I can't find a single person I know who won't have ice cream after a good meal or when it's raining -- go figure! I either have a lot of friends who think like me and enjoy the same things that I enjoy or perhaps they just like doing the same things that I do.
The best ice cream I've tried, however, can't be bought in any grocery or supermarket. Why? That's because it's home made ice cream.
I bought an ice cream making machine last year and it has been the love of my life for the last couple of months!
You'd think that it would be hard to make your own ice cream, but it isn't. The ingredients are easy to find and there are loads of recipes out on the internet.
Personally, I prefer plain vanilla ice cream which I then load with all sorts of yummy treats like fresh fruit, different kinds of syrups, nuts(!!!!), cookies, bits of brownies, and what have you.
I prefer my ice cream to be sweetened by the natural sweetness of the fruits I put in rather than put in sugar. If I want it a bit sweeter, I just add a sachet or two of Splenda on it.
So, more than custom making your ice cream, you can also be assured that you are getting exactly what you want.
These days, with the proliferation of mass produced and highly processed foods, it's quite important to know exactly what you are putting in your body.
Among the ingredients in ice cream that you'd want to avoid is carrageenan.
Now, I've already posted something about carrageenan in mayonnaise and that may have been quite a let down for all of you mayo lovers out there. But, here's the thing, I really believe that this stuff is bad for people.
A report on carrageenan recently came out in a CBS website (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CYP/is_4_110/ai_86169623/) and it cites studies by Dr. Joanne Tobacman, an assistant professor of clinical internal medicine at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.
Here is that CBS article:
A recent review of the toxicology of carrageenan by Tobacman (1) raised questions about the safety of carageenan-containing foods. Intact carageenan is a high molecular weight hydrocolloid (molecular weight 1.5-20 x [10.sup.6]). One concern has focused on the potential for degraded (low molecular weight) carageenan to be formed by acid hydrolysis in the stomach and the possibility that this material could promote cancer of the colon (1). Rats fed degraded carrageenan have been shown to develop colorectal tumors (2). Studies involving initiation with the genotoxic carcinogen azoxymethane, followed by quantitation of the number of aberrant intestinal crypts formed in response to subsequent carrageenan exposure, have also suggested that degraded carageenan has the potential to promote colon cancer in rats (3).
These findings have led to degraded carrageenan being classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) as 2B, a possible human carcinogen, based on animal study data. Native carrageenan has been classified by IARC as 3, unclassifiable with respect to carcinogenicity in humans.
Here's another article that further explains Tobacman's study:
Tobacman reviewed 45 past experiments on animals and carrageenan for a study that appears in the current issue of Environmental Health Perspectives. She found that carrageenan caused intestinal problems in many animals, such as rabbits, rats, mice and guinea pigs.
"I think we have very good evidence in many animal studies that [carrageenan] is clearly a cause of intestinal malignancies and ulcerations in animal models," says Tobacman. And, she believes it may pose a similar risk to humans.
A spokesman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says there are two kinds of carrageenan -- undegraded and degraded. Undegraded carrageenan is what has been approved by the FDA for use in food. Degraded carrageenan has changed into a different substance and really isn't carrageenan anymore, says the spokesperson, and that is often what's been used in research studies.
According to the FDA, carrageenan is considered safe when manufactured according to FDA guidelines. Tobacman, however, says that virtually all carrageenan changes into degraded carrageenan. She says even when manufacturers use undegraded carrageenan, food preparation and the acid in our stomachs inevitably break some of the substance down into degraded carrageenan.
Because of this, she believes the FDA should more strictly regulate the use of carrageenan, especially since other thickening agents, like locust bean, guar and xanthan, are available for food manufacturers to use.
Now, there are actually people who believe that all this talk about carrageenan cancer is a hypochondriac fit and perhaps profess some kind of faith in the FDA. And my response to this is that the FDA, like all other government agencies, can miss out and completely fail to keep dangerous chemicals from being used in food and food packaging.
U.S. regulators lack data on health risks of most chemicals
By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 2, 2010
This summer, when Kellogg recalled 28 million boxes of Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, Corn Pops and Honey Smacks, the company blamed elevated levels of a chemical in the packaging.
Dozens of consumers reported a strange taste and odor, and some complained of nausea and diarrhea. But Kellogg said a team of experts it hired determined that there was "no harmful material" in the products.
Federal regulators, who are charged with ensuring the safety of food and consumer products, are in the dark about the suspected chemical, 2-methylnaphthalene. The Food and Drug Administration has no scientific data on its impact on human health. The Environmental Protection Agency also lacks basic health and safety data for 2-methylnaphthalene -- even though the EPA has been seeking that information from the chemical industry for 16 years.
The cereal recall hints at a larger issue: huge gaps in the government's knowledge about chemicals in everyday consumer products, from furniture to clothing to children's products. Under current laws, the government has little or no information about the health risks posed by most of the 80,000 chemicals on the U.S. market today.
One of the more popular ice cream brands that I see people buy these days is Selecta Ice Cream and yes... it contains CARRAGEENAN.
Flavours | Coconut |
Format | Cup/Tub |
Ingredients | water, macapuno (coconut sport), preserve, refined sugar, palm oil, skimmed milk powder, corn syrup, buco (young coconut), preserve, whey powder, maltodextrin, food stabilizers and emulsifiers (distilled mono and diglycerides), E471, carboximethylcellulose (E466), locust bean gum (E410), guar gum (E412), carrageenan E407, artificial food flavours, vitamin A palmitate Waters, macapuno (coconut sport), preserve, Sucrose (Refined), Palm Oil, Skimmed Milk Powder (Skimmed, Powdered), Glucose Syrup, buco (young coconut), preserve, Whey Powder (Powdered), Maltodextrin, food stabilizers and emulsifiers (distilled mono and diglycerides), Mono- and Di-glycerides of Fatty Acids, carboximethylcellulose (E466), Carob Bean Gum, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Artificial Flavouring Substance (Artificial), Retinyl Palmitate |
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