A tale of two ice cream flavors

I have a long story that flaunts my ego if you're up for it. Moralistic story, by the way!

Tonight was cheat night for me and my family, and cheat night usually means we get one mutually enjoyed craving enough to satisfy the whole group.

Yes, this could only call for one thing: ice cream!

As we were deciding on a flavor, a cousin of mine stopped us all by saying we should only be having vanilla, as, and this is what she said: "anything vanilla is low-calorie and it's healthier."

She also mentioned something about a local celebrity eating vanilla ice cream everyday as part of her new weight-loss diet, which I won't be getting into.

I retorted by saying that was a stupid notion (rude of me, in hindsight), mostly because I hate vanilla anything, and wanted to get the peanut butter flavor. Plus, it was my treat. I was not going to buy vanilla just because someone was being delusional with her diet science and sounded like she would have believed like this article, had she read it.

It's delusional, is it not? Ice cream is not healthy. It shouldn't be a staple of someone's healthy diet and albeit healthier variations are abound, there's no getting past the fact that a cup of ice cream won't do you good other than to satisfy your sweet tooth.

She told me I was annoying and that everything about me is annoying (I'll have you all know, I've got a five-star personality ;D), so I caved and did something a bit evil to prove her wrong: I bought both vanilla and peanut butter!

How is this evil? Well, I bought a pint of regular vanilla and a pint of peanut butter from two different ice cream-making companies (local Unileiver heartbrand and Nestle), meaning the ice cream qualities are different and have different components and all that shiznazz. Everyone had a half cup of each flavor except me and my cousin. I only had a cup of peanut butter and she only had vanilla— two cups because she's determined to keep the vanilla is low-calorie mindset.

No one checked the nutritional information at the bottom of the tubs.

Regular Chocolate-Peanut Butter: 75kcal per 100ml serving

Regular Vanilla: 231kcal per 1/2 cup

In the end I had around 200 calories of ice cream, while she had consumed around 900 calories or so.

Am I evil? Yes. Am I an egotistical **** who should have just let it slide but wouldn't because I enjoy being right and making other people know the same things I do? Yes.

Should she learn her lesson and seek proper nutrition before calling me out for being mean when all I was doing was correcting her?

I don't know, but she still prefers to believe that vanilla is low-calories.

So, that's it, people. If you don't want to learn things the hard way by having me trick you into eating something you can only assume is healthy before you figure out that it isn't, then read up.

Have any similar stories you wanna share? I am so jonesing for some ice cream stories right now.

Not ice cream related but I saw in Shape magazine yesterday that people should avoid fruit yogurts because they can be high in sugar... instead of suggesting PLAIN yogurt, they said you should choose vanilla & lemon flavours because they have less sugar! Hello? They have the same amount! At least fruit yogurt contains fruit sugars!  

Original Post by cellophane_star:

Not ice cream related but I saw in Shape magazine yesterday that people should avoid fruit yogurts because they can be high in sugar... instead of suggesting PLAIN yogurt, they said you should choose vanilla & lemon flavours because they have less sugar! Hello? They have the same amount! At least fruit yogurt contains fruit sugars!  

This makes me cry.

Also, I have to disagree with the fruit sugars thing, as the only difference between fructose and sucrose is that the former is a monosaccharide and the latter is a combination type of sugar (1:1 glucose/fructose). One is not better than the other, although there are some studies that claim that fructose converts to fat faster than glucose or sucrose, although I think a little bit once in a while never hurt nobody.

The thing about vanilla and lemon having less sugar is contrite, though. The sugar-free variety, although... I'm pretty sure there are less sugars in that.

Original Post by tintinity:

Also, I have to disagree with the fruit sugars thing, as the only difference between fructose and sucrose is that the former is a monosaccharide and the latter is a combination type of sugar (1:1 glucose/fructose). One is not better than the other, although there are some studies that claim that fructose converts to fat faster than glucose or sucrose, although I think a little bit once in a while never hurt nobody.

The thing about vanilla and lemon having less sugar is contrite, though. The sugar-free variety, although... I'm pretty sure there are less sugars in that.

 Agreed. But if you're eaten berry yogurts, at least you're getting some health benefits from the berries, as opposed to lemon & vanilla, which usually just have flavours added in and don't contain much actual vanilla or lemon at all! Sugar-free varieties contain artificial sweeteners instead of real sugar.

I wouldn't put much stock into anything Shape says. How about suggesting PLAIN yogurt and you can add real fruit yourself? So simple!

Original Post by cellophane_star:

Original Post by tintinity:

Also, I have to disagree with the fruit sugars thing, as the only difference between fructose and sucrose is that the former is a monosaccharide and the latter is a combination type of sugar (1:1 glucose/fructose). One is not better than the other, although there are some studies that claim that fructose converts to fat faster than glucose or sucrose, although I think a little bit once in a while never hurt nobody.

The thing about vanilla and lemon having less sugar is contrite, though. The sugar-free variety, although... I'm pretty sure there are less sugars in that.

 Agreed. But if you're eaten berry yogurts, at least you're getting some health benefits from the berries, as opposed to lemon & vanilla, which usually just have flavours added in and don't contain much actual vanilla or lemon at all! Sugar-free varieties contain artificial sweeteners instead of real sugar.

I wouldn't put much stock into anything Shape says. How about suggesting PLAIN yogurt and you can add real fruit yourself? So simple!

I know, right? That's actually what I do. Except, I don't put in real fruit but all-natural fruit preserves of the sugar-free variety. They're homemade by my aunt who swears the only additional flavoring she puts in them are cinammon grounds.

Also, I'm awful and buy the full-fat yogurt because it's creamier. A lot more satisfying, though. Tastes so much better too!

my silver ice cream spoon

fits in the sunglass case

holds half a teaspoon

makes 200 calories seem like 900

if the ice cream is too hard, stirring it in hot strong black coffee fixes it

espresso works better

Original Post by cellophane_star:

 Agreed. But if you're eaten berry yogurts, at least you're getting some health benefits from the berries, as opposed to lemon & vanilla, which usually just have flavours added in and don't contain much actual vanilla or lemon at all! Sugar-free varieties contain artificial sweeteners instead of real sugar.

I wouldn't put much stock into anything Shape says. How about suggesting PLAIN yogurt and you can add real fruit yourself? So simple!

Quite honestly, I don't think they put that many berries in the berry yogurts, either =S  And I do believe that they have more added sugars than vanilla and lemon since I find that the berry flavors for me are overpoweringly sweet, as opposed to vanilla and lemon, which are still very sweet, but not as much so.  Plus some yogurt varieties do say that they have 1g less of sugar in the vanilla/lemon flavors anyway, so technically they DO have less sugar, just not that much less =\  Anyway, I'm all for the plain/real fruit route.  I guess most other people are just too used to their artificially flavored goods. 

That's awesome!  I can't believe she never checked the nutritional information.  Wouldn't you have loved to see the look on her face if she had read them just after eating 2 cups of ice cream!

Original Post by tintinity:

Should she learn her lesson and seek proper nutrition before calling me out for being mean when all I was doing was correcting her?

You can be correct and mean...

Having said that, I find that I can barely control myself when people are being aggressively ignorant, and I lose all control when they move from that into stubbornly stupid.  I probably would have done something similar to what you did, tintinity - except for eating chocolate peanut butter ice cream - gimme almond mocha fudge any day!

"It's delusional, is it not? Ice cream is not healthy. It shouldn't be a staple of someone's healthy diet and albeit healthier variations are abound, there's no getting past the fact that a cup of ice cream won't do you good other than to satisfy your sweet tooth."

really? rats i eat icecream every night lol :p

oh and p.s. i reccomend Edy's light Peanut Butter Cup if you love pb icecream.mmm

I read nutrition labels, that's why I was delighted to learn that my vanilla ice cream cookie sandwhich was 340kcal as opposed to the 430kcal for the chocolate chocolate chip variety.

Too bad your know-it-all probably won't have learned anything from this lesson although I certainly got a chuckle out of it.

Original Post by alexa81:

"It's delusional, is it not? Ice cream is not healthy. It shouldn't be a staple of someone's healthy diet and albeit healthier variations are abound, there's no getting past the fact that a cup of ice cream won't do you good other than to satisfy your sweet tooth."

really? rats i eat icecream every night lol :p

oh and p.s. i reccomend Edy's light Peanut Butter Cup if you love pb icecream.mmm

 

Well, there are some claims of health benefits with eating ice cream. Getting your calcium and whatnot (seriously, though? Ugh).

I'm big on ice cream science since I've made a lot of homemade varieties and when people catch me putting in oil they stick their nose up and point their finger at me for ever claiming to be healthy and I have to give better defenses for using oils other than "me wanna have ma numnums creamy!"

Turns out, ice cream has, I believe, a chemical that acts as both anti-depressant and appetite stimulant.

It's horrible and sad but people have to learn the hard way that it's not a good idea to believe that ice cream is diet food if they're 50lbs overweight and frustrated as to why they can't lose the weight and hating their pompous 10-years-younger cousins for acting like she knows more because she goes to a university.

On Edy's:

Nah, would rather not. Anything Edy's sold in my country has partially hydrogenated oils and HFCS since they need to have a better shelf life being imported from the west and whatnot.

The peanut butter ice cream I got is from a local company and only lists a total of seven ingredients that even a five-year-old would recognize, which is exactly why it's the one I buy when I need an ice cream fix.

The serving sizes are different.  You can't compare calories that way.

They're not *that* different.  1/2 cup is 125 ml.

Edy's Tagalong ice cream has made a comeback around here. Granted it's not health food and the list of ingredients is 2 inches of fine print.  But 1/4 cup is only 80 calories of addictiveness, and more satisfying than a candy bar containing 4 times the calories.  Or a Big Mac at 7 times the calories.

Yesterday a study came out on American obesity, which placed the American adults in the study at about one Big Mac a day overweight.  I'll trade the small dish of ice cream for the Big Mac every day of the week.

Icecream is not a health food... but your cousin is right about one thing - if you're going to eat it, the plain flavours (like vanilla) have less calories than the ones with 'stuff' in them. But it's all relative. If your heart's desire is for triple-chocolate-chunk brownie sundae, you're not really going to be satisfied with vanilla instead just because it has 100 calories less in a serve. That's why I like Edy's - they have some really yummy flavours in the 'light' and 'yogurt blend' lines that don't pack a big calorie punch.

For those a little short in the math department:

100 ml = 0.423 cups.  So 75 kcals/.423 cups as X is to 0.5 cups => x = 88.7 Kcal.

so 1/2 cup of her chocolate was ~ 89 Kcal, 1/2 cup of the vanilla was 231 Kcal.  Seems like a pretty big discrepency, but assuming the values were posted correctly, the vanilla had more calories per half cup.

It's not rocket science people... 

Original Post by tintinity:

It's horrible and sad but people have to learn the hard way that it's not a good idea to believe that ice cream is diet food if they're 50lbs overweight and frustrated as to why they can't lose the weight and hating their pompous 10-years-younger cousins for acting like she knows more because she goes to a university.

Kind of like how frustrated I get with the 30, 40 or 50-somethings (including my parents...) who assume that they know what's best for my health because I'm just a young whippersnapper with no idea of how the world really works. -eye roll-

That was such a clever trick though, totally sounds like something I'd pull.

Just to let you all poke fun at me, I totally thought that Cold Stone's "Sweet Cream" ice cream would have the fewest calories out of all their ice creams, because I assumed it was JUST ice cream, no flavorings at all.  (This is because it tastes a lot like the ice cream I made with friends, which we didn't flavor)  So any flavoring should add cals right?  WRONG.  Dear lord.  I have no idea what they put in sweet cream but it is bad stuff!  Still love it though.  If you ask the people nicely, they'll give you 1/2 sweet cream and 1/2 sinless.  It's wonderful.