If you like Breyers Ice cream, you might want to know this: (recipe, better)
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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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by elnina
Ok, while shopping I too, went to check on the Breyers Ice Cream
First I thogh that the new "frozen dairy dessert" line is now called Breyers Blasts, but no...
while most "Blasts" are frozen dairy, I spotted a real ice cream ( "light", the Snickers) also called "Blasts".
Here are some pictures:
All EXCEPT Caramel Swirl ( Snickers ) are frozen dairy.
Here is a picture of the two other real ice cream flavors: ( the only two available in the store)
Please note that the real ice cream and the "dairy product " are the same price/size.
Here is the ingredients list of a "dairy product":
Trivia: how many times is the word "sugar" or sugar product in listed here???
But to be fair, Blue Bell has also more than 3 ingredients, but still way less than the dairy product :
Quote:
Originally Posted by maciesmom
High fructose corn syrup?
I try to avoid that. Bummer.
Someone once told me that if you can't make a product at home using basic ingredients that you can buy from any major supermarket, then you probably shouldn't be eating it. She was a bit extreme in many ways, but over time, I've begun to apply this to my own shopping habits in order to reduce the amount of artificial ingredients I eat. Even if something like tara gum is 100% natural, it's unlikely I'll be able to find it at any local supermarket. Plus, as mentioned, Americans have made ice cream for generations without adding tara gum, so why mess with what was working?
Not sure why Blue Bell is so hyped up when they use HFCS. I know it's still controversial, but I try to avoid that stuff as much as possible. Again, I can't buy a bottle of HFCS at a store, it's not included in any recipes, and most foods that uses HFCS were made without it in past generations (it's not as if it's impossible to make ice cream/bread/soda without it).
Haagen Dazs is fattening as all hell, but NO ONE eats ice cream thinking it's a health food! I avoid "frozen dairy desserts" in much the same way I avoid "processed cheese product". Unfortunately, it often does mean paying more money for the luxury and fewer places to shop.
Someone once told me that if you can't make a product at home using basic ingredients that you can buy from any major supermarket, then you probably shouldn't be eating it. She was a bit extreme in many ways, but over time, I've begun to apply this to my own shopping habits in order to reduce the amount of artificial ingredients I eat. Even if something like tara gum is 100% natural, it's unlikely I'll be able to find it at any local supermarket. Plus, as mentioned, Americans have made ice cream for generations without adding tara gum, so why mess with what was working?
Not sure why Blue Bell is so hyped up when they use HFCS. I know it's still controversial, but I try to avoid that stuff as much as possible. Again, I can't buy a bottle of HFCS at a store, it's not included in any recipes, and most foods that uses HFCS were made without it in past generations (it's not as if it's impossible to make ice cream/bread/soda without it).
Haagen Dazs is fattening as all hell, but NO ONE eats ice cream thinking it's a health food! I avoid "frozen dairy desserts" in much the same way I avoid "processed cheese product". Unfortunately, it often does mean paying more money for the luxury and fewer places to shop.
I don't worry about the HFCS in my ice cream. It's not something I want to eat all the time, but in an occasional treat, I'm not going to worry about it. I think BB is hyped up because its so darn delicious, and it's not full of a ton of stuff you can't pronounce. I like it too because its not all whipped up with air. It's a dense ice cream, and you actually feel like you are eating something, not just flavored air. I brought it up on here mainly to point out that they tout the fact that it still comes in a full 64oz size, in a time when many manufacturers are downsizing.
Out of sheer curiosity, I stopped at the local Kroger on the way home to see if this packaging issue was reflected in the price. Blue Bell may still be sold by the 1/2 gallon but the (non sale) per oz price is virtually identical to Breyers. Breyers was 11.6 cents/oz and Blue Bell was 11.4 cents per oz. The Breyers carton was clearly marked as to quantity. With that in mind, buy what you enjoy or what has (or doesn't have) ingredients that matter to you. I don't see any difference -or that any brand is "sneakier" in how it attracts or keeps its consumers. Blue Bell changed it's ingredients to include HFCS about the same time that Breyers changed it's packaging. And has as a big marketing point, the 1/2 gallon size - possibly to make you think you are getting "more" for your money. It's all marketing folks. That's why it's up to the consumer to read the label and decide.
Out of sheer curiosity, I stopped at the local Kroger on the way home to see if this packaging issue was reflected in the price. Blue Bell may still be sold by the 1/2 gallon but the (non sale) per oz price is virtually identical to Breyers. Breyers was 11.6 cents/oz and Blue Bell was 11.4 cents per oz. The Breyers carton was clearly marked as to quantity. With that in mind, buy what you enjoy or what has (or doesn't have) ingredients that matter to you. I don't see any difference -or that any brand is "sneakier" in how it attracts or keeps its consumers. Blue Bell changed it's ingredients to include HFCS about the same time that Breyers changed it's packaging. And has as a big marketing point, the 1/2 gallon size - possibly to make you think you are getting "more" for your money. It's all marketing folks. That's why it's up to the consumer to read the label and decide.
Thanks for the good info. Great to know.
I usually am very aware of the cost per ounce of what I buy, except when it comes to stuff like ice cream, and I just buy what I like. I should have looked at the price per ounce yesterday when I was at Walmart, but I didn't take the time, I just looked at the ounces per package, grabbed what I wanted and left.
Thanks for the good info. Great to know.
I usually am very aware of the cost per ounce of what I buy, except when it comes to stuff like ice cream, and I just buy what I like. I should have looked at the price per ounce yesterday when I was at Walmart, but I didn't take the time, I just looked at the ounces per package, grabbed what I wanted and left.
As it should be
I rarely buy ice cream because I have little discipline for the stuff I really like and what I don't care about will sit uneaten in the freezer. The rest of the family is lactose intolerant so I buy that on occasion. It's plain vanilla which isn't something that tempts me. I love the Breyers chocolate mint because the mint is a crisper cleaner mint flavor than the overly sweet syrupy mint I find in other brands. If I buy ice cream for me it's to satisfy a hankerin'....Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia...mmmmm.
After this whole discussion, I really was curious as to the pricing 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.
Pretty much. The main national (and international, I guess) widely available one that always doesn't is Haagen-Dazs. Which usually you can only buy in 14oz not-quite-pints, at a pretty high price relative to most other store-bought ice creams.
Around here I can get a variety from Turkey Hill that doesn't have gums. That comes in the 1.5 quart containers. Turkey Hill is from central Pennsylvania and I don't know how far the distribution goes for their ice cream.
Even a lot of crazy ultra ridiculous premium ice creams, ones that cost more than Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's (which has gums and such in it these days) and so forth might have gums or some kind of emulsifier. Jeni's Splendid, which is a very small ice cream producer in Columbus, Ohio, started selling pints in stores a couple years back. It does make it this far east. They cost, in the stores here, hold onto your wallet, $9.99! For a pint! I've had scoops at the original shop in Columbus North Market, and it's very good. Made with milk and cream from a local small creamery, etc, etc. But the end ingredient in every flavor: tapioca starch. Maybe that shouldn't matter, but it does sorta leave me scratching my head a bit. And honestly I never could justify the 10 bucks for a pint.
There are people who would tell you to put a pinch (or some amount) of guar gum in your homemade ice cream. I've never tried it. My point of making it is to NOT have that in it. But as described above it's really not the worst thing around. I'd rather have that than HFCS personally.
Pretty much. The main national (and international, I guess) widely available one that always doesn't is Haagen-Dazs. Which usually you can only buy in 14oz not-quite-pints, at a pretty high price relative to most other store-bought ice creams.
Around here I can get a variety from Turkey Hill that doesn't have gums. That comes in the 1.5 quart containers. Turkey Hill is from central Pennsylvania and I don't know how far the distribution goes for their ice cream.
Even a lot of crazy ultra ridiculous premium ice creams, ones that cost more than Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's (which has gums and such in it these days) and so forth might have gums or some kind of emulsifier. Jeni's Splendid, which is a very small ice cream producer in Columbus, Ohio, started selling pints in stores a couple years back. It does make it this far east. They cost, in the stores here, hold onto your wallet, $9.99! For a pint! I've had scoops at the original shop in Columbus North Market, and it's very good. Made with milk and cream from a local small creamery, etc, etc. But the end ingredient in every flavor: tapioca starch. Maybe that shouldn't matter, but it does sorta leave me scratching my head a bit. And honestly I never could justify the 10 bucks for a pint.
There are people who would tell you to put a pinch (or some amount) of guar gum in your homemade ice cream. I've never tried it. My point of making it is to NOT have that in it. But as described above it's really not the worst thing around. I'd rather have that than HFCS personally.
Jeni's is wonderful. We went to one of their shops several years ago in Columbus, when one of our kids was considering OSU. We still talk about Jeni's. We loved their Cherry Lambic sorbet. We all got a different flavor, and it was all wonderful but the cherry lambic is the one we still talk about.
Gums and such are used for a couple of different reasons, one is a stabilizer or to aid in raising overrun (adding air) and/or use less milk fat and still have it taste like a full fat item. I believe tapioca starch is a thickener at least that's what I've seen in gravy/sauce recipes.
Haven't bought Breyer's in a while but I do like Blue Bell and Ben & Jerry's.
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But as described above it's really not the worst thing around. I'd rather have that than HFCS personally.