The other day, I spent the morning on the phone calling companies that make ice cream. I’d got a bee in my bonnet over their ingredients, you see, after reading the ingredient list of a well known brand only to discover that it didn’t contain any fresh milk or cream. Sure, it contained dairy–in the guise of modified milk ingredients– but for a brand that a lot of folks associate with “natural” ice cream, shouldn’t it at least contain fresh dairy? And what are these modified milk ingredients anyway?
According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, modified milk ingredients are compounds derived from dairy but have been modified from their original form. This can include anything from calcium-reduced milk powder to milk protein concentrates to whey cream. Ultrafiltered milk also falls into this classification. Milk ingredients, in contrast, are dairy products that haven’t been chemically transformed but may not be fresh dairy. These include ingredients like dried skim milk powder, reconstituted milk and butter fat.
In traditional ice cream, fresh cream and milk is combined with sugar and fruit or other flavourings and slowly stirred while the mixture is cooled until it becomes frozen and creamy. To produce quality ice cream, the process is time consuming and the results can vary somewhat. To make the process easier, cheaper and the product more consistent, many mass-produced commercial ice creams are made by combining modified milk ingredients and milk ingredients in a proprietary formulation that gives the desired fat content, taste and mouth feel for the product. Sure it tastes great, but is it ice cream, really?
Also, is it Canadian? Modified milk ingredients and milk ingredients can be bought cheaply from foreign countries like the United States, New Zealand, and China. To get around tariffs on imported milk ingredients, many producers use a butter-oil and sugar blend. Since it’s over 50% sugar, the milk tariff doesn’t apply. Sneaky eh. And imagine what that does to the sugar content of the ice cream!
Coaticook uses 100% Quebec milk and no modified milk ingredients.
All’s not completely lost. There are still some supermarket ice creams made with real dairy, or at the very least Canadian milk products. In Quebec, Coaticook dairy still uses the traditional methods of making ice cream. They pride themselves on supporting local dairies and not using any modified milk ingredients. You’ve probably seen their products in the freezer section but ignored them because they don’t have fancy packaging and it’s inexpensive. (If it’s not pricey it can’t be good quality, right?) They keep their costs down by not doing a lot of marketing. They rely on word of mouth and simple quality for their sales.
Haagen Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s also list cream as their first ingredient and only use Canadian milk products. Neither list modified milk ingredients on their labels. Both are made in Ontario.
Nestle told me that they only use Canadian milk products in their ice creams, which include Parlour and those candy-flavoured ones like Coffee Crisp. Their Haagen Dazs brand aside, all of the ones I looked at listed modified milk ingredients on the label, but at least they’re Canadian.
Most President’s Choice ice creams are made with a mix of Canadian and imported milk ingredients, however they do have some that use only Canadian milk. Look for the flavours with the little blue cow logo on the lid that that says “100% Canadian Milk”. I was puzzled by their “made with fresh dairy cream” claim on some of their blue menu products when none actually listed “cream” on the ingredient list. Customer service told me that the fresh dairy was probably listed under “milk ingredients”.
Breyers said they can’t guarantee the origin of their ingredients. It’s possible that the modified milk ingredients come from outside of Canada. Too bad because their ice cream is tasty.
This was an interesting exercise, and I have to say that all the customer service lines I called were very helpful and I never waited more than a couple of minutes to talk to someone. One company even called me back when they didn’t have the answer on hand.
So what do you think, should ice cream made with modified milk ingredients be called ice cream? Should labeling indicate when the dairy ingredients are not Canadian? Will understanding the ingredient list on ice creams change your buying habits?
Photo credit: Adela Deras
My temporary solution at the moment: ice cream maker + tub of homemade yogurt. Add fresh strawberries and a bit of maple syrup, churn until smooth and icy and creamy and fabulous.
I may be alone in saying this, but… ye gods, I love this weather!
That sounds fabulous! Nothing beats home-made.
And no, you’re not alone in enjoying this weather. I’m also loving it. I’ve been happily sitting outside working; in the shade admittedly, but outside.
I make my own most of the time, too, but it’s never quite the right consistency for sundaes. For that, I use store-bought ice cream, and I’m definitely going to look for Coaticook now that you’ve pointed it out.
Even cream is not necessarily so easy: I recently checked a major brand here in Boston and found that “heavy cream” has five ingredients, and “cream” is only one of them.
I think most ice cream I’ve had here lists milk or cream as the first ingredient, but in the States, rBGH and crazily antiboitic-laden dairy are still issues, so I don’t find it so reassuring.
The rBGH and antibiotic issues with US dairy products is one of the reasons that imported milk ingredients, modified or not, really irks me. I mean, why ban something or set strict standards and then import products that don’t hold to the same standards. I have the same problem with imported produce and pesticides.
In store-bought cream, all the other ingredients are stabilizers (I believe). Cream as an ingredient, I’m pretty sure would be just cream. Maybe that bee will find it’s way into my bonnet…
I know exactly one “cream” on the local market which is nothing but cream – everything else has guar gum, carageenan, etc.
Organic Meadow.
The problem is that you don’t know how long it’s been on the shelf, so you have to drink it within 2 days of opening it, especially in this weather.
t!
Thank you for taking the time and effort to research this exceptionally well written post! I have often wondered about the content and sourcing of ice cream but now its available from a local dairy at my farmers market
You’re welcome!
Glad to see you’re spreading the word on Coaticook, they are excellent and not so many people seem to know about it. Wish they had an organic option though.
Me too. Although the fact that they’re using local milk means that the dairy herds are small, probably pasteured, and antibiotics havn’t been added to their feed. (Although they are regular treated with antibiotics since mastitis is common.)
We buy Kawartha Dairy Company ice cream. They use “100% Canadian fresh milk and fresh cream. These are the first two ingredients on our ingredient list…”
Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s readily available outside of south-eastern Ontario.
But that’s a great option for folks in south-eastern Ontario. Thanks for sharing!
(I want to sic you on the province’s requirements for food ingredient labeling in alcohol – I mailed the LC and got told there was no federal law about it, so I don’t need to know what I’m ingesting.)
“Modified Milk Ingredients” just always seemed a really sneaky way of saying Not Food to me anyway, so this confirms I’ve been right to avoid it.
The downside of Kawartha, and I’ve been considering giving it up over this, is that it fails the Pollan quantity of ingredients test – by a wide margin – and I don’t think Baba would recognise carageenan and guar gum as food, either.
I was going to say that I love H-D vanilla bean flavour because the ingredients list is clean as our chickens’ insides, but now that I know it’s made under license by Nestle, I have to give *that* one up, too. I am sad.
t!
I’ll be checking out Coaticook – I hate to admit it, but I’ve never tried it and don’t even remember seeing it, though living in Montreal I’m sure I’ve simply passed over it in favour of the more ‘splashy’ brands. I’ve recently taken to making my own icecream – including a small batch today which I thoroughly enjoyed in this heat! I make it with milk, not cream, and find it comes out just as rich and creamy as some of the heavier ice creams out there. And I have total control (or almost – I don’t actually milk the cow) over ingredients – and it’s amazingly satisfying to eat something homemade which till now I’ve normally bought off the shelf.
thanks Amanda!
Excellent post. I am reading a book currently on food and chemistry and you would not believe what some companies can get away with legally on their labels that is misleading to the public.
A least ice cream wise since last summer I eat only one kind: the one I make with my ice cream machine. I can verify the provenance of each ingredient.
Sadly I think I would believe it. What’s the name of the book?
As a followup to this, I was at Cucina on Boul. St. Laurent today for lunch and noticed one of the wait staff come in with several containers marked “Coaticook”. The ones I saw were from the grocery store, but when I asked further they said that most of the ice cream they serve is from Coaticook.
Nice! Thanks for letting us know.
Nice post. Thanks for sharing. Keep it up!
Now I’m wondering about Chapmans. They’re the only peanut free ice cream on the market that I know of.
I don’t know. If I see some I’ll check it out!
I am glad to have found your site. I really enjoyed this article, it was very informative and well written. I wasn’t aware of modified milk ingredients until I started my own gluten free journey and started reading all my labels. I am on the West Coast, so our access to variety is very limited. You are lucky out east to have such a variety and access to many artisan suppliers. I posted a link to your article from my blog Gluten Free Island Girl, http://glutenfreeislandgirl.ca/2013/%month%/what-is-really-in-our-milk-products/. I hope that is alright.
I am quite horrified by our government allowing this practice to happen. The more we share the information about what happens to our food, the more likely a wave of change is to happen. As consumers, we do have the power to force big business to change.
Hi Theresa,
I’m glad you found the article informative! Feel free to share the article on your blog. I’ll have to check it out!
Amanda