What’s In Your Freezer?
Everyone loves ice cream: after all, it’s super versatile, tasty, and downright fun. But not all ice creams are made equally, and some brands are notorious for their low-quality ingredients and negative side effects. To appease guests, family members, and yourself, be sure to stock your freezer with the best of the best. Do you disagree with these contenders?
1. Haagen-Dazs
Whether you want classic vanilla or one of the many creative flavors from rocky road to caramel crunch, Häagen-Dazs has you covered. It’s unparalleled when it comes to flavor, texture, and creaminess. It also balances sweetness and is just full of the high-quality ingredients you want in ice cream.
2. Dairy Queen
If you want soft serve, Dairy Queen reigns supreme. Their ice creams offer a super creamy texture, plus their blizzards are a creative take on a variety of flavors. There’s likely a Blizzard flavor that fits exactly what you want, plus it doesn’t get smoother and lighter than DQ.
3. Tillamook County Creamery
When it comes to texture, Tillamook’s ice cream is considered some of the smoothest, creamiest, and richest around. Some even compare it to frozen sweet cream, which sounds undeniably delicious. This is the perfect ice cream to pair with some pie or cake and is a must-have.
4. Ben & Jerry’s
Considered a king amongst ice cream brands, Ben & Jerry's is adored for its vegan options, high-quality ingredients, and commitments to sustainability. Even their vanilla flavor is credited as one of the best, and it tastes like something you’d get from an ice cream shop. This is a brand you’d want to make room for in your freezer.
5. Talenti
Talenti focuses on gelatos and sorbets, and they do what they do well. Their emphasis is on the use of traditional gelato-making techniques and natural ingredients. For instance, they use real Madagascar vanilla and Belgian chocolate in their products.
6. Baskin-Robbins
You can certainly taste the quality when it comes to Baskin-Robbins, plus they keep the visits feeling fresh with rotating flavors and seasonal offerings. Their ice cream is known to be particularly rich, which is thanks to the high butterfat content. Plus, the nostalgia factor is hard to resist.
7. Cold Stone Creamery
Cold Stone has been around for a while and is what a lot of people think of when it comes to premium ice cream. They’re best known for their mix-ins, where they fold flavors of your choice into the ice cream on a slab. This unique technique, paired with the customizable options, makes it a family favorite.
8. Magnum Ice Cream
If you prefer ice cream bars, it’s hard to beat Magnum. Their chocolate coatings are particularly thick, and they use Belgian chocolate too. The ingredients are sustainable and high quality, which is why they’re more expensive than other brands. But if you really want to treat yourself, they’re worth it.
9. Breyer’s
Some people love Breyer’s while others don’t. But it’s hard to deny that their ice cream is thoroughly creamy. Plus, they claim to use actual sugar, milk, and cream, which isn’t as common as you would think in ice cream. All these perks, plus their affordability, make them a naturally good choice.
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10. Blue Bell Creameries
There’s both good and bad when it comes to Blue Bell. The flavor is definitely there, especially with the almond and amaretto profiles. However, this ice cream is hefty in terms of calories and does use low-quality ingredients. But as far as affordable and processed ice creams go, this is likely the best one.
Now that we talked about ice creams you want to stock up on, here are 10 to avoid!
1. Aldi’s
Aldi’s ice cream is fine. Just fine. It’s nothing special, but it isn’t bad either. It’s pretty average as far as ice cream goes. It may just be the textbook standard for regular ice cream. Of course, it’s very affordable, so if quantity beats quality, this might be the one for you.
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2. Blue Ribbon Classics
Blue Ribbon might have you thinking their ice cream may be healthier than others, but that isn’t the case. In fact, the brand can’t even call themselves ice cream and instead has to use the term frozen dairy dessert as they don’t meet FDA requirements to be ice cream. This is mostly due to the use of milk solids, kernel oil, and lots of artificial colors.
3. Blue Bunny
Blue Bunny brands itself as a kid-friendly ice cream, especially with its colorful packaging and creative flavors. However, it’s not very kid-friendly when you consider the health disparity. Not only are these products high in sugar and fats, but they have a range of ingredients that shouldn’t be in dairy desserts, like Yellow 5 and stabilizing gums.
4. Turkey Hill Dairy
The biggest issue with Turkey Hill is the fact that most of the ingredients are low-quality and artificial. Instead of finding milk and cream on the ingredient list, you’ll instead see carrageenan, corn syrup, and of course, everyone’s favorite: locust bean gum. These low-quality additives are not what you want in ice cream.
5. Halo Top
Halo Top is supposed to be the healthy ice cream. After all, it’s low-calorie and keto-friendly. But healthy and keto don’t always correlate. In fact, just two scoops contain 160 milligrams of sodium and 10 grams of saturated fat. They also use ingredients like cottonseed oil and cellulose gel. These are all factors that set them apart from other brands, for the worst.
6. Good Humor
Good Humor is another brand that can’t use the ice cream name. Its bars are titled “Frozen Dessert Bar” as they don’t meet minimum requirements. This isn’t a surprise considering their main ingredients are Red 40. They actually do use real, pureed strawberries in their bars, but less than 2%, making you wonder what the rest is made of.
7. Nick’s
Nick’s may fool you with its colorful and clean packaging. It looks unique and maybe even a little high-end. However, the ingredients are as low quality as it gets, with soluble corn fiber, oils, and plenty of sugar alcohols. This may reduce calories, but at the cost of digestive issues.
8. Mayfield Dairy Farms
Mayfield claims to use fresh cream; however, don’t let that fool you. It has a very high butter fat content but still incorporates cheap corn syrup instead of sugar. Additionally, their fruit-oriented ice creams don’t even have any fruits in them. Instead, they rely on food coloring for that.
9. Oreo
Oreo has been incorporating itself into every genre of snack food. Cookies weren’t enough, they also had to make cakes and now ice cream. Ironically, this doesn’t count as ice cream and is also a “Frozen dessert.” While it is somewhat tasty, it’s loaded with empty calories and doesn’t even lean on cream as an ingredient.
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10. Great Value
Great Value lives up to its name, as in, it does offer value. However, the affordability comes at the cost of low-grade ingredients. For instance, the emulsifiers used in this ice cream are known to cause digestive issues, so be sure to enjoy it in moderation.
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