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ICE CREAM

Warm summer weather ispredictab ly reflected in ahotting up of ice cream sales.For example, during 1989,which was one of the bestsummers on record, the hotspell started early in May.Walls recorded their best-everMay sales and then consumerdemand continued into June.The increasein sales coveredall types of icecream but thosethat sold the most were thewrapped 'impulse' kind widelysold in city centres and holidayresorts alike. Among Walls bestselling lines, for example, saleswere 60% up on those duringthe mediocre summer of 1988.The company had set

itself ambitious targets for1989 but by August sales hadexceeded these by 40%.Figures for the total amountof ice cream eaten in the UK,including catering sales,consumption at home and the'hand held' varieties, amountedto 394 million litres in 1986, 400million in 1987 and 419 in 1988.The value of the markets during

those years were 493m, 528mand 575m.No doubt, then, that icecream is a favourite food, bu twhat about its nutritionalvalue? Recent articles in certainsections of the popular mediahave given it a bad press, butwhat are the real facts?Professor Arnold Bender looksat the truth of the matter.

Food ha s t a ke n a he a vy be a t ing inrecent years . At one t ime i t wasprocessed and ' r e f ined ' food tha tw a s unde r a t t a c k , bu t m or e r e c e n t lythe he a d l ine s ha ve be e n oc c up ie dw i th f ood po i son ing , t h i s t im e w i thfresh as well as processed foods.M a n y m i s c o n c e p t i o n s h a v eb e c o m e e m b e d d e d i n t h e p u b l i cmind and may be di f f icul t toeradica te , such as the onee p i tom ise d by the phr a se i n am a g a z i n e ' E n u m b e r s U g h ! ' . T h every fac t tha t the addi t ives have anE nu m b e r m e a ns t ha t t he y a r econsidered to be safe (so far as wec a n a sc e r t a in ) w he n use d p r ope r ly ,t ha t i s i n t he pe r m i t t e d a m ount s i nthe pe r m i t t e d f oods .

Ice creamOne of the foods tha t i s par t icular lysensa t iona l i sed i s ice c ream.Pe jo r a t i ve s t a t e m e nt s a r e m a de suc has ' ice cream is cooking fatw h i p p e d u p w i t h t h i c k e n e r s a n dwater ' . The f lavours inc lude amylace ta te which (a l though i t i s foundin f rui t s ) has been descr ibed as asubs t a nc e use d to c l e a n l a the s a ndte x t il e s , a nd bu ty r a ld e hy de ,de sc r ibe d a s c om m on ly f ound inr ubbe r c e m e nt . T h i s i s l i ke sa y ingtha t the ac id used to degrease shee ti ron before ga lvanis ing i s secre tedin our s tomachs or tha t c i t r ic ac id,

the centre of the Krebs cycle, isused to desca le ke t t les .Al l these snide remarks a rein t e nde d to c on ju r e up a nu n p l e a s a n t p i c t u r e , i n d e e d , o n ec om m e nt w a s t ha t i c e c r e a m i sp r e t t y dub ious a nd w e don ' t r e a l l yneed to eat i t .O v e r - r u nI t can be a great source of cynicala m u s e m e n t t o w r i t e a b o u t o v e r - r u n the i nc r e a se i n vo lum e e xpr e s se das a percentage of the ini t ia lvolume. You can s ta r t wi th 1 l i t r e ofice c ream mixture and f inish u pwith 2 .25 l i t res , g iving a 125% over r un . T ha t sounds good f o rm a nuf a c tu r e r s bu t no t a good de a lfor consumers . But the a i r i s par t ofthe product and i f there were noove r - r un w e w ould be l i c k ingflavoured ice. Inc ide nta lly br ea d is300% o v e r - r u n o n t h e d o u g h .N u t r i e n t c o n t e n tHas ice c ream any role in the die t?Table 1 l i s t s the nut r ientc om pos i t i on o f da i r y a nd non- da i r yice cream (taken from McCance andWiddowson's Food CompositionTables), and they are not verydifferent.T a b le 2 c om p a r e s t he nu t r i e n t s i n100g of var ious desser ts .

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How is i t made?Ice cream ha s been m ad e forcen tu r i e s bu t indus t r i a l p roduc t iondates f rom ear ly th is century withthe development of ref r igerat ion .Tradi tonal ly ice cream is madefrom milk or cream, sugar and eggs ,but for reasons of price most icec ream in the U K 95 % i s m adew i th vege tab le o i l s, ha r den ed o runhardened . D a i ry i ce c r eam i smade w i th c r eam, bu t t e r o r bu t t e roil.UK ice cream is sometimescompared un favourab ly w i th ' r ea l '

Table 1 Com posit ion of ice cream (per 100g)

water gsugars gstarch gdietary fibreenergy kcalprotein gfat gcarbohydrate gsodium mgcalcium mgzinc mgiron mgretinol ( g)caroteneVit D ( g )B1 (mg)B2 (mg)niacin equiv (mg)C (mg)E (mg)B6 (mg)B12folate ( g)

Dairyice cream64.422.62.21673.86.624.8801400.40.2140tr0.040.181.000.40.02trace2

Non-dairyice cream65.719.91.01653.38.220.7701200.40.30000.040.150.901.20.02trace2

dairy ice cream, as made in o thercountr ies but , in fact , Belg ium,H ol land , I r e land , S pa in and S w edenuse vegetable fa t .The amount of fa t i s general lybe tw een 7 % and 12% , l ega l ly no tless than 5%. If the amount of fat isreduced below the legal l imit thenit can no longer be called ice creamand terms such as f rozen desser ta r e u s ed .Compos i t iona l s t andards a r eimposed by legis la t ion , not lessthan 7% milk-sol ids -not- fa t ( sk immilk solids). Levels of 9 to 12% areusual ly used ei ther as milk so l ids or7.5% milk so l ids p lus wheyp o w d e r .

The p roduc t i s s w ee tened w i th 14to 16% sucrose but th is iss omet imes pa r t ly r ep laced w i thglucose syrup which makes i t lesssweet and lowers the f reezingp o i n t .Functional additivesO ne o f the mos t impor tan tproperties of ice cream is i tssmooth ' creamy' tex ture . I t i s ath ree -phas e s ys tem o f a i r - l iqu id -sol ids and so ne ed s emu ls i fy ingagents . This was one of thefunct ions of egg in t radi t ionalrecipes but eggs are costly for large-scale ma nufac ture a nd are replacedby emuls i f iers . These are usual lymo no and d ig lyce r ides( in termediates in fa t d iges t ion) a tlevels of 0.4 to 0.5%.

In addi t ion to emuls i f iers ,s t ab i l i s e r s (gums , a lg ina tes ,

ca rageenan , ge la t in o r s od iumcaseinates ) are added to b ind thew ate r and to p rom ote the fo rmat ionof small ice cream crystals . Largecrys ta ls would g ive a gr i t ty texture .Colours and f lavours are added asr e q u i r e d .The mixture is pas teur ised a t ah igher t empera tu re than us ed fo rmilk 80C for 15 seconds sincethe s o l id s p res en t can p rov ide s omeprotect ion to the bacter ia .The mix is then usual ly held a t 2to 5C for 24 hours to allow the fatto crys ta l l ise and the milk proteinsand s tab i l iser to ful ly h yd rate .D ur i ng the s ub s equ en t f r eez ingprocess the air is injected to f luff upthe p roduc t and make i ce c r eam.The emuls i f ier serves not only toal low the water and fa t to mix butalso to permit the incorporat ion ofa i r w i thou t the mix tu re co l l aps ing .The p roduc t has to be h a rde nedby chilling rapidly at 30C to formsmall ice crystals and is s tored atth is temperature . Sof t ice cream iswhipped and f rozen at about 5C.

Media mistakesI t i s in teres t ing to see how ar t ic lesden ig ra t ing any th ing pas s f rom onejournal is t to another . In the icecream example one ar t ic le containeds evera l s pe l l ing mis takes , p ipe roha lfor p iperonal , dethylene g lucol ford ie thy lene g lyco l , and thes e s ames pe l l ing mis takes w ere r epea tedmany t imes in d if ferent ar t ic les .

I t seems to be the current pract iceof some sect ions of the media toga in a t t en t ion by p res en t ingin fo rmat ion in s ens a t iona l t e rms .Unfor tunately the t ru th rarelyca tches up w i th the un t ru th and w ew i l l be s tuck w i th manymis concep t ions fo r yea r s to come .Overal l we say that no one foodis good or bad , only a d ie t can be.I ce c r eam does make s omecon t r ibu t ion to the d ie t andcer ta in ly canno t be r egarded asharmful in any way.

Table 2 Nutrients per 100g (standard values)

Non-dairy ice creamtriflefruit pie (pastry top and bottom)fruit pie (pastry top)apple crumblecustard tart

energykcal kJ165 691160 674369 1554180 756208 878287 1199

proteing3.33.54.32.01.85.9

fatg8.26.115.57.66.916.9

Ca Femg g120 0.382 0.751 1.248 0.628 0.6110 1.0

Table 3 Ice cream consumpt ion(Litre/head-year)SwedenBelgiumUKItalyFranceUSA

13.87.176.25.121.0

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