The World Around You

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has exposed another of the contributers to this country’s weight problem,

“Everyone knows that ice cream isn’t a health food,” the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an independent, nonprofit group, said in a study released on Wednesday.

“But the staggering calorie and saturated fat content of most of the treats served up at chains like Baskin-Robbins, Ben and Jerry’s, Cold Stone Creamery, Friendly’s, Haagen-Dazs and TCBY is bound to surprise most consumers.”

The CSPI said an empty Ben & Jerry’s chocolate-dipped waffle cone, designed to hold at least two scoops of ice cream, itself packs 320 calories and 10 grams or half a day’s worth of saturated fat.

“If you put a regular scoop of Chunky Monkey ice cream in that cone, it is going to be worse for you than (a) one-pound rack of baby back ribs, with 820 calories and 30 grams of saturated fat,” CSPI nutritionist Jayne Hurley told a news conference to publicize the study.

“This is something eaten by people strolling around a mall,” she added. “They have no idea they have just eaten 820 calories and one and a half days worth of saturated fat.”

Haagen-Dazs’s Mint Chip Dazzler, a sundae in a cup, has three scoops of ice cream, fudge, cookies, sprinkles and cream — and 1,270 calories, the group said.

Its 38 grams of fat is more than the day’s allowance as calculated by the U.S. government, which says the average American should eat between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day.

The CSPI called on restaurants and ice cream parlors to list the fat and calorie content of food on menus.

What’s going to be reported is that the food police say ice cream is bad for you. If you read the article and, more importantly, CSPI’s press release (Ice Cream Shops Serving Coronaries in Cones) you’ll see that this is really about a matter of degree. No one is saying ice cream is inherently evil, what CSPI is saying is that the way we consume ice cream and the means through which it is presented to consumers is outrageously calorie and fat-laden and people are not told how bad it really is.

I guarantee you that if every consumer had to look at the calorie and fat content for these ice cream treats every time they ordered one, they would think twice about doing so. We’re talking about allowing consumers to be educated about what they’re really eating. Every consumer has a right to make a choice, but presented with an informed choice more people would make the right one for their health.