Perhaps that may be the confounding variable. Anyone capable of eating only a half cup of ice cream has 99th percentile willpower which likely translates to other healthy habits.
The article didn't link to the paper (or if it did, I wasn't able to find it). If you're basing this claim on the original paper, can you share a link?
Why? The whole point of the article is that people are making assumptions based off of common wisdom and we only trust the data when it seems to confirm our assumptions.
The issue is ice cream is a mixture of ingredients. It has cream, sugar, milk, and sometimes eggs. Seeing if there's an effect with just one of the ingredients would offer greater specificity.
Your mood has a strong effect on your health - stress is a huge source of deaths in the US (probably the largest by far but I have no studies to link). If a half a cup of ice cream significantly improves your mood and takes you out of depression then yea - it's probably pretty good. Please also be aware that if we're discussing the American diet there are plenty of folks who drink coke like water - ice cream has a pretty equal amount of sugar by volume of coke and the lack of excessive amounts of sodium means that there's less of a drive to over consume it.
Sweets eaten in reasonable quantities can be part of a healthy diet to maintain weight - though generally for weight loss you'll want to cut out as much sugar as you can or find better sources for it since our bodies are terrible at processing it.
Could ice cream possibly be bad for you? It's made from a number of completely natural healthy ingredients, organic in every sense.
People shouldn't in general consume too much sugar too often (risk of type II diabetes). If you're too fat you should try to get less fat. Eating a lot of ice cream is not going to help you there, but otherwise it's going to be very good for you. If it was the only thing you ate, it should work better than many other single ingredient diets.
Why is eating a lot of ice cream necessarily going to not help you lose weight though? Also, does sugar, particularly when it is eaten with the other ingredients in ice cream, actually increase the risk of type II diabetes? I think we have no proof and the article is making that point.
I wouldn't be surprised if lower sugar ice cream is more effective (if there is a real, meaningful ice cream effect), but I think there is a lot more than just sugar leading to diabetes, and I don't think it's clear exactly how sugar is leading to diabetes. Is it because it's causing visceral fat? Is it directly causing gut dysbiosis?
I'd probably eat a lot more ice cream if it had maybe 20% the amount of sugar. Every so often I buy a pint and immediately regret it. It just gives me an uncomfortable sugar rush. I guess I'm getting old.
An exceptionally good investment - especially when you have lactose dietary restrictions. Alternative milk ice creams cost an arm and a leg (in Canada at least) but are actually cheaper to make at home since milk prices are bananas.
The base model kitchen aid one is great. We upgraded to the Whynter ICM-200LS for the additional capacity. Technically we do frozen custards but it’s all the same — pure joy
I've been thinking about buying a Ninja Creami - James Hoffman did a video using one and it looks super neat.
It's basically the same as the Pacojet, whose patent has now expired - thinking a combination blender and drill press, which will mill down a frozen-solid cylinder of ice cream / sorbet into soft serve, within just 2-3 minutes. The advantage is obvious - you can prepare ahead of time and blend when you're ready to serve, and you can do several flavors in short succession if you have enough ice cream tubs.
Highly recommend the creami. It lets you make healthier ice cream you can’t get from a typical ice cream maker. It’s basically a disruptive innovation (in the Christensen sense) for ice cream.
You do realize that the article that these comments are for is suggesting that maybe ice cream as it is now reduces the risk of diabetes. Maybe we shouldn't be claiming that low-X ice cream is healthier, haha.
How long does this take to freeze a room temperature ice cream batter?
Yes I realize that but was responding to the comment about the creami directly, not the article itself.
(Regarding the article, I’m skeptical of the claim.)
Officially they say to wait 24 hours to freeze but I’ve tasted it to work at around 16-18 hours. 12 may work but isn’t quite as good in a pinch. Note that it depends on the composition of your recipe.
Do it. After buying one, you’ll realize that saturated fat and sugar don’t actually contribute anything to the taste of ice cream, they’re just the cheapest way to ensure it stays the correct consistency when not made fresh. A pint of fat free sugar free ice cream from the store would be gross, but if you make it yourself it’s indistinguishable from regular soft serve or whatever. Just use fat free half and half, half allulose, half erythritol, and vanilla. (Which is basically their recipe for light vanilla icecream, but the texture is better if you combine both sweeteners instead of using just one.)
That seems strange that the fat isn't contributing anything. The creamy mouthfeel is one of the reasons ice cream is so much better than "frozen dairy desert" or lots of frozen yogurts.
Also, does the creami only make things a soft-serve texture? Slightly harder ice cream is where it's at, in my opinion.
> The creamy mouthfeel is one of the reasons ice cream is so much better than "frozen dairy desert" or lots of frozen yogurts.
The reason those have a weird mouthfeel isn't because they don't have fat, but because they're made from powder.
> does the creami only make things a soft-serve texture?
The texture is somewhere between soft serve and traditional ice cream right after you spin it, but if you refreeze the pint and then microwave it for a few seconds it's closer to traditional icecream.
Huh, I'm skeptical, but if a low-fat ice cream substitute really can be just as creamy as real ice cream then I guess I'm OK with people liking it. I'd love to try it one day, but I have such a good ice cream machine already and no need for a creami that I'll have to wait until someone I know gets one.
I stopped eating as much ice cream when I stopped cycling as much, easy way to gain weight quickly. However, I noticed I could eat 1 tub per week without any weight gain if I averaged 50 miles per week (must be hilly though)
I was a Green Beret in 5th Special Forces Group out of Ft. Campbell. We had access to a program called THOR3 which managed our fitness, physical therapy, and diet – the entire program was staffed by former NFL coaches and dietitians – high end stuff (your tax dollars at work).
I was rocked back on my heels one day when our dietician said the best possible recovery drink for us was chocolate milk. She made the case based on both the nutritional content, but also on the palatability, affordability, availability, and psychology of it.
"You could make a protein shake but those taste like crap and you're going to be exhausted when you get home. Buy a jug of chocolate milk, slug it back, and drive on."
I think there's also the added psychological 'relief' that comes with being able to indulge once in a while when you're spending the entire day being disciplined; like 'cheat days.'
Something I find a bit weird in all of this... you'd think that the Ben & Jerries of the world would love nothing more than to signal boost this type of result. We hear all these stories about how food manufacturers have an inappropriate amount of control over research—but do they?
The takeaway for me is this: the "health benefits" of ice cream are not explored because the scientists "do not believe in them" (actual quote). This is powerful! The positive health effect measured was a little stronger than yogurt, yet it went underreported because yogurt has "better press" so to speak.
Another interesting thing is that they thought the ice cream effect could be a case of "reverse causation" (people with diabetes or health problems drop ice cream, making it seem ice cream eaters are healthier), yet when taking this into consideration ice cream was still a bigger factor than yogurt! Yet subsequent studies that refer to these ones claim that the "ice cream effect" has been written off as a case of reverse causation when actually this didn't write it off at all!
So in summary, scientists cannot explain why ice cream has the effect they measured, which is slightly stronger than yogurt, but it was kept out of the health food narrative simply because they suspect something is off -- but they cannot say what!
The best keto ice cream I have found is Rebel ice cream. Good variety of flavors, no compromises on ingredients but is expensive. They also have a low carb chocolate milk that I have yet to try.
Haha, I can explain (2): they are a nutrition scientist!
In all seriousness, they precede that quote by saying: "it’s got fat, it’s got protein, it’s got vitamins." So I think it's the comparative lack of these things in bread that he is concerned with.
The bias shown in this article is pretty stunning. These "scientists" have fairly clear evidence that ice cream may have a health benefit, and yet they completely refuse to accept it because it runs counter to their intuition. Anyone who has followed a bit of scientific history knows that counter-intuitive data has often led to breakthroughs. Given how shoddy much of "nutrition science" is, it seems like scientists ought to be looking for such breakthroughs, not denying them.
I also thought this was quite a tell:
> His 2002 study found that overweight and obese people reported eating fewer dairy-based desserts than other people. “I don’t believe that the heavier people consume less desserts,” he said. “I believe they underreport more.”
Or maybe, overweight and obese people eat fewer desserts because they know (or think they know) that desserts make you fat? It's like that old trope that you never see thin people drinking diet soda. And especially if they're switching from desserts to things that are counter-intuitively less healthy (skipping dessert, but eating more of an unhealthy main, for example), it could even comport with the data these "scientists" are choosing to ignore.
I'm surprised there's no mention of temperature here, unless I missed it.
Could there be a parallel with some of the purported benefits of "cold exposure" eg. cold showers, ice baths etc? Does consuming a frozen food trigger some sort of mild shock response along similar lines?
(Warning: I'm just an internet moron trying to connect dots..)
60 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 107 ms ] thread>Among diabetics, eating half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with a lower risk of heart problems
They're diabetics. You might be surprised how many people are able to comply with the directive "don't overdo this, or you'll die a horrible death".
Though you shouldn't be.
Also, ice cream is pretty different than milk.
Sweets eaten in reasonable quantities can be part of a healthy diet to maintain weight - though generally for weight loss you'll want to cut out as much sugar as you can or find better sources for it since our bodies are terrible at processing it.
1. https://www.coca-colacompany.com/au/brands/coca-cola 10.6g per 1/2 cup (ish) vs. https://smartlabel.unileverusa.com/077567274731-0001-en-US/i... - 19g per 2/3s of a cup
https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/518635
the opposite of a great truth is also true
'icecream is good for you' is a Great Truth
Could ice cream possibly be bad for you? It's made from a number of completely natural healthy ingredients, organic in every sense.
People shouldn't in general consume too much sugar too often (risk of type II diabetes). If you're too fat you should try to get less fat. Eating a lot of ice cream is not going to help you there, but otherwise it's going to be very good for you. If it was the only thing you ate, it should work better than many other single ingredient diets.
Ice cream may reduce it, but I'd expect ice cream with less sugar would be more effective. (Depending on what it's replaced with of course.)
It's basically the same as the Pacojet, whose patent has now expired - thinking a combination blender and drill press, which will mill down a frozen-solid cylinder of ice cream / sorbet into soft serve, within just 2-3 minutes. The advantage is obvious - you can prepare ahead of time and blend when you're ready to serve, and you can do several flavors in short succession if you have enough ice cream tubs.
https://allscreamforicecream.com/ninja-creami-an-ice-cream-r...
I’m a big fan and happy to answer any questions.
How long does this take to freeze a room temperature ice cream batter?
(Regarding the article, I’m skeptical of the claim.)
Officially they say to wait 24 hours to freeze but I’ve tasted it to work at around 16-18 hours. 12 may work but isn’t quite as good in a pinch. Note that it depends on the composition of your recipe.
Also, does the creami only make things a soft-serve texture? Slightly harder ice cream is where it's at, in my opinion.
The reason those have a weird mouthfeel isn't because they don't have fat, but because they're made from powder.
> does the creami only make things a soft-serve texture?
The texture is somewhere between soft serve and traditional ice cream right after you spin it, but if you refreeze the pint and then microwave it for a few seconds it's closer to traditional icecream.
I stopped eating as much ice cream when I stopped cycling as much, easy way to gain weight quickly. However, I noticed I could eat 1 tub per week without any weight gain if I averaged 50 miles per week (must be hilly though)
I was rocked back on my heels one day when our dietician said the best possible recovery drink for us was chocolate milk. She made the case based on both the nutritional content, but also on the palatability, affordability, availability, and psychology of it.
"You could make a protein shake but those taste like crap and you're going to be exhausted when you get home. Buy a jug of chocolate milk, slug it back, and drive on."
I think there's also the added psychological 'relief' that comes with being able to indulge once in a while when you're spending the entire day being disciplined; like 'cheat days.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/opinion/ben-and-jerry-isr...
Another interesting thing is that they thought the ice cream effect could be a case of "reverse causation" (people with diabetes or health problems drop ice cream, making it seem ice cream eaters are healthier), yet when taking this into consideration ice cream was still a bigger factor than yogurt! Yet subsequent studies that refer to these ones claim that the "ice cream effect" has been written off as a case of reverse causation when actually this didn't write it off at all!
So in summary, scientists cannot explain why ice cream has the effect they measured, which is slightly stronger than yogurt, but it was kept out of the health food narrative simply because they suspect something is off -- but they cannot say what!
1. the lesson that correlation is not causation (except of course, here it might be)
2. because I was hoping someone would explain the scientist's hot take that ice cream is healthier than bread
In all seriousness, they precede that quote by saying: "it’s got fat, it’s got protein, it’s got vitamins." So I think it's the comparative lack of these things in bread that he is concerned with.
I also thought this was quite a tell:
> His 2002 study found that overweight and obese people reported eating fewer dairy-based desserts than other people. “I don’t believe that the heavier people consume less desserts,” he said. “I believe they underreport more.”
Or maybe, overweight and obese people eat fewer desserts because they know (or think they know) that desserts make you fat? It's like that old trope that you never see thin people drinking diet soda. And especially if they're switching from desserts to things that are counter-intuitively less healthy (skipping dessert, but eating more of an unhealthy main, for example), it could even comport with the data these "scientists" are choosing to ignore.
Could there be a parallel with some of the purported benefits of "cold exposure" eg. cold showers, ice baths etc? Does consuming a frozen food trigger some sort of mild shock response along similar lines?
(Warning: I'm just an internet moron trying to connect dots..)
If your research grant comes through from the ADA ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dairy_Association ) and you need another subject for the "firm" or "spoon soft" group, feel free to drop me a line.