Healthy Ice Cream - Strawberry, Cashew or Chocolate Flavor?

I'm still munching on healthy snacks this may and this time it was ice cream time.

I looked up healthy ice cream recipes and found a one-ingredient ice cream only made from bananas! This was intriguing to try as it was totally healthy and I get to have my snack and fruit serving in the same time, win-win!

So the whole process is easy and it can be mixed up with different flavors, with one base of course - bananas. Therefore, I decided to have mine chocolate flavored, my sis wanted strawberry ice cream and my friend wanted his plain with cashews chops.

Ingredients
For 3 servings, each with a different flavor

• 6 medium bananas
• 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
• 4 tablespoons liquid unsweetened milk (I went for unsweetened rice milk)
• 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 6 frozen strawberries
• 8 raw unsalted cashews

Instructions

Chop bananas into coins and freeze
those little babies

Banana ice cream base

• Start by chopping all the bananas into small coins and freeze them for few hours (I froze mine for 5 hours).
• When your bananas are frozen, toss the 6 of them into your food processor, add 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract, add 4 tablespoons of rice milk and blend till you get a smooth creamy texture. This should probably take just a few minutes!
  >> Now we have our ice cream base which I divided into 3, given that we each wanted a different flavor.

Cashew chops with plain
banana ice cream

For a plain ice cream with cashew chops

• Slightly grind the cashews into tiny chops.
• Mix them with 1 banana ice cream serving.
  * Any kind of nut/nut butter can be mixed with the banana ice cream: cashew, almonds, peanuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, coconut flakes/chops - You name it! 

Strawberry banana flavor

For a strawberry flavored ice cream

• Get 6 fresh strawberries, wash, chop and freeze them for 2-3 hours.
• Once frozen, blend them pretty well with your base banana ice cream and garnish with some fresh strawberries.
  * Any kind of fruit can be tossed in here as well! Raspberry, blackberries, mango, kiwi, lemon, apricots - I mean summer is here and the fruit season is about to bloom.

And my favorite, chocolate!

For a chocolate flavored ice cream

• Mix the plain banana ice cream with 2 teaspoons of unsweetened cocoa powder and that's it! This was my favorite by the way!
  * You can also mix your base with instant coffee powder or cinnamon as well.

And after preparing your flavored banana ice cream >> Freeze for few hours till solid. All flavors are easy, healthy and icy - perfect for a summer treat!

Your Guide to Smart Ice cream-ing

Ice cream isn't the healthiest treat, but given that it is everywhere during summer, you might want to know how to deal with ice cream bombarding your path! With the summery hot season finally here, you must be overwhelmed by the variety of icy desserts in the market. There are many terms like “low fat”, “diet”, “fat free”, “sugar free”, which could in fact confuse you.

Ice cream is typically made with heavy cream and saturated fat (the kind of fat you want to avoid and that increases your blood cholesterol and your risk of diabetes type 2 and CVD - to name a few of course) and yes you can be shocked to find that some brands can go up to 15 g of saturated fat, 400 calories in only half a cup of ice cream! Now that’s too much for an ice cream snack! So let’s say you went to McDonald’s and had an innocent hot fudge sundae – well you’re in for 340 calories and 9 grams of saturated fat! 

Why all those Calories and Fat?!

• Extra syrups, sauces, nuts, cookies and chocolate chips - A 330 mL cup McFlurry ice cream made with vanilla base (370 cals) + an Oreo mix (200 cals) + hot fudge (150 cals) = 720 cals without even adding nuts, cream, chocolate chips or other extras. Even an innocent spoon of whipped cream can add 50 calories to your treat. Keep in mind that calories are the least of your problems, don't forget all sugars, preservatives, colorants and chemicals added to those extras! So if you would like to add an extra taste to your ice cream, go for freshly cut up fruits such as melons or strawberries as well as some chopped raw buts, but whatever you do, don’t go crazy with your mix-ins!

• Coating - The rich chocolate coating that adds texture to your ice cream stick is mostly made of fat. For example, a Haagen Dazs bar or Magnum can load you up with 21 g of fat, without nuts!

• Know your Cone

A cake cone, usually served with soft ice cream, has 35 cals

A sugar cone, usually served with scooped ice cream, has 60 cals

A waffle cone can go up to 100 to 150 calories alone

A cone (60) dipped with chocolate (120) = 180 calories without having any ice cream served yet!

Well, best choice, ditch the cone and go naked with your ice cream!

Not really:p

The key is to:

Know that by law, the word "light" ice cream must contain at least 50% less fat or 33% fewer calories than regular full fat/original versions. This does not mean that ice creams with “light” on their labels are healthy. There are light versions of ice cream that still contain 200 cals and 7 grams of saturated fat in just ½ cup of this light ice cream so don’t be fooled and check your label! Just keep in mind that when any product is low fat/fat free, it's super processed. The kind of food you would want to have once in a blue moon!

However, it's good to know the lingo!

If you want to make sure that you are having ice cream with low fat content, read “low/reduced fat” on the label. This way you will get 3 g of fat per serving for sure! You also want to stick to the serving indicated on the label because the 3 g of fat and the 120 calories that you just read, are only in 1 serving of ice cream = ½ cup (1 cup = 240 mL) of ice cream.

You can also go for sorbet, which is a frozen fruit dessert made with fruit puree and sugar. It is fat free; usually, also a good source of vitamin C. Sorbet comes in a variety of flavors like lemon, orange, mango and strawberries. However, even though it is fat free, this doesn’t mean that it’s sugar free! Keep in mind that sherbet is different. It has fruit juice indeed but often contains milk, egg white or gelatin to thicken and enrich it. It is actually the creamy version of sorbet.

Popsicles can be regular, fat free to sugar free. Some contain dairy but they are usually made with sugar and ice. It is, however, important to read the nutrition facts label and ingredient list to make sure that they are made from real fruit juice and to ensure that the serving contains less than 120 cals. For a healthier popsicle version, you can make home made popsicles by freezing real fruit juice/fruit puree or sugar free lemonade. Healthy, easy to prepare, icy and a yum treat for everyone in the family!

Look for the label “slow-churned, double-churned or cold-churned”. This refers to a process that reduces fat and calories while retaining the creamy texture of full fat varieties of ice cream. This process distributed the milk fat evenly throughout the product. So 1/2 cup has about 100 calories. Now I’ve looked for this "slow-churned" ice cream in Lebanon, but we still don’t have any so let's keep our hopes high!

While ice cream does contain calcium, it’s a bit ridiculous to recommend it for its calcium content, no? You can get your calcium from broccoli, dairy and dark green vegetables. I mean ice cream contains half the amount of calcium in an equivalent serving of milk so no point there!

I'm no fan of dairy nor of ice creams, but I know lots can't give up this treat during the summer. SO as a rule of thumb: Choose ice cream brands/products that contain per serving:
>> less than or equal to 120 calories
>> a maximum of 4 g of fat
>> 3 g of saturated and trans fats
>> 10 mg of cholesterol
>> 15 g sugar (equivalent to 3 teaspoons of table sugar!)
And the serving is ½ a cup so keep your portion sizes small so don't buy buckets of ice cream but rather, buy individual servings and read your nutrition facts label well!

For many more cartoons, please visit Randy's site @ www.glasbergen.com.

Fun Food Facts

• Ice cream is a Chinese Food! When Marco Polo returned from China, he brought along a recipe of a Chinese dessert called “milk ice” which was made from rice and milk!
• Coconut water (found inside coconuts not coconut milk) can be used in emergencies as a substitute for blood plasma because it’s sterile and has an ideal pH!
• In the pre-Columbian era, cocoa beans were used as a currency!à100 beans were equal to one whole turkey.
• The most expensive coffee in the world comes from Civet poop..and Civets are cat sized mammals! These cats only ingest fine ripe berries and excrete them partially digested. 1 pound sells between 120 and 600 $!
• Cherries are part of the rose family.
• The word “salary” comes from Salt! In the Roman times, salt was used as salary because it was very rare.
• Cold temperature may affect your appetite and increase it.
• It’s a tradition to serve slices of lemon with fish because people used to believe that the acid in the lemon would dissolve any bone swallowed by accident.
• The earliest soup made dates back to 6000 BC and was made from hippopotamus!
• Fortune cookies are not Chinese; they are invented by a LA noodle maker.
• The color of a chili is not an indication of its spiciness. It’s actually the size >> the smaller the pepper, the hotter it is.
• Lemons contain more sugar and less Vitamin C than strawberries.
• American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad in first class.
• You burn more calories sleeping than watching TV.
• Consuming chocolate was considered to be a sin during the 16th and 17th century.
• Chocolate contains the same chemical phenyl ethylamine that your brain produces when you fall in love.
• Seaweed could be used to thicken ice cream.

• Orange does not rhyme with any word.
• Without food colorings, Coke’s original color is simply green.
• While licking a stamp, you consume 1/10 calories.
• The top 4 ice cream flavors in Japan are vanilla, strawberry, chocolate and.. green tea!
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
• French fries are originally from Belgium and not France.
• The only food that doesn’t spoil is honey!