Category Archives: Ice cream store supplies

A Brief History of Ice Cream

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Plastic ice cream cups

It is no secret ice cream is everyone’s favorite frozen treat. The average American will consume it 28.5 times per year, and over 90% of U.S households are the ones indulging. Additionally, in any given two week period 40% of Americans will eat ice cream! It is hard to resist going out to an ice cream or frozen yogurt shop, with the cuteness overload that comes with it. There are the mini tasting spoons, colorful paper cups, and if you’re lucky the little gelato spoons that look like a colorful mini shovels. But, where did ice cream come from? Read on to learn a little bit more of the history of this frosty treat.

Ice cream’s origins have been known to be traced back to the second century BC, although no specific date has been recorded. It is possible the first version was shaved ice with flavoring. This method was enjoyed by Alexander the Great, who dabbed a little honey and nectar on his dessert. Additionally, during the Roman Empire Nero Claudius Cesar would send runners into the mountains to get ice and then flavor it with fruits and juices.

Over a thousand years later, explorer Marco Polo returned to Italy with a recipe from Ancient China that closely resembles today’s sherbet. Historians believe that this eventually evolved into modern day ice cream in the 16th century, with England enjoying the delicacy of what was known as cream ice. This was only enjoyed by the royals, and wasn’t made available to the general public until 1660.

The first official account of ice cream arriving in the Americas was in 1774. Ice cream soon ballooned in popularity with advertisements in local newspapers. There are even reports of George Washington spending $200 for ice cream during the summer of 1790.

Just like in Europe, ice cream was a dessert only enjoyed by the wealthy until the 1880s. It was then that insulated ice houses were invented, and soon after manufacturing ice cream became an industry. And it just grew from there! Today, about 9% of all milk produced by dairy farmers is used to produce ice cream so it continues to be a popular dish despite its elitist roots!

Which is Better for You When on a Diet Ice Cream or Frozen Yogurt?

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You are trying to lose weight or be healthy for whatever reason it is that you’re staying away from carbs and sugar. But you have such a sweet tooth and it’s killing you. You’ve done so good for two weeks and not even had a cheat meal, would one ice cream cup really set you back that far? It’s so hot outside and at least there are no bad carbs in ice cream. It’s the sugar right? Maybe if you just use tasting spoons you’ll eat less. You could justify but you know what happens if you cheat: you’ll spend the next month trying to get back on track after eating every single thing you’ve deprived yourself of for the past week. What about frozen yogurt? If it’s that much healthier than ice cream, you wouldn’t have to limit yourself or to eat it with tasting spoons or toothpicks or however you control yourself or even feel guilty. Could frozen yogurt really be healthy as they say? Well, let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of frozen yogurt and see if that might be an option for you today.

  1. Frozen yogurt does have more minerals and nutrients than ice cream such as protein that can be beneficial to us.
  2. Frozen yogurt contains enzymatic benefits that help with digestion so that even if you are lactose intolerant, you may be able to digest frozen yogurt because of the enzymes that are naturally in yogurt already and therefore also in frozen yogurt.
  3. There is a fat free option if you are trying to stay away from fat.

However…

  1. If you do not choose the fat free option, the fat in yogurt can be almost as high as ice cream, depending on the flavor you choose because of the fruits and flavor enhancers that are added later to the yogurt.
  2. All frozen yogurt, even fat free options, are extremely high in sugar in order to get them that sweet taste. They are basically just as high in sugar as ice cream is.
  3. The protein in frozen yogurt could be no more then the size of one of those tasting spoons. Research has shown that frozen yogurt contains less than a third of the protein that the same size regular yogurt would have.

Let’s take a look at how frozen yogurt is actually made to help us get a better understanding of how it compares to ice cream on the healthy scale.

The lactic acid that is released in the milk of the yogurt by live bacterial cultures cause the milk proteins to thicken well at the same time protecting it against bad bacteria. The best yogurt for you still has the live bacterial properties at the end of the process.

Frozen yogurt in particular is made by replacing the cream content of ice cream with regular yogurt but other than that most of the same ingredients are used such as sugar. This is the main reason why frozen yogurt is not as healthy as regular yogurt. Sugar can be very bad for the body if to much is ingested.

Basically, you can put frozen yogurt between regular yogurt and ice cream on the scale of healthiness; not as good for you as a regular pot of yogurt, but not as bad as a bowl of ice cream either.

In order to make your frozen yogurt snack healthy enough to not feel guilty about you would need to find a fat free, sugar-free option which can be very difficult to find in a regular yogurt store. Try calling around to some different yogurt shops and see what they have. You may want to use tasting spoons to make sure than any sugar free, fat free options are even appealing to your taste buds and satisfy that sweet tooth.

However, to answer the original question or questions, although frozen yogurt is not necessarily as healthy as a piece of fruit or vegetables, it is definitely better than ice cream. You can think of it as the same as surveys or frozen milk.