# premium ice cream vs regular ice cream, whats your view **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 28, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754 "2020-04-28T17:36:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/21 "2020-04-28T20:40:34Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > The cheaper brands may not be ice cream at all but ice milk, having no or little cream in it. If it’s labeled ‘ice cream’ it has minimum butterfat requirements. Doesn’t mean actual cream was used, but it has more butterfat than ice milk. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/22 "2020-04-28T21:28:07Z")
I’ll eat low-cost ice cream, but there’s nothing on earth like a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Sutra. So freaking tasty. ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/23 "2020-04-28T21:36:59Z")
It’s “sometimes” unfortunate that we live three blocks from a Culver’s …their frozen custard is marvelous. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/24 "2020-04-28T22:10:21Z")
didn’t blue bell get caught in some e-coil scandal a while back? The one I’ve always wanted to try is magnum just to see if it’s worth 4.00 to 6.00 for an ice cream bar … they have a chocolate-coated cherry one… I tried Ben and Jerry’s years ago and I thought it was pretty good but not with the fortune places wanted for it … now there just another brand they’ve gone down a bit … ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/25 "2020-04-28T22:33:02Z")
This thread’s given me an idea. If I bought really good ice cream, or better yet, custard\*, I could be happy eating less of it. A small bowl of The Good Stuff could be just as satisfying as the OP’s 48oz tub. Watch for me on Oprah with my new… Ice Cream Diet! It’s like my bandmate who, while the rest of the band was doing Jager-Bombs, would drink nothing but single malt scotch, because then he “couldn’t afford to get drunk”. \*ETA: a shout out to Culver’s. We’ve been SO good during the lockdown, but Culver’s being open has been tempting… ---
**Author:** ![2Bits](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e95f7d/32.png) [@2Bits](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2Bits)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/26 "2020-04-28T22:36:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > If it’s labeled ‘ice cream’ it has minimum butterfat requirements. Doesn’t mean actual cream was used, but it has more butterfat than ice milk. Does any company produce “ice milk” anymore? I haven’t seen it since the late 70s. Perhaps when Haagen Das (perhaps the first mass-marketed premium ice cream in the U. S.?) came out the contrast was too stark. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/27 "2020-04-28T22:47:25Z")
I still see it in "store " brands and in the “healthy” freezer section occasionally I’ve seen soy versions of it ---
**Author:** ![zoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zoid/32/336_2.png) [@zoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zoid)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/28 "2020-04-28T23:30:29Z")
I guess I gotta go back and try Blue Bell again. I never thought of it as anything other than run of the mill brand like all the others. ---
**Author:** ![MindsEye\_Watering](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindseye_watering/32/3619_2.png) [@MindsEye\_Watering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindsEye_Watering)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/29 "2020-04-28T23:39:39Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Life is too short to ever eat substandard ice cream. Premium or super-premium or I don’t eat it at all. +1. This for me, too. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/30 "2020-04-29T06:44:58Z")
Here’s the thing - good desserts and shitty desserts have the same amount of calories more or less. If you’re going to invest the calorie cost of the food, then eat a great version of that. For example, I think sugar cookies are some weird ass thing that shouldn’t exist. It’s like someone purposely tried to construct the most amount of calories into the least amount of taste and enjoyment into a food. Why would you spend 1000 calories eating a bunch of sugar cookies when you could spend that same 1000 calories eating some really good cookies? Same deal with ice cream. Get the good stuff, cherish the experience, make the calories worth it. The “what’s the most I cheap crap I can get for this money” is a bad philosophy to apply to treats. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/31 "2020-04-29T07:54:26Z")
I am a cheap-ass. No way around it. I can’t eat very much icecream because of the carbs and sugar. My favorite thing in the world(besides corndogs from Sonic) is cheap store brand icecream sandwiches. The cheaper the better. DIL found me some Bluebunny, low sugar, low carb. Bunny Trax, It was just ‘okay’ for the price. I wouldn’t buy it again. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/32 "2020-04-29T12:16:46Z")
I tend to buy coolhaus. As others have said, texture and flavor is better. I do agree that it’s diminishing returns, and that I probably don’t get 3x the enjoyment out of it, but what does that matter? If I’m eating ice cream I’m treating myself, I want it to feel like it. ---
**Author:** ![MoonMoon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonmoon/32/2959_2.png) [@MoonMoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoonMoon)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/33 "2020-04-29T13:02:58Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > Yes. > > Also every time I try to eat the mass-produced ice cream, I get an upset stomach. You’d think it was just the high fat content, but when I eat gelato or some fancier ice cream, I have no trouble. (I have the same problem with grocery store sheet cakes.) > > There must be some kind of weird emulsifier or additive to the big half-gallon containers of store ice cream. Your culprit may be carrageenan. It’s a thickening agent made from seaweed, and it causes digestive issues in some people. I used to think that I had a weird lactose intolerance that only happened with ice cream, but a friend with Crohn’s made an offhand comment about it being one of the things she was told to avoid, and a lightbulb went off. I performed a series of scientific\* experiments on myself (\*I ate Ben & Jerry’s, cottage cheese, and drank hot chocolate, all of which contained carrageenan, and had instant “results”) to determine if that was the cause. I avoid it entirely these days, and the issue is gone. Just the other day I got some cottage cheese with my online grocery order, and forgot to check the ingredients until I was putting the groceries away. Maddeningly, it had carrageenan and it went straight into the trash. 😕 For the OP: life is way too short to eat mediocre food. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/34 "2020-04-29T13:03:05Z")
I’m no gourmet but I definitely want ice cream some grade above the cheapest. For a while, buying two packs of Bud’s Mocha Almond Fudge ice cream was on the list whenever I made the 2½-hour round trip to the Big City. Nowadays Wall’s Choco Nutty Crunch is sometimes available at the local 7-Elevens and I make do with that. I’m afraid I’m humiliating myself by suggesting that Bud’s or Wall’s is a premium grade, but they’re definitely better than the default cheap stuff. A related topic is _ **chocolate candy** _. I don’t mind indulging myself on some of the chocolate bars available in grocery stores, but, boy!, a box of See’s chocolates was a real treat! And on rare occasions I’ve indulged at shops that sell chocolate for about $5 a piece. _Wow! So delicious!!_ However do they make those chocolate candies so splendidly special?? ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/35 "2020-04-29T13:28:25Z")
I’m happy with non-premium, but after tasting Graeter’s ice cream on a trip to Ohio, I could definitely tell the difference. I’d say it’s worth paying for, though I doubt I’d actually do so on a regular basis if it were available to me at home. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/36 "2020-04-29T15:06:36Z")
Haagen Daaz and Ben & Jerry’s go on sale frequently enough that they are usually between $2.50-$3.50 per pint. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/37 "2020-04-29T15:10:17Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > The one I’ve always wanted to try is magnum just to see if it’s worth 4.00 to 6.00 for an ice cream bar … they have a chocolate-coated cherry one… The Magnum ice cream bars I’ve found in Safeway aren’t _that_ expensive; about four or five bucks for a box of three or four bars. So roughly a dollar or so each bar. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/38 "2020-04-29T15:57:14Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > didn’t blue bell get caught in some e-coil scandal a while back? It was Listeria. They cleaned up their act and have been operating ever since. I’m not saying that Graeter’s and the others aren’t better than Blue Bell, but that Blue Bell is 80% of the way to the “ideal” ice cream, and that you pay progressively more for smaller increases in quality toward that ideal. ---
**Author:** ![GaryM](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garym/32/241_2.png) [@GaryM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GaryM)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/39 "2020-04-29T16:07:03Z")
> [@2Bits](#): > > Does any company produce “ice milk” anymore? I haven’t seen it since the late 70s. Perhaps when Haagen Das (perhaps the first mass-marketed premium ice cream in the U. S.?) came out the contrast was too stark. > Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro I’ve not seen “ice milk” in some time, but last week I was tricked into buying a tub of “frozen dairy dessert”. The brand was Bryers and I’d assumed it was ice cream, but no, read the fine print from now on. It wasn’t as bad as some low end ice cream I’ve had, such as Turkey Hill. That’s nasty stuff. Way too much over run. ---
**Author:** ![divemaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/divemaster/32/78_2.png) [@divemaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/divemaster)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754/40 "2020-04-29T16:15:51Z")
My high school /early college jobs were at Baskin-Robbins. So I got accustomed to really good ice cream. Most stuff from the store just can’t compare. Although Blue Bell and Haagen Daaz are better than most. I really haven’t tried anything else that might be considered a cut above. Bryers used to be good but the last few times I tried it, it tasted like crap. Seriously, no better than Turkey Hill. One thing I’ve noticed is that the really cheap ice cream doesn’t actually melt. Instead, it just sort of turns into a thick gummy mass. So gross. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/premium-ice-cream-vs-regular-ice-cream-whats-your-view/852754.md?page=3)