Search it!

Monday, December 24, 2012

What the heck is in your ice cream?

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

Do you like ice cream?  Where do you get it from?  It's not like...commercial ice cream, is it?  If you want to remain blissfully happy and unaware of the hazards that you've grown to love, I suggest you stop reading this and go play Mahjong or something - because after you hear about your precious little ice cream, you may just want to barf.

I know.  Welcome to another exciting edition of Ms. Daisy Gives You Disturbing Information About Things You Thought You Liked.

So I've been making my own ice cream for a little while now, mostly because I buy heavy whipping cream in bulk and it's a good use of it - either that or making butter (did you see that post?  If not, go check it out when you're done here.) - the delicious superfood.  And yes, I mean it - superfood.  Just go read that thing, you'll be horrified initially and then delighted.  I know you - you were the kid who was sticking your finger in the butter dish.  Don't try to hide it.  Its because you knew what was good for you back then and your adult and learned mind absorbed junk diet fabrications from the dictocrats.  Anyway, I digress.  Back to the ice cream.

I used to buy ice cream at the store.  If you buy the ones with 5 ingredients in it (which is really all ice cream needs to have in it - I'll tell you how to make it in a minute), they're like five million bucks more than the junk crud with 1,634 ingredients in it.  You would think that would be the opposite, but apparently poison is cheaper than real food.  Shocker.  So, I was thinking I didn't really want a pile of polysorbate-60 in my ice cream along with all those other unpronounceables (not to mention GMO soy lecithin and GMO corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup or some poisonous artificial colors and flavors) so I'd just try to make it myself.  I have been tweaking it - I have a very strict judge here, my hubby, who complains if it isn't just right.  I don't have an ice cream maker and I am too lazy to do that salt thing so if you're more adventurous than I, by all means, use those thingies and you'll end up with a creamier end product. I, however, just want an excuse to use my homemade "Magic Shell".  

Okay, so you're saying, what's wrong with my ice cream?  Let's start with the fact that ice cream manufacturers are not legally required to list the additives used in the manufacturing of their products - are you ready to be shocked - SO THEY DON'T TELL YOU THEM.  I know.  Baby, baby, it's a wild world.  Let's take a glimpse into what's in your ice cream, based on analysis.  Drum roll,  please...

1.  Diethylglycol.  A cheap chemical used as an emulsifier instead of eggs.  Same chemical used in ANTIFREEZE and PAINT REMOVERS.

2.  Piperonal.  Used in place of vanilla.  This chemical is used to KILL LICE.  I wish I were making this up.  

3.  Aldehyde C-17.  Used to flavor cherry ice cream.  It is an inflammable liquid also used in ANILINE DYES, PLASTIC and RUBBER.

4.  Ethyl acetate.  Used to give ice cream a pineapple flavor.  Also a CLEANER for LEATHER and textiles.  Wanna hear something even better?  It's vapors have been known to cause chronic lung, liver and heart damage.  WHAT!?

5.  Butyraldehyde.  Nut flavored ice cream lovers, this is for you.  It flavors nut ice creams and is also in RUBBER CEMENT.  Delish.

6.  Amyl acetate.  Banana ice creamy-ness, hello.  Use #2: OIL PAINT SOLVENT.

7.  Benzyl acetate.  Straberry ice cream, anyone?  Word up, it's also a NITRATE SOLVENT.

(Source: PPNF Health Journal)

I guess you could just freeze some of your garage liquids and mix them with some old milk and do your ice cream that way...OR, you could make your own using about 5 ingredients.  Really.  C'mon peeps.  Jump on board and impress your friends (and also survive past 43 years old while you're at it.) with your extreme skillz (yep, with a "z") at ice cream making!

Woooo hoo!

I mean, unless you really like your lice killer ice cream.  Whatever floats your boat, man, but I'm just trying to look out for you.

Okay, so here's what I do.  It's really hard.  Not.

Ingredients:
2 ish? cups of heavy whipping cream
a dump of sugar (from cane, not beets - keep your GMO junk out of your "healthier" ice cream) - 1/4 cup? 1/2 cup?
a splash of vanilla (I am so technical it's insane)
2 egg yolks
a blob of milk

How:
1.  Use your mixer and make whipped cream - dump in your pile of sugar.  When you're fluffy as can be, stop.  (Don't overdo it unless you were planning on making butter.)
2.  Add the rest of your ingredients (2 egg yolks, a splash of milk - 1/2 cup-ish, and vanilla - a tablespoon-ish).

As you can see, this is a very exact science.

Okay, I just have to say something.  Everyone in the entire United States and Canada is FREAKING out right now because I told you to add uncooked egg yolks.  If you are getting your eggs from a commercial source, I can see why you might be freaking out.  But if you get your eggs from a known source (please go find some local eggs, seriously.), you are good to go.  Europe, did you know that Americans refrigerate our eggs?  United States-ians, did you know that most places in Eurpoe DON'T refrigerate their eggs?  Tell em!  Tell em you're still just fine and even alive.  Tell em you stick em in a bowl on your counter and it's the normalest thing ever.  I know.  I've been brainwashed to put mine in the fridge, but help us.  I don't know what our problem is. Maybe because a germ would leap onto it and kill us dead.  Probably.  It's a legitimate concern, obviously.  

Oh yes, last step.  Put your concoction in the freezer.  If you want to have chocolate ice cream, make a chocolate sauce (I use chocolate chips melted in heavy whipping cream) and stir it in.  Straberry?  Swirl in your homemade preserves.  The vanilla goes with just about everything.

Now, the magic shell - oh, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about - it's that stuff you put on your ice cream and it turns into a crunchy delicious shell of chocolate wonderment.  It's the reason for summer (that and sunlight), the joy of finishing all of your healthy dinner and a piece of delight on the plate of life.

Here's the recipe for that, are you ready?  Melt coconut oil in a pan (1/2 cup).  Pour in chocolate chips until they are melty.  Pour on to ice cream.  Coconut oil is a solid below 76 degrees F (24 C) and liquid above.  If you get enough chocolate in there, it stays liquidy even if your house is pretty cold.  If it solidifies, just heat it up on the stove again.  Pour all over your ice cream and say, "HOLY COW THIS IS SO GOOD."  That's what I do, anyway.

Some of you don't know me and you could be imagining me as a 400 pound whale from my comments about butter and ice cream and magic shell.  I am not.  People who eat full-fat foods are THINNER than those who eat low-fat garbage.  It's a fact, even though it seems like insanity.  Your stomach has receptors and when fat jumps in, your stomach says, "Okey dokes, we're good, all set, you're full now."  When you eat low-fat, they are  not triggered and you keep eating.  Can you eat a side of beef after that piece of cheesecake?  Yeah, no, probs not.  There's a reason.

So m'dearies, that's what we've got for you today.  Merry Christmas and pitch that old lice killer!

Peace, love and pass the magic shell,
Ms. Daisy

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers