LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMP Fitness: Ice Cream |
by Rick Moore |
The mail lady dropped off the food circulars for the big supermarkets. We were perusing the pages when I asked Tom, one of our customers, if he wanted us to pick up anything, since we were on our way to do our grocery shopping. He asked if there was any ice cream on sale. And there it was in great big bold letters, "Breyers 2 half-gallons for $5.00." Tom remarked that ice cream was his favorite food. It may be that ice cream is more popular than beer, but I doubt it. It is one of the contributors to America's ever-expanding waistline, though. First, let's do a little research. What could be more refreshing than a nice summer's night with a big bowl of ice cream? Who doesn't like it? Ice cream probably originated in China around 2000 B.C. It made the trip back to Italy with Marco Polo and didn't start to become popular in the U.S. until Dolly Madison, wife of President James Madison, served ice cream at her husband's Inaugural Ball in 1813. Commercial production of ice cream in the U.S. started in Baltimore in 1851. It didn't become a big success until continuous-process mechanical freezers became available in the 1920s. Today, the basic ingredients are poured into a tank, where they are mixed, pasteurized, and homogenized to break up particles of butterfat, cooled, piped to a freezing tank, and beaten until smooth. At this stage, the goodies are added, like nuts, fruits, or chunks of chocolate. The ice cream emerges from the freezing tank partially frozen and is packed into containers to be refrigerated until hard. One morning I watched Martha Stewart make mango ice cream on TV. It looked like a lot of trouble, but it sure looked delicious. With the advent of ice cream also comes ice milk, sorbets, sherbets, and frozen yogurt. I'm sure all of you have tried one or all of them. I personally like sherbet. But Dave likes his (non-fat) ice cream, you know, the "exotic" flavors, like hazelnut praline chocolate chip cookie dough! Recently, Consumer Reports did a test of the top ice creams that are being produced. At least 40 brands were tasted, er, tested. These were the full-fat ice creams, which are now back in vogue. The test was done for texture, flavor, sweetness, dairy taste, melting time, and price. Some of these ice creams are a princely sum, for example, Hagen-Dazs cost 73 cents per four ounce serving (and scored extremely high in all categories) while Breyers (the best buy, and my personal favorite brand) cost just 23 cents per serving. If you want to put that extra 2 inches on your waistline, these are the belt-busters to buy. Numero uno, and this should be no shock to you, is Breyers. The others in the top 5 were Hagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's, Shop Rite Premium (a store brand), and Breyers Light. Chocolate flavors had different rankings. Hagen-Dazs was first, Edy's Grand, Prestige Choice from Winn Dixie, America's Choice from Super Fresh, and Publix Premium were in the top five. Breyers eked in at #7. For those of you who are watching your waistline (and not watching it expand) Consumer Reports did their taste tests on low-fat ice cream, and the results were pretty surprising. Breyers took 3 of the top 5 positions with various variations of low-fat vanilla flavors. They were number 1, Blue Bell was number 2, Turkey Hill was number 3. Remember frozen yogurt? Nobody buys it anymore. It was the rage five years ago, but today, low-fat ice cream has been embraced by the "health conscious" consumer. They say now that frozen yogurt has been so doctored-up with other ingredients that it's not that healthy anyway. One report said some brands contain more fat than a big hamburger. Hey, if you wanted to be really healthy, you wouldn't be eating dessert in the first place! According to the Nutrition Action Health Letter, if you want something other than ice cream, try a fruit-and-juice bar. They are extremely nutritious and can quench your thirst. They're loaded with lots of vitamins and some have hardly any fat. But you have to avoid the versions with chocolate coatings, because it really ups the fat content. Make sure you read the ingredients, because some of these bars also contain corn syrup, sugar, or other stuff you don't want. They may also be less than 100% juice. Fudgsicle bars scored #1 as far as ice cream novelties go in Nutrition Actions' report. This tasty little frozen morsel has been around as long as I have, and that says a lot, if you only knew how old I was. Let's not go there. I am dreaming of a dreamsicle, and yes, they still make them, too. But they have a much higher fat content. For those of you who don't have anything to do one lazy afternoon, don't go to the outlets, go to the frozen food department at the local Super G. Never in my life have I ever seen so much ice cream in one store. They have aisles and aisles of frozen confections it seems like in half the store. They have so many flavors and brands that it is extremely difficult to choose just one. You may wind up buying more than one. Dave and I did just that this past Sunday, but we're trying to ration them out. See you at the beach! Rick Moore is a personal trainer certified by the American Fitness Professionals & Associates. He believes in common-sense, drug-free training. Visit him at Ricks Fitness & Health, Inc., in beautiful downtown Milton. Check out his website at http://www.enrapt.com/ricksfitness, or give him a call at (302) 684-3669. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 9, No. 10, July 30, 1999 |