Coconut Milk Ice Cream You Can Buy (and it is comparatively healthy)

I haven’t found an ice cream that meets many of my healthy criteria until now. It is called So Delicious. In the left hand column under Brand scroll over to So Delicious, Frozen, Coconut Based, Frozen Dessert to get a list of flavors. Scrolling over the Purely Decadent variety gives another list of flavors that I would eat, provided they don’t have sugar.

The website and reality in the store are a little confusing, though. For instance, yesterday I bought So Delicious Mint Chip, which the website doesn’t show as a product for So Delicious, but it is a product for Purely Decadent. Further, the ingredients in the So Delicious are different than the ingredients listed on the Purely Decadent website. What really caught my eye in the store in addition to there being no milk (we are avoiding milk for Colson right now and we prefer ours to be raw not pasteurized) is that there is no Agave sweetener, which I avoid like the plague because it is highly manufactured and been likened to High Fructose Corn Syrup.

What are the ingredients in our lovely new ice cream?

Organic coconut milk (water, organic coconut cream), gum Arabic, chocolate flake (coconut oil, erythritol, inulin, cocoa processed with alkali, chocolate liquor, vanilla, Reb A (stevia extract)), vegetable glycerin, chicory root extract, erythritol, natural flavors, sea salt, locust bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan, monk fruit extract.

I am not big on the Reb A (stevia) because it is manufactured, but I will bite the bullet on that one. Wish they would use raw honey, though.

So what are some of these other ingredients? It is always an education and the devil is in the details. As I write this post and learn about the other ingredients, I am not as excited about the ice cream, but I think we will eat it every now and then. Click here to find out about the ingredients and their pros and cons:

Erythritol

Inulin  

Vegetable Glycerin

Locust Bean Gum

Guar Gum  

Carrageenan

Gum Arabic

In addition to the links above, you should do some reading on your own. Take Carrageenan for example. Apparently it has been linked to cancer in rats, likened to MSG and a few other negative things.

Clearly, the best choice is to make your own food when you can. Our coconut cream concentrate will be arriving any day now, so I will tinker with it, use some honey to sweeten, and some extracts and fresh fruits to flavor if we want. In lieu of that I will still eat this ice cream here and there. I feel ok about that because we buy almost nothing processed/manufactured. Literally almost nothing. I think we can handle a little carrageenan here and there.

Comments

[Anna]

I love So Delicious coconut milk ice cream, but I was concerned about carrageenan, too, until I called the company and they explained that there are two kinds: food grade and non-food grade. Apparently, the studies done on rats were done with non-food grade carrageenan. Food-grade carrageenan is not toxic and is not at all like MSG (which I am deathly allergic, to!) That made me feel a lot better, since carrageenan is used in just about all dairy alternatives from soy milk to cheese to ice cream. :)

[Laura Combs]

Thanks, Anna! That is good to know.

[red bottom]

So fun article is! I know more from it.