I definitely remember it was pretty cheap when I was in college and so I often bought it. To me, it tasted pretty similar to store brand ice cream. And, of course, it worked well on a student budget and not so discerning palate of a 21 year old. I don’t remember it being a particularly ‘diet’ food but I didn’t need to count calories back then.
Years and years ago.
Yes, long ago. I think there was even an ice milk type of “Brown Mule” bars? Hadn’t really noticed not noticing it any more, though.
Okay, it is still around, just called “low fat ice cream” since 1994.
Why it can’t be found any more-According to the Wiki entry on ice milk,
A 1994 change in United States Food and Drug Administration rules allowed ice milk to be labeled as low-fat ice cream in the United States."
I recall it being a bland, delusive imitation of ice cream, prone to crystalizing and freezer burn within days. Even a generous coating chocolate syrup upon it could not conceal its inferior nature. I have not seen it in years, either because everyone realized how truly awful it is or my subconscious has actively worked to block it from my perception. Either way, good riddance. Next, frozen yoghurt, the skim milk of deserts.
Stranger
… which put it right in my mom’s “low-rent grocery shopping 'cause the kids won’t know the difference” wheelhouse.
We ate a lot of Ice Milk… with “Chocolate Flavored Syrup”, minute steaks, KokiKola, oh, and fake store-brand cereals (and not sweet ones… “Shredded Wheat-Like Biscuits” or “Cheery-Os” or “Gripe-Nuts”).
Dairy Queen has always served ice milk.
From their website:
Technically, our soft serve does not qualify to be called ice cream. To be categorized as ice cream, the minimum butterfat content must be ten percent, and our soft serve has only five percent butterfat content. While our soft serve product used to be categorized as “ice milk,” the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) eliminated this category of product to allow companies the ability to market frozen dairy products as “reduced-fat,” “light,” and “low-fat” ice cream.
DQ® soft serve fits into the “reduced-fat” ice cream category and our shake mix qualifies as “low-fat” ice cream. But, even though our soft serve may have been categorized differently in the past, our recipe has not changed. DQ soft serve contains 5% butterfat, which is not the same as 95% fat-free.
Dairy Queen also only sells soft serve though, which has a different consistency and taste to old ice milk. I honestly just assumed ice milk fell out of favor, I remember as others have said it was like “worse” ice cream. I actually never knew that “low fat” ice cream was just a rebranding of ice milk, I assumed it was just some devilcraft summoned forth in the late 80s/early 90s “lite” food craze. Given that it’s really just rebranded ice milk, it’s no wonder I never much cared for low fat ice cream either.
It’s simple to find in any supermarket. It’s just called “low fat ice cream.” Often it will be “slow churned” or “double churned” to make it more the consistency of regular ice cream, but if you look carefully, it will have “ice milk” hidden away somewhere on the container.
Ice milk was what my family always bought after a doctor recommended low fat milk for a family member. I prefer the texture of the ice crystals to the creamer texture of ice cream. As far as taste, I don’t think there was much difference.
Every time I’ve ever had/made homemade ice cream or “snow cream” it has technically been ice milk, because I/my parents always used milk, not cream.
I LOL’ed. Sounds a lot like “wacky packages,” right?
https://wackypackagesminis.com/
I remember having ice milk from the supermarket when I was growing up. Never bought it myself after I started paying for my own groceries.
I had it many times as a kid. I’m still not sure Ms. P believes me.
As a child in the 1970s, my grandmother always had it in her freezer. IIRC, it was a store brand sold cheaply by a grocery store in the small town where she lived. The taste and texture weren’t much different from ice cream, but I do remember that it melted faster.
Years and years ago, I think it was cheaper than ice cream and my mother was nothing if not cheap
Wendy’s “Frosty” is technically “Ice Milk” as well, not ice cream.
I remember having “Ice Milk” as a kid, too, but the term seems to have been hanged, possibly in a bid for more customers. But I liked Ice Milk. I like Frosties, too, for that matter.
In elementary school, I worked during the lunch hour and sold “Fudgie” bars (or something like that). They weren’t chocolate fudge, they were chocolate ice-milk bars. I think they were made by the same people that make ‘juice pops’ and Fifty-Fifty (orange/vanilla) bars.
I was thinking of those just the other day for some odd reason. I remember they were like brown-colored ice bars, a lot more similar to juice-pops than to ice cream in a bar-on-a-stick shape. It seemed to be a failure of a chocolate ‘juice-pop’ but kids still bought them because they were a frozen treat available for sale after lunch.
–G!