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Trader Joe's French Vanilla contains cream, milk, sugar, egg yolks, natural vanilla flavor, carob bean gum, and guar gum. It's sold in real half-gallons but contains gums and "natural flavor," though.
Do pretty much all store-bought ice creams include gums of some sort? I have some gelato in the freezer and that contains locust bean gum and guar gum.
I don't like cheap, fluffy ice cream. That's what Bryers has become.
That's an indication of increased overrun which is increasing the amount of air incorporated into the ice cream while churning. Example, real Gelato is very dense and creamy which is mostly due to little "overrun" or again air whipped in during processing.
Oh, in case y'all were wondering why I know some of this? Well, we owned an ice cream vending business and so I did a whole bunch of research about different ice creams that we could use including touring an ice cream plant,talking with plant managers at others etc.
It's really interesting (for one who truly loves ice cream) to see what goes on and what's added or not added to the various ice creams, how they cut corners and vie for shelf space in the stores to stay competitive with each other.
Trader Joe's French Vanilla contains cream, milk, sugar, egg yolks, natural vanilla flavor, carob bean gum, and guar gum. It's sold in real half-gallons but contains gums and "natural flavor," though.
Do pretty much all store-bought ice creams include gums of some sort? I have some gelato in the freezer and that contains locust bean gum and guar gum.
Real vanilla has to be labeled as "vanilla extract." Everything else is synthetic or made from other ingredients, some of which are nasty. See my earlier post in this thread about vanilla "flavors." I like Trader Joe's too, but this is a shortcoming. What ingredients are in Haagen Daz these days?
What I've come to realize is if you want "real" ice cream without all the fillers,emulsifiers,stabilizers,flavor enhancers and dyes you'll have to do one of three things.
1.Make it yourself
2.Go to an ice cream store (not a chain) that makes it onsite/small batch. One warning, soft serve is almost always made from a pre pack concentrate that's just as bad as the stuff you're trying to avoid.
3.Find a boutique local ice cream that's most likely sold at places like Whole Foods which reminds me, I need to read some of the labels on our "local" ice cream at our Whole Foods.
If none of those options work then the last option is to find a product that is the lesser of two evils as it were. If you really must have that oreo or other add in ice cream then I might suggest getting vanilla and adding in what you want to avoid at least some of the chemicals added to keep that stuff stable.
Real vanilla has to be labeled as "vanilla extract." Everything else is synthetic or made from other ingredients, some of which are nasty. See my earlier post in this thread about vanilla "flavors." I like Trader Joe's too, but this is a shortcoming. What ingredients are in Haagen Daz these days?
I stopped buying Breyers when I noticed the change in consistency. I keep hearing about Blue Bell ice cream on CD, but the only thing similar I have seen around here is Blue Bunny and it is chock full of additives and chemicals.
For anyone pooh-poohing the addition of tara gum you need to ask yourself, do you keep tara gum in your pantry for when you make your own ice cream? Do you even know where to buy tara gum? No? Why is that? Do you know what it is? Did you know that the Peruvians (where this product comes from) use it as an insect killer? Ask yourself this - why would Breyers need to add an ingredient to their 'all natural' ice cream that does not appear in any ice cream recipe anyone has ever seen? And how come they were able to make their all natural ice cream without tara gum back before Unilever bought them out? People need to question why they are being fed trees and tree by-products - we are not talking about the produce like fruits and nuts, but the actual trees themselves.
There are few ice creams commercially available that I buy - I read the ingredients and as long as they are all items I recognize and would myself purchase and incorporate into my home made ice cream, it's ok to go in my shopping cart. Primarily, Haagen Dazs vanilla bean, chocolate, and strawberry.
I'm going to do some investigating on this Blue Bell everyone is raving about here. Is it a regional thing?
I'd pass, but since my state doesn't even have it I have no worries. Thankfully I know how to make my own ice cream, and I bought a Williams Sonoma special Cuisinart ice cream maker with an extra freezer cartridge so I can make two kinds at once. The two inserts are always in the freezer and ready to go when we feel like having some.
If anyone else is into ice cream making, try Emeril's hazelnut ice cream - it is fabulous, and real.
Nowadays it's almost impossible. High fructose corn syrup is almost in every processed food.
All you have to do to avoid it is to avoid processed foods. We eat no HFCS and no hydrogenated oils. I do buy some convenience foods at Whole Foods, but for the most part I cook from scratch. It is not difficult but you need to be willing to spend more money on food and spend more time reading packages.
Here's an article about the various gums. As a person with food allergies who has to cook recipes and substitute some ingredients, I have used guar gum and xanthan gum for a long time. Guar gum is natural, made from a seed. It thickens things really well. Comes in a little jar.
I agree with most of the posts in here---read the labels. Many times I just put the item right back on the shelf after reading what's in it. If more people out there paid attention to the ingredients, these companies wouldn't get away with it.
(Now it's winter, the temperature is 2 degrees, and I should be making hot stew. For some reason I want to get out the ice cream maker instead of the slow cooker!!!)
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