OK, so, it’s an indulgence. But my god, how long can a person live without chocolate? I think I’ve only met one person who disliked chocolate so far. He was French. Coincidence? I think not!
Mock anti-Gallic attitudes aside, I do quite enjoy chocolate. My very favorite chocolate ice cream is Ben & Jerry’s New York Superfudge Chunk. Yes, that is the Statue of Liberty on the package. And, yes, it contains almonds covered with chocolate. But, at $3.99 per pint, I cannot justify this indulgence due to the frequency at which I must obtain chocolate ice cream! So, I tried the store brand of a local fancy-pants store – it was OK. A bit on the sweet side, with a slightly thin chocolate flavor. Not bad for $3.99 per half gallon.
And then, I visited Whole Foods. Yes, they are corporate evil, but, who isn’t?I asked one of the employees to show me the lower-sugar chocolate ice creams. Of the ones he’d shown me, the Whole Foods brand was the cheapest. I hesitated. Um, is this any good? Do you know? I asked him. He then personally vouched for it. He loved it. For $3.99 per half gallon, I was willing to take the risk. Lo and behold…this was real ice cream. With real chocolate flavor. Chocolate should be a little bit earthy – this ice cream was. And, I could truly taste the buttery aspect of the cream.
Mind you, this is not a true “bargain” ice cream in the sense that you are getting five gallons for a dollar – but it is less costly than your average ice cream brands (Dreyer’s, Haagen Daz, Ben & Jerry’s, etc.) without total flavor loss. Plus, I have no intentions of buying an ice cream maker to prepare my own – it’s not exactly a nutritional priority of mine to eat more of it than I already do! So, buy it before Whole Foods changes its mind and takes it out of the freezer section…again!
Dude, where's the stove? 
And it’s one of the few ice creams around that doesn’t contain high fructose corn syrup.
Is that also why the sweetness is less harsh?
(from Rebecca)
I think the HFCS affects the texture more than the flavor, although when my husband and I were in Spain this fall and had the opportunity to drink Coca-Cola made with cane sugar versus high fructose corn syrup we thought we did notice that it tasted better.
But the main reason I’m concerned about it and have tried to eliminate it from my house and have really begun to read labels it that some folks blame it for the obesity epidemic in this country. Evidently it is processed much differently by the body than regular sugar is, and is also more addictive. Here’s a link to an article–http://www.washingtonpost.com
/ac2/wp-dyn/A8003-2003Mar10?language=printer
There’s lots more about it on the web, too.
I think we use it so much in this country because it’s cheaper than sugar, plus in ice cream corn syrup helps make it “creamy”. You’ll notice that regular Breyer’s flavors don’t contain it, but their “extra-creamy” flavors do.
yes, we served Breyer’s the other day. Everyone liked it.