Breyer's ice cream, what happened?

[Ellen]

So I was cruising YouTube and I see this video and decide to watch it. I ate a lot of Breyer's as a kid. It was real, good ice cream. And one of the ways you knew that it was real, is because it would start melting immediately. You couldn't dilly dally too long eating it, or you would have soup. So good.....

Well, not anymore. Watch this. And while normally I would say mold is a good indication, the melting factor overrides this one.

SO glad I haven't had any Breyer's in years.

 

[MissGotRocks]

Not sure where this fellow is based but his brands seem to indicate somewhere overseas. Not sure how Breyers distributes its product. However, we had some Breyers ice cream the other night (first time in a long time I might add) and mine melted faster than I could eat it. I had to sit it down a minute and answer the phone and when I picked it up, it had definitely melted around the edges. I'll be sure to check the ingredients the next time I'm in the ice cream aisle. I honestly can't believe the whole thing wouldn't have melted after a whole day on the counter based on the fifteen minutes I had it in a bowl.

Interesting - definitely gives pause for thought!!

 

[rainydaze]

YES!! I used to love being able to have Breyers... just as their commercials stated there were three main ingredients with none of the fake stuff that other brands had. I had stopped buying it for a while and when I returned, it tasted awful. And didn't melt fast like it used to. Checked the ingredients and their grand marketing scheme was true no more. It now has all the same crap as other brands. Blech.

 

[monarch64]

I didn't watch the whole video--I can't stand that guy's voice/accent/drawl/whatever that was. I grew up eating Breyer's and I very occasionally buy their half vanilla/half chocolate for my daughter. She's more of a Talenti sorbetto (dairy free) or Halo Top dairy free kid, though. We don't have much use for dairy, period. I try to limit consumption of products that come from cows constantly impregnated and shackled to machines. It's becoming increasingly easier to avoid dairy and find things that are plant-based instead, at least in places where the demand is higher for such.

I've never noticed the melting rate being slower! And like @MissGotRocks mentioned, it seemed like the guy in the video posted didn't have the product typically available in the US--I noticed one side of the packaging was in French, the other side in English. Can you speak to this, @Ellen ? At any rate, I think the sprinkles (jimmies, etc) I let my daughter disperse onto her scoop of Breyers sometimes are worse than the ice cream itself...I could be wrong!

 

[Ellen]

I didn't watch the whole video--I can't stand that guy's voice/accent/drawl/whatever that was. I grew up eating Breyer's and I very occasionally buy their half vanilla/half chocolate for my daughter. She's more of a Talenti sorbetto (dairy free) or Halo Top dairy free kid, though. We don't have much use for dairy, period. I try to limit consumption of products that come from cows constantly impregnated and shackled to machines. It's becoming increasingly easier to avoid dairy and find things that are plant-based instead, at least in places where the demand is higher for such.

I've never noticed the melting rate being slower! And like @MissGotRocks mentioned, it seemed like the guy in the video posted didn't have the product typically available in the US--I noticed one side of the packaging was in French, the other side in English. Can you speak to this, @Ellen ? At any rate, I think the sprinkles (jimmies, etc) I let my daughter disperse onto her scoop of Breyers sometimes are worse than the ice cream itself...I could be wrong!

I didn't even notice that Monnie. However, I did not have the screen enlarged and didn't have my glasses on. But clearly it's in two languages.

Why would he lie though? Maybe a disgruntled Bryer's worker? I dunno...

 

[telephone89]

I don't have speakers so I cant hear it, but english/french is manditory on canadian labels, so he might be canadian. TBH we stopped buying breyers because it had a weird texture. I assumed they were doing something to it to make it lower calories, but either way, yuck.

eta - https://www.truthorfiction.com/breyers-ice-cream-not-melt/
As it turns out, the story went viral in 2012 when a mother from Ohio discovered that Walmart Great Value Ice Cream Sandwiches didn’t melt after an entire morning in 80 degree temperatures.

Consumer Reports enlisted food scientists to uncover why these products didn’t melt at the time. They noted that the non-melting products had a rubbery, gummy feel while the real ice cream products melted cleanly in the mouth and left little residue behind. The common bond between the non-melting products were ingredients like guar gum, calcium sulfate and monoglycerides that are used to control the melting rates of frozen products and to prevent large crystal formations from forming in the products.

So, it’s true that some “frozen dessert products” made by Breyers and other major labels resist melting at room temperature over long periods of time. However, these products technically aren’t considered ice cream, and the FDA considers additives used to make them safe.

 

[Ellen]

I don't have speakers so I cant hear it, but english/french is manditory on canadian labels, so he might be canadian. TBH we stopped buying breyers because it had a weird texture. I assumed they were doing something to it to make it lower calories, but either way, yuck.

Aha! Thanks for the tip. (he sounds American)

 

[mary poppins]

Check to see whether you're eating ice cream vs. "frozen dairy dessert" which, less expensive for the manufacturer, doesn't qualify as ice cream.

--

You scream, I scream, we all scream for... frozen dairy dessert?

With summer now in full-swing, I thought it'd be a good time to take a look at the official hot weather dessert: ice cream.

The words "frozen dairy dessert" sound far less appealing than "ice cream," which evokes a sense of childhood nostalgia (at least for me) about the satisfying sweetness that made hot summer days just a little bit more bearable. But the reason that some ice cream packages note that the product inside is a "frozen dairy dessert" is due to FDA regulations on the the term "ice cream."

In order to qualify as ice cream, a product must meet two criteria:

1. Ice cream must contain a minimum of 10% dairy milkfat.

2. Ice cream must have no more than 100% overrun and weigh no less than 4.5 lbs. per gallon.

But what the heck is "overrun," you ask? Well, overrun is the amount of air that is whipped into the ice cream base during freezing and is usually presented by a percentage. For example, with 100% overrun, for every gallon of ice cream base you would wind up with 2 gallons of finished ice cream.

The more air churned into the ice cream base, the lighter and fluffier the texture. A product with low overrun will be more dense and heavier. The FDA regulates the amount of overrun in ice cream in order to prevent unscrupulous manufacturers from producing and selling an ice cream product that is mainly air instead of cream. (Thanks, U.S. government!)

So now we know what constitutes ice cream. Anything with less than 10% milkfat and/or more than 100% overrun cannot use the term "ice cream" officially, hence the designation of "frozen dairy dessert."

But to make things even more confusing, the "frozen dairy dessert" category itself can be broken down into numerous subcategories based on the milkfat percentage, and all of those categories include the words "ice cream" (in conjunction with descriptors) despite failing to meet the criteria for ice cream proper.

Keep in mind, though, that these labels are Commercial Item Descriptions set out by the USDA. That is, they are marketing terms and, with the exception of "ice cream" as defined, are not federally regulated. Companies may choose to use these item descriptions for their products if they wish.

The following are labels you might see applied to frozen, creamy treats regarding their milkfat content, and an example of each.

Ice Cream - As mentioned, ice cream must contain no less than 10% dairy milkfat. Examples: Dreyer's/Edy's.

Reduced Fat Ice Cream - Contains at least 25% less total milkfat compared to standard product. Example: Dairy Queen and McDonald's soft serve.

Light Ice Cream - A minimum of 50% less total milkfat. Example: Dreyer's/Edy's Slow Churned line.

Lowfat Ice Cream - Has a maximum of 3g of total fat per 1/2 cup serving. Example: Skinny Cow Lowfat Ice Cream.

Nonfat Ice Cream - Contains less than 0.5g of total fat per serving ("nonfat" is a bit of a misnomer, but companies are allowed to round down to 0g fat on their nutritional information labels). Example: Breyers Fat Free line.

A company may sell multiple types of dairy-based products from line to line. For example, Breyers sells both ice cream (their original "Natural" line) and frozen dairy desserts (the entirety of the Breyers Blasts! line), which include many of the candy flavors like Reese's.

In addition to labels based on the fat content of the ice cream (or frozen dairy dessert, to be more accurate), there are likewise quality segments within the official "ice cream" category based on overrun and ingredient quality. Once again, these are marketing definitions set out by the USDA but are not federally regulated.

Superpremium Ice Cream - These ice creams tend to have a very low overrun (as low as 20% even) and a high fat content (>14%), resulting in a very dense and rich product with a weight typically greater than 80g per 1/2 cup. They also typically use higher-end ingredients with a price point to match, and come in smaller containers with gourmet flavors. Examples: Haagen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry's

Premium Ice Cream - Premium ice creams tend to have lower overrun (~60-90%) and higher fat content (11-15%) than regular ice cream, resulting in a heavier ice cream (weight of about 73g per 1/2 cup). Examples: Blue Bell, Baskin-Robbins

Standard Ice Cream -Meets the fat (10%) and overrun (100% or less) required of the federal ice cream standard. The weight of standard ice cream tends to fall around 65g for 1/2 cup. Example: Breyers ice cream line

Economy Ice Cream - Meets the fat (10%) and overrun (100% or less) required of the the federal ice cream standard, but tends to sell for a lower price than standard ice cream. Example: Typically the store brand, or those large tubs of ice cream ubiquitous to kid's birthday parties everywhere.

So what about the other kinds of treats that pop up in the frozen dessert aisle at your local supermarket? What makes gelato and frozen custard different from "ice cream" as we have now defined it?

Gelato is ice cream's Italian cousin. The word gelato actually means "ice cream" in Italian, but there are differences between gelato and ice cream in the U.S. regarding milkfat content. Gelato generally contains less milkfat than the FDA requirement for ice cream, but it also tends to have a particularly low overrun (typically 20-30%), resulting in a lower-fat but still dense and rich frozen dessert.

There is no standard definition set out by the FDA regarding gelato, but the Italian government requires their gelato to contain a minimum of 3.5% milkfat with no upper limit established.

Talenti is an an example of gelato, which has a dense texture with a weight of 100g per 1/2 cup but only 9% milkfat (according to my calculations of the nutritional info on the Tahitian Vanilla Bean flavor).

Frozen Custard, also known as French ice cream, is very similar to ice cream except that it must contain a certain amount of egg. Frozen custard must contain a minimum of 10% milkfat as well as at least 1.4% egg yolk (anything with less egg yolk is simply considered ice cream). Frozen custard is characteristically very dense and typically has an overrun of 15-30%, and combined with the high milkfat and egg yolk, produces a frozen dessert with a smoother consistency than ice cream.

Unlike ice cream, frozen custard was typically prepared fresh at the place of sale (such as a frozen custard shop), but recently Dreyer's/Edy's has released a Frozen Custard line commercially available in supermarkets.

Personally, no matter the label attached to the container, I'll always just call it "ice cream" if it's creamy and frozen. This includes the pints upon pints of Talenti currently nestled in my freezer.

If you'd like to read the official FDA regulation code on ice cream, you can find it here. If you'd like to see the USDA Commercial Item Description for ice cream and related products, the document can be found here.

https://www.brandeating.com/2015/07/explaining-why-some-ice-cream-is-frozen-dairy-dessert.html

 

[Ellen]

`Wow, Mary, who knew!? Thanks for the post.

I have been thinking about this, and I personally don't think this guy made it up. Because I thought back to the separation that happened in the bowl of Breyer's. There was that clear liquid in the bottom that he pointed out. You might say he added water. If he did, it would have started melting the ice cream and would have become cloudy. No, I think this is real myself. A lot of our food is not what we think it is.... And it may be, if this was indeed in Canada, or somewhere else, that the food regulations are different. Therefore, the ingredients (or lack of) can be different.

 

[monarch64]

Dude is Canadian: https://www.youtube.com/user/MrEastcoastman/about

If you look at the rest of his videos he's not super concerned about health and did the Breyers one for hits/to up his subscriber count. See: Jello, canned cookie dough, all sorts of processed food "recipes." I don't personally care whether he made it up or not; I'm not looking to some random Youtuber for scientific health food advice. At any rate, if the label on food packaging lists a whole bunch of polysyllabic ingredients I'm going to assume it isn't totally natural and therefore probably not a good thing to eat a ton of.

 

[Ellen]

Dude is Canadian: https://www.youtube.com/user/MrEastcoastman/about

If you look at the rest of his videos he's not super concerned about health and did the Breyers one for hits/to up his subscriber count. See: Jello, canned cookie dough, all sorts of processed food "recipes." I don't personally care whether he made it up or not; I'm not looking to some random Youtuber for scientific health food advice. At any rate, if the label on food packaging lists a whole bunch of polysyllabic ingredients I'm going to assume it isn't totally natural and therefore probably not a good thing to eat a ton of.

I wasn't either Monarch, just clicked a curious link. However, in my life time of experience, I've found one can gain a lot from ordinary people, if one has an open mind. I've learned a ton of valuable things, and they didn't come from "scientists". But, to each his own.

 

[monarch64]

@Ellen I hear ya. Whatever version of Breyers he had was clearly not what we were accustomed to eating. I do try to keep an open mind, but it becomes more difficult when some goatee'd dude in his kitchen is barking at me about what not to feed my kids in one video and trying to persuade me to make Jello-filled strawberries in another. LOL

 

[Ellen]

@Ellen I hear ya. Whatever version of Breyers he had was clearly not what we were accustomed to eating. I do try to keep an open mind, but it becomes more difficult when some goatee'd dude in his kitchen is barking at me about what not to feed my kids in one video and trying to persuade me to make Jello-filled strawberries in another. LOL

I'd say he's an equal opportunity sweet eater, he just draws the line, somewhere.

 

[tkyasx78]

well! That was interesting! I had no idea!

and RE: breyers - I 100% agree, yes it used to be good , now it tastes bad. If I am going to use calories for ice cream I stick to the stuff that tastes good or buy sherbet!

 

[Ellen]

well! That was interesting! I had no idea!

and RE: breyers - I 100% agree, yes it used to be good , now it tastes bad. If I am going to use calories for ice cream I stick to the stuff that tastes good or buy sherbet!

 

[doberman]

It used to be really good and now it's not even ice cream, it's a dairy dessert. My guess is that they were feeling the pinch from competing premium ice creams and decided to go in the other direction and market down. Cheaper ingredients would go along with that business plan.

 

[MamaBee]

So I was cruising YouTube and I see this video and decide to watch it. I ate a lot of Breyer's as a kid. It was real, good ice cream. And one of the ways you knew that it was real, is because it would start melting immediately. You couldn't dilly dally too long eating it, or you would have soup. So good.....

Well, not anymore. Watch this. And while normally I would say mold is a good indication, the melting factor overrides this one.

SO glad I haven't had any Breyer's in years.

Omg...so disgusting! We bought Breyers a few times years ago and it tasted bad..We always loved it but stopped buying it years ago..

 

[diamondseeker2006]

Very interesting! I almost never buy icecream except an occasional soft serve icecream that I share with my grandaughters. I do have Breyers in my freezer right now, because my daughter who can't eat dairy likes their almond milk ice cream. I have had a taste of it and thought it was pretty good.

 

[msop04]

That's strange... we buy Breyer's (I'm a Mayfield's gal, but not all their flavors are available in AL), and it tastes the same. That said, we only buy Breyer's Natural Vanilla or the Oreo one.

For those of you in the Southeast, if you have a chance to try Mayfield, it's great! I'm a big fan of the new "Brown Cow Delight." I grew up right by Mayfield Dairy Farms, so that's what I had my entire childhood... best milk EVER. You'll know it if you see it, because it's in a yellow jug.

 

[Ellen]

That's strange... we buy Breyer's (I'm a Mayfield's gal, but not all their flavors are available in AL), and it tastes the same. That said, we only buy Breyer's Natural Vanilla or the Oreo one.

For those of you in the Southeast, if you have a chance to try Mayfield, it's great! I'm a big fan of the new "Brown Cow Delight." I grew up right by Mayfield Dairy Farms, so that's what I had my entire childhood... best milk EVER. You'll know it if you see it, because it's in a yellow jug.

It is strange that different areas are not only having different taste experiences, but also different products altogether. Melts vs. doesn't melt. Strange indeed.

As for the Mayfield product, I wonder if their cows are grass fed and that's what makes the milk so good. Because I drink raw, grass fed cow milk and it is heavenly. I can barely drink store bought milk anymore, it's nasty.

 

[msop04]

It is strange that different areas are not only having different taste experiences, but also different products altogether. Melts vs. doesn't melt. Strange indeed.

As for the Mayfield product, I wonder if their cows are grass fed and that's what makes the milk so good. Because I drink raw, grass fed cow milk and it is heavenly. I can barely drink store bought milk anymore, it's nasty.

According to Mayfield, their cows are grass fed most of their lives, then "finished" on grain. Also, they use a special yellow jug that helps keep it fresh... Sunlight (UV rays) cause the milk's nutrients to break down, which affects the taste. They're kinda famous for the yellow jug thing. LOL

Sadly, Mayfield's doesn't deliver to Birmingham, so I only get it when I'm in TN or north GA.

 

[DAF]

DF was devastated when he saw that video. He grew up on Breyer's and loved the vanilla, cherry vanilla and peach. He started doing his own research, which involved checking out the freezer section of the supermarket. Some of the Breyer's flavors DO say "Ice Cream" on them. He came home with a pint of Haagen Dazs.

 

[AV_]

Digressing,

I hear you about dairy @monarch64 ... There is still traditional husbandry around here (Spain), I buy what they make & no more. My milk drinking habits are memory.

The things that are becoming rare!

 

[Ellen]

DF was devastated when he saw that video. He grew up on Breyer's and loved the vanilla, cherry vanilla and peach. He started doing his own research, which involved checking out the freezer section of the supermarket. Some of the Breyer's flavors DO say "Ice Cream" on them. He came home with a pint of Haagen Dazs.

Their Carmel Cone is yummy.

 

[vintageloves]

There is no ice cream like Lancaster County ice cream. We Germans know our milkfat. Every once and a while we go to our favorite creamery and I get peanut butter ice cream in a homemade waffle cone. It probably has 54890 fat grams and I couldn't care less.

However, in a pinch, a tub of Turkey Hill will do.

 

[missy]

I cannot contribute much to this thread as I cannot eat real ice cream anymore but will share my favorite ice cream of all time was Ben and Jerry's Heathbar crunch. I lived on it freshman year of college. Hence the 10-15lb weight gain but it was worth it.
Cannot remember if it melted fast or not because I was quite the fast eater of ice cream in those days.
Yummmmmmmmmm.

 

[Ellen]

There is no ice cream like Lancaster County ice cream. We Germans know our milkfat. Every once and a while we go to our favorite creamery and I get peanut butter ice cream in a homemade waffle cone. It probably has 54890 fat grams and I couldn't care less.

However, in a pinch, a tub of Turkey Hill will do.

Atta girl! And that cone you have sounds marvelous....

 

[Ellen]

I cannot contribute much to this thread as I cannot eat real ice cream anymore but will share my favorite ice cream of all time was Ben and Jerry's Heathbar crunch. I lived on it freshman year of college. Hence the 10-15lb weight gain but it was worth it.
Cannot remember if it melted fast or not because I was quite the fast eater of ice cream in those days.
Yummmmmmmmmm.

I've never had this kind, don't even think I've ever seen it. Because I can't believe I wouldn't have gotten it, that's one of my TOP fave candy bars.

 

[DAF]

Their Carmel Cone is yummy.

Yes! Love the different textures. I also like their Rum Rasin.

 

[Ellen]

Yes! Love the different textures. I also like their Rum Rasin.

Never had it, maybe I should give it a whirl.

I'm just always afraid to try new flavors, because if I don't like it, then it's a big waste.