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Supermarket ice cream in a fact check vs. homemade ice cream

Summer definitely includes refreshing ice cream! Manufacturers of supermarket ice cream are increasingly advertising with great eco-promises. But how good are they really? And how easy is it to make your own ice cream?

Author: Claudia Spiess

What do the terms milk ice cream, fruit ice cream etc. mean?

In 2021, per capita consumption of ice cream averaged around 8 liters per year. The top 3 most popular ice cream flavors are vanilla, chocolate and stracciatella. These are all three classic milk ice cream flavors. According to the guidelines of the German Food Code Commission, “milk ice cream” means: It must contain at least 70 percent milk fat.

On the other hand, if it says “ice cream,” at least 10 percent of it should be milk fat and if the cold snack is simply called “ice cream,” it can also contain vegetable fats.

“Fruit ice cream” and “sorbet” are made from fruit, without any fat. The prescribed fruit content is highest for sorbet.

What do the different seals mean?

Most of the ice cream consumed is purchased in the supermarket. You can also find vegan ice cream there more and more often! The Fairtrade seal can also be found on many packaging. However, Fairtrade can also just refer to one ingredient, for example in the case of ice cream the chocolate used or other ingredients that are imported from far away. Fairtrade also allows for quantity balancing for cocoa and sugar. This means that fair trade raw materials can be mixed with non-fair trade raw materials.

Fairtrade is not the same as organic, but you have to pay attention to your own organic seal. But this applies to all the ingredients in the ice cream.

Ice cream is often advertised with the climate neutral seal. The seal is issued by various companies that determine the CO₂ balance and then financially support various climate protection projects so that the emissions are mathematically offset.

What's in vegan supermarket ice cream?

Ice cream is never really healthy. It's just a candy. But you can still pay attention to something: If sugar is at the beginning of the list of ingredients, or if there are even several types of sugar in it at once, it is less recommended.

Ice cream is particularly good when it generally uses few ingredients, meaning the list on the ice cream package is short. Then there are few additives and artificial flavors in it.

What stands out about the ingredients: Almost every ice cream contains coconut fat or oil. It often forms the basis for vegan alternatives in particular, which have to replace milk in the chocolate, vanilla, etc. varieties. But even non-vegan ice cream contains coconut in addition to the milk fat, because that gives the ice cream a very special creaminess.

The problem with coconut oil

The WWF published a report in 2020 that strongly criticized ice cream producers for their careless use of coconut. If demand for coconut oil is as high as palm oil, it would have a much more devastating impact on the rainforest and the climate. Because when growing coconut, it takes a lot more space to produce the same amount of oil. Many ice cream manufacturers would ignore the problem and not even use organic or Fairtrade certified coconut oil/coconut fat. When growing tropical oils organically, no new land is cleared for plantations and fewer pesticides and fertilizers are used.

So if ice cream with coconut or palm oil: look for the organic seal! Nevertheless, vegan ice cream is generally kinder to the climate than ice cream made from animal raw materials. But there is also vegan ice cream based on oats or soy. This is better for the environment than coconut-based ice cream.

But it would be best to avoid ice cream with fats and to use fruit ice cream or sorbet made from local fruits more often, which you can easily prepare yourself.

Source: Ökochecker SWR
Moderation: Maral Bazargani
Credits Authors: Hanna Meßmann, Christoph Goldbeck
Editorial team (solisTV): Sarah Weihsweiler / Editorial team (SWR): Inga Vennemann

Further links :
D LMB: Guidelines for ice cream (2016): Guidelines for ice cream ( PDF)
WWF: Like Ice In The Sunshine.
Vegetable oils and fats in ice cream. The example of coconut oil (2020) (PDF) Journal of Cleaner Production (2018): Environmental impacts of ice cream

This might also be of interest: Vegan ice cream in a fact check

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Notes:

1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication
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The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual articles (not fact checks) were created using machine help and
were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )


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