for $2.95! If I leave that out too long, it melts. I got an ice cream cake from DQ (dairy queen) for my 20th b-day. I let that sit too long, and that melted too.
Until now, I didn’t know that there are ice creams out there that do NOT melt!
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Danielle Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 10:31 am
I should add, I’ve had Breyer’s ice cream melt in as little time as a 1/2 hr.
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melanie Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 1:10 pm
DQ should change their name since their ‘ice cream’ is NON-dairy, as far as I know… :-(
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Julie H Reply:
March 31st, 2010 at 1:57 pm
They did change their name….from Dairy Queen to DQ…b/c legally if there is no dairy in their product it would have to be changed. Kinda makes you wonder about KFC (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken). :)
Danielle Reply:
April 1st, 2010 at 3:38 am
KFC had to be changed from the original name became fried isn’t healthy loll.
DQ… I haven’t had them in almost a year, last time I had them I was sick for DAYS!!!!
I’ll stick w/Breyer’s, and our occasional treats to a local ice cream shop.
OK, dunno why but that really, and I mean, REALLY grosses me out! Have you seen the You Tube video about the woman that has a McDonald’s cheeseburger that is like… six years old and HASNT BEGUN TO MOLD YET? The french fries still look the same, too. And they were like, “This ISN’T FOOD” and honestly, I’ve got to agree. It was beyond disgusting… and this is just almost as gross. I don’t make homemade ice cream very often (falling victim to the convenience of buying premade) but this is one of those times when it’s obviously not worth it.
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That is really gross! I don’t have an ice cream maker, but I do buy versions with only the real, regular ingredients. There’s a dairy nearby that puts out some of the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted! It’s expensive, but when I consider how much we’d pay if we went to an ice cream shop and got cones, it’s a deal.
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I’ve been trying to decide if I should use my swagbucks amazon gift cards for books or an ice cream maker! : ) My son has to eat all natural because artificial colors, flavors and preservatives cause a reaction. (and I actually threw up after eating red velvet cake at a wedding since I’ve been off artificial colors with him!!) With summer coming up, your ice cream looks fabulous!
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Thanks to Dame for explaining the science of it…that was a much better explanation that what I was formulating in my head.
Keep in mind that ice cream is not designed (homemade or not) to sit out for hours on end and then eat it. Just about anything we eat will look gross after it sits out for a long time.
I have a different perspective as I worked as an engineering manager for the largest ice cream producer in the world for several years (Dreyer’s/Edy’s/Nestle). While we definitely had to add things to the ice cream to ensure it got to you, the consumer, in pristine condition, we also took great pains to use as many all natural ingredients as possible — fresh fruit, the best milk, cream and cocoa that is out there (local, too!).
To another commenter, ice cream is not ice cream without added air. When you make ice cream at home, you also add air (that’s what happen when you stir it). Air is what makes it creamy, along w/ the amount of butter fat in it.
I’m a bit of ice cream snob, too, obviously. I actually do not care for homemade ice cream — it’s too thin, watery, and icy. The best is Haagen Dazs (also part of Dreyers/Edys/Nestle). There is a higher % of butter fat and lower air, so it’s all creamy and thick and SO yummy!
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I have seen enough! My wife makes unbelievable ice cream in our Cuisinart ice cream maker (electric plug in model). Fresh ingredients to homemade ice cream in about 30 minutes and 20 minutes of that time is mixing time. And this stuff does melt oh so nicely!
Skip the rock salt, hand mixers, etc. Make it easy and enjoy homemade ice cream for decades (and live to tell about it)!
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Oh, my! That is scary and disgusting?! Yuck!
ON another note, I don’t think I could let the homemade ice cream sit there and watch it melt. LOL! It would be gobbled up.
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Yuck!! Thanks for sharing your experiment. I’m sharing this with others!
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I might have to require each of my kids to read this, Laura! Then we will have to dig out the ice cream maker…
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I am in a food science class and we had an ice cream lab a few weeks back. Ice cream has to have 10% fat to legally be called “ice cream”. The gourmet ice creams (like Haagen Dazs) have about 16% fat….mmmmm. Yes, the gums are the stabilizers, which are found in many other foods. Great explanation from an earlier commenter…if the food didn’t have those things, it wouldn’t be pretty once you got it home.
Have you ever noticed that McDonald’s shakes don’t melt either…oh, and that they are called “shakes”, not “Milkshakes”? Legally, they would have to contain milk to be called that.
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Wow – just…wow. This makes me want to learn how to make my own!
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