It seems to me it did, very suddenly, earlier this year, sometime late last winter. I refer only to “Breyers All Natural Pure Premium Ice Cream – Natural Vanilla,” as the label reads on the half-gallon carton today.
It had always been my favorite ice cream, by far, in fact the only brand and flavor I ever really loved. Only homemade ice cream surpassed it (in my not-expert opinion, I want to emphasize). I greatly enjoyed its crisp icy consistency – so close to homemade – and delicate vanilla taste. I savored every spoonful, for years and years.
One day last winter a serving from a fresh new carton tasted flat and had none of its former texture. Every spoonful since that time has been, for me, indistinguishable from any other brand of vanilla ice cream, with a creamy instead of icy (thus farther from the homemade ideal) consistency and flat, bland – instead of delicate and transparent – vanilla taste. The difference seemed dramatic, sudden, and unmistakable and continues to the present.
Has anyone experienced this or might possibly know what happened?
Yes, they have changed it. There is now a new ingredient called “natural tara gum”, and I don’t recall old cartons listing “natural flavors”, either. Sucks bad now.
Thanks for the link: “INGREDIENTS: MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, NATURAL FLAVOR, NATURAL TARA GUM.”
I used to read the carton sometimes, years ago. The list was always very short – I certainly don’t recall it including tara gum.
I’m glad for such quick confirmation of how much this formerly wonderful product changed – all the way from ethereal to mundane. What a admirable tradition Breyers abandoned!
Do you know, scotandrsn, approximately when the change happened?
I’m guessing early-mid 2006. Another ice cream fan checked out the label in May 2006 and didn’t mention tara gum, (though the chips in the mint chip were only “chocolate flavored” by then).
Yeah, here’s a whole website devoted to outrage over the change in the Breyer’s formula. I’m not a fan of the changes; I used to love the Mint Chocolate Chip but, as MrJackboots points out, the chips aren’t even real chocolate anymore.
That whole thing with the cute little 7yo lisping her way through the “chemicals” found in “other” ice creams? That was a marketing gimmick. For example, Carrageenan is perfectly harmless, it is *seaweed.
No kidding. It also makes ice cream gummy and have a crappy mouthfeel. I don’t think the point was that it’s bad for you. The point was what was all this extraneous garbage when ice cream should just be sugar, cream, and natural flavor? Carrageenan? Guar gum? Polysorbate 80? Makes ice cream feel wrong in your mouth.
I hadn’t noticed this. Breyers was my favorite ice cream, largely because it contained nothing but the essentials. I agree with pulykamell – it’s not that carageenan gum isn’t natural, but it doesn’t belong in the damned ice cream (just as corn starch and tapioca don’t belong in my grape pie). It’s “a marketing gimmick” in asserting the product’s pedigree, which is all to the good.
Dammit, now I have to find a new source of vanilla ice cream.
It was a pleasure to wake up this morning and have my question answered – thanks for all the links, especially – and with no dissenting opinions, rare on SDMB. Everyone’s in agreement Breyers has sunk very very low.
Could you expand on how it got past you, Cal? Maybe you’re just speaking of the extra ingredients, not the taste or texture.
I was more like koeeoaddi (Post 12), who says, “I thought it was me, or maybe just a funky batch.”
I knew it wasn’t me, but still I was incredulous so did keep trying half-gallons (or – as I see from the websites – 1.75 liters made to look like the old half-gallons) from time to time. No more!
Huh. I just dropped into this thread specifically to say how much I loved the new taste of Breyer’s. The tara gum really smooths out the unevenness of the flavor, and the chocolate chips aren’t as obnoxiously “aggressive” as they used to be. It’s smooth and sweet without being sharp.
Carob and carageenan, that’s what I like! Now if only they could make it with some kind of non-dairy soy base, and add a little FD&C Yellow #5 to make it a more “creamy vanilla” look than the plain white color without actually adding in more cream, it’d be the best ice cream ever!!
Wasn’t Breyer’s “gritty” because it had bits of actual vanilla bean in it? Or maybe I’m conflating with some other brand.
BTW, carageenan is teh roxxor in many instances. It’s for all intents and purposes non-animal gelatin. No opiniojn on whether or not it belongs in ice cream though.
Breyer’s is my favorite ice cream. They have multiple types of vanilla, don’t they? French, double churned, regular, fat free, etc. I always bought the one with the specks, but my husband noticed a difference. I told him he was trippin’. Evidently, I was wrong.
