Edible Antifreeze For Smoother Ice Cream

holy_calamity writes "Proteins extracted from gelatin can dramatically improve the quality of ice cream by preventing the growth of ice crystals that ruin its texture. Perfect smooth ice cream has ice crystals around 20 microns in size, but slight thawing and refreezing makes them grow and ruins the mouth feel, making it gritty. The new proteins are similar to those in the blood of the snow flea, an insect able to keep active in sub-zero temperatures." Here are the abstract and the full article as published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Mmm, Delicious

[Courageous (228506)]

The new proteins are similar to those in the blood of the snow flea,...

Oh now that sounds delicious! Snow Flea Blood Ice Cream.

Thank you, Slashdot, for making me not able to eat Ice Cream today.

*wink*

C//

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[by Anonymous Coward]

Please STOP killing and disfiguring and horrible-izing my ice-cream (OK - some the words maybe in-appropriate in the context, but you get the idea). I just want a simple ice cream with real milk and not a "high fructose corn syrup, this sure isn't milk or cream but our just goo made to look like it" crap.

Just check out the ingredients of any modern ice-cream and the you'll see what I mean.

When I was younger, we made it at home from real milk, sugar and a bit of flavoring agent in a hand-turned ice-cream maker and it was yuumm. Very different from the goo they sell today

The same holds for about all the things (at least foodstuffs). Oh, well - so much for progress ...

Looks fine to me

[DrSkwid (118965)]

Swedish Glace, Vanilla 750ml [goodnessdirect.co.uk]

Ingredients
Water extract from premium graded soyabeans, sucrose, glucose, non-hydrogenated vegetable oils, emulsifiers: mono- and di-glycerides from vegetable oils, stabilisers: carob bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan, salt, vanilla flavouring.

Re:Looks fine to me

[kimvette (919543)]

It doesn't look fine to me. The soybean oil and soybean-derived mono- and diglycerides put me in bed for 2-3 days when I eat it. What's worse is that manufacturers have been lobbying the FDA to not have to itemize ingredients, particularly soy-derived ingredients.

Bring back real ice cream, please!

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[Naughty Bob (1004174)]

In the olden days, if they'd have discovered that some olden day ingredient (bat grease, shark lung etc...) made your ice cream all smooth, I bet they'd have used it in a second. It would now be an accepted part of 'good old ice cream'.

What I'm saying is that new technology need not necessarily be bad. This stuff might be good. Agree with you about most modern ice cream though. The swine.

Re:

[rtb61 (674572)]

Of course the benefit with that, is all the idiots who ate (bat grease, shark lung etc...) would be long dead and they would not be experimenting on us. The modern era is not driven by quality, it is driven by greed, addictive, cheap ingredients and bugger the medium or long term consequences. How ever many die or suffer makes no differences as long as some corporate ass hat can walks away with a ton of profits now and they will grease as many political hands as they need to get away with it.

Perhaps a mor

Re:

[Adambomb (118938)]

Reminds me of a bit of the Orson Scott Card books that parallel the Ender series (Enders Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets etc) where the main character is critiquing the ice cream of the day (sci fi) compared to the more traditional sorvete's. While the point does stand for a lot of the ultra-processed ICE CREAM(likesubstance) , I always wonder how much is the desire for nostalgia and remembering the treat and the whole affair as opposed to simply the ice cream itself (as Card effectively has t

Re:

[jlarocco (851450)]

Real tastes so much better, I only comprehend why they sell the other stuff because they're all cheap bastards.

No, the people buying ice cream are cheap bastards. The ice cream companies don't give a shit either way, they produce what sells. This is an example of people "voting with their wallet".

If you think "traditional" ice cream is that much better, there's nothing stopping you from starting your own ice cream company.

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[illegalcortex (1007791)]

When I was younger, we made it at home from real milk, sugar and a bit of flavoring agent in a hand-turned ice-cream maker and it was yuumm. Very different from the goo they sell today

Just curious, but have you ever tried making it at home NOW? These days they have some pretty spiffy ice cream makers in the $40 range. Here's the one I have:
http://www.cuisinart.com/catalog/product.php?product_id=45&item_id=82&cat_id=10 [cuisinart.com]

It has a sealed bucket filled with some goo with an incredibly low freezing point. You just leave it in the freezer and pull it out when you are ready for ice cream. Put the bucket on the machine and plug it in. You mix up your incredients, which are typically real milk/cream, sugar and a bit of flavoring and dump it in the bucket. Then you turn the machine on. Thirty minutes later, you have ice cream that is already cold enough to eat. MUCH more solid than a lot of the old hand-cranked ones. Stick what you don't eat immediately in a tupperware container in the freezer and finish it at your leisure. Clean up is, as they say, "a breeze."

Alton Brown did a couple of Good Eats episodes on making ice cream this way. The second one is dedicated to making "premium" style ice cream at home.

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[pongo000 (97357)]

Just curious, but have you ever tried making it at home NOW? These days they have some pretty spiffy ice cream makers in the $40 range.

We pass up the fancy-schmancy ice cream makers and make paint-can ice cream:

1) Fill paint can with ice water/salt
2) Fill ziplock bag with ice cream ingredients
3) Ziplock bag into paint can, pound on lid
4) Let kids play soccer with it
5) Eat and enjoy!

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[Bluesman (104513)]

Step 0.5) Remove paint

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[peragrin (659227)]

no the paint adds color and creamyness, and that sticks to your ribs feeling. Oh and don't forget the nice buzz.

Re:

[0100010001010011 (652467)]

Breyer's is about as close as you're going to get even then that's only on their "All Natural" line.

(Vanilla)
INGREDIENTS: MILK, CREAM, SUGAR, NATURAL FLAVOR, NATURAL TARA GUM.

Here is their "Fat Free" Vanilla:

INGREDIENTS: SKIM MILK, SUGAR, POLYDEXTROSE, CORN SYRUP, MALTODEXTRIN, NATURAL FLAVOR, CREAM, PROPYLENE GLYCOL MONOESTERS, MONO & DIGLYCERIDES, CELLULOSE GUM, CAROB BEAN GUM, GUAR GUM, CARRAGEENAN, ANNATTO (FOR COLOR), VITAMIN A PALMITATE, ICE STRUCTURING PROTEIN.

Re:

[jbengt (874751)]

When I was younger, we made it at home from real milk, sugar and a bit of flavoring . . .

Ha, then yours wouldn't qualify to bear the label "Ice Cream", as milk doesn't have enough fat in it for the FDA.
Sadly, adding junk processed butterfat type substances could bring it up to standards.

And as far as snow flea-like food-derived chemicals, they're probably (but not necessarily) better than the propylene glycol that can sometimes be found listed as an ingredient in cheap popsicles, and occasionaly in c

Re:

[fbjon (692006)]

There's plenty of good ice cream, it's just not the cheapest/most popular stuff.

Re:

[Lumpy (12016)]

WHY???

The best ice cream ever made has always had Anti-freeze in it. this "discovery" is silly. MY Parents always made some fantastic anti freeze icecream and the best you can get at a 5 star resturant also has it in it.

It's called alcohol. The recipe I have that makes an icecream that makes friends claim it's better than even the best you can buy has a few ounces of Amaretto in it.

If you dont want to put a tiny bit of booze in your icecream, I think they need to get a life and quit being prudes. It's b

Re:Mmm, Delicious

[CodeMunch (95290)]

When I was younger, we made it at home from real milk, sugar and a bit of flavoring agent in a hand-turned ice-cream maker and it was yuumm. Very different from the goo they sell today

Shall I get off your lawn? ;)

Re:

[djmurdoch (306849)]

Thank you, Slashdot, for making me not able to eat Ice Cream today.

Well, at least there's still Jello. Oops, look at the end of the article:

"But using gelatin as a source has the advantage of being easy to supply because it is a by-product of the meat and leather industries," says Andrew Wilbey, an ice-cream expert at Reading University, UK.

Inputdev?

[SeanTobin (138474)]

Ok,

Who is the joker that tagged this as inputdev? Am I going to get in trouble at work for searching /. for STDOUT now?

Re:

[tchuladdiass (174342)]

The "inputdev" tag comes up automatically when the spoon icon is attached to the story. My guess is that kdawson picked the spoon icon for this story because spoons go with icecream, not because it is a story about input devices.

Bullshit.

[jez9999 (618189)]

I *love* those little ice particles in ice cream, they give it a great texture. Game over.

dear submitter:

[circletimessquare (444983)]

with your headline, you pass science, but you flunk marketing

I like the "gritty"...

[SanityInAnarchy (655584)]

I like the "gritty" feel of those larger ice crystals, especially in sherbet.

Maybe I'm weird, but completely smooth ice cream almost tastes like it's melting... Not that it's bad, but I like the variety.

New GMO Holstein "Freezian" Cows

[G4from128k (686170)]

Just genetically modify the cow to produce this protein in the milk and you have the perfect production process.

Re:New GMO Holstein "Freezian" Cows

[0100010001010011 (652467)]

Even better, we'll have cattle that don't need to be brought in for the winter.

But....

[E1v!$ (267945)]

I LIKE gritty ice cream!

!vegan tag

[EVil Lawyer (947367)]

Whoever tagged this "!vegan" should probably get a lesson in the difference between vegan and vegetarian.

I assure you that almost no "ice cream" is actually vegan, because it has CREAM (i.e., from milk) in it. So the addition of this gelatin-extract does not change its status as vegan or non-vegan.

However, !vegetarian would make sense, since gelatin is made from the animal itself, and ice cream does not generally contain any animal parts (as far as I know!).

p.s. FWIW, I eat animals myself, but think gelatin (ground horse hooves) is kinda gross.

Re:

[Rinikusu (28164)]

Sorta, not really. Vegan "ice cream" has come a long way over the past few years, from being disgusting "Well, it's sorta like the real thing" to some very passable stuff, usually made from Soy Milk. So, a vegan tagging the article would be quite right in doing so, even though I think a !vegetarian tag would also be more appropriate as you stated. The argument you present, however, is mostly semantics and really "counter-productive" to anything unless you're just bored.

Leave the vegans alone. They get e

Re:

[DaveCBio (659840)]

I'm a level 5 vegan. I eat animal products so that other people can't.

Re:

[rhizome (115711)]

I'm a level 5 vegan. I eat animal products so that other people can't.

Level 5 poseur. [wordpress.com]

Re:

[DaveCBio (659840)]

There is a surprising lack of standardized levels in the vegan community. I think a committee should be struck to develop and implement standards.

Re:

[gozu (541069)]

Yeah, testicles, intestines, brain and tongue are fine*, but who in his right mind would eat ground horse hooves?

The mind boggles

*All delicacies. Intestines used to make good sausages.

Re:

[Bartab (233395)]

Every animal I eat is a vegetarian.

Re:!vegan tag

[maxgraphic (737920)]

Gelatin is not (commonly) made from horse hooves. [wikipedia.org]

"... gelatin is made from by-products of the meat and leather industry, mainly pork skins, pork and cattle bones, or split cattle hides. ... Contrary to popular belief, horns and hooves are not commonly used."

Re:

[halivar (535827)]

Feeding babies an exclusive diet of soy milk results in malnutrition. Recently, an Atlanta vegan couple were jailed for negligence when their 6-week-old child died of malnutrition. Anything you feed a baby needs to be heavily fortified, and only breast milk or specially prepared formulas are appropriate.

In general, a parent should never put their personal dietary preference ahead of the safety and health of their child.

oh wow. another way around doing it right.

[Babu 'God' Hoover (1213422)]

Now we can have ice cream that's been thawed and frozen after a meal of 'fresh' chicken that's been frozen and thawed.

Bah!

[jcr (53032)]

In my day, if we wanted smooth ice cream, we had to mix in ethylene glycol by hand with a leaden spoon! and we were grateful! You kids get off my lawn!

-jcr

Re:Bah!

[fahrbot-bot (874524)]

In my day...we had to mix in ethylene glycol by hand with a leaden spoon... You kids get off my lawn!

Well, that explains the dementia. Now put down the TV remote, and stop yelling at the microwave oven.

Gelato

[mcpkaaos (449561)]

the growth of ice crystals that ruin its texture

Or, you could just eat Gelato, and avoid this problem altogether.

Tomacco?

[Gothmolly (148874)]

What's next flounder genes in tomatoes to keep them from freezing? Flouresence genes in pigs so they glow under black light? Oh, wait..

We don't need this

[DaveCBio (659840)]

Companies could just make ice cream properly and transport and store it well and not put so much chemical crap into it, but hey then it might cut into their 1500% profit margins.

Re:

[Ironsides (739422)]

And people could keep the icecream in their freezer all the time and never have it melt. Oh wait, that isn't possible. If it is that cold all the time, then you can't get the icecream out of the box.

Re:

[DaveCBio (659840)]

What are you talking about? You don't have to store ice cream at such a low temp that it becomes a rock. Of course it's going to melt a bit when you take it out, but when you start with a crap product it can only get worse.

Re:

[Bartab (233395)]

Most, nearly all, of the problems with re-freezing come due to the defrost cycles of automatic cycle residential freezers.

Edible Anti-Freeze?

[nog_lorp (896553)]

I've always just used car anti-freeze in my ice cream. It's an acquired taste, but it is really delicious!

Re:Edible Anti-Freeze?

[edwardpickman (965122)]

I've always just used car anti-freeze in my ice cream. It's an acquired taste, but it is really delicious!

So the blindness wasn't caused by too much mastrabation?

Headline made me think.....

[by Anonymous Coward]

The Chinese are getting into the ice cream industry?

Double duty...

[creimer (824291)]

Does this mean I can use antifreeze ice cream for my car?

Everyone is missing the point

[edwardpickman (965122)]

Real ice cream is made from cream which is expensive. Real Ice Cream maintains it's texture because it's mostly milk fat with very little water. The point is to take milk and cheaper water based products and still get that higher quality texture. This is about saving a buck not producing a higher quality ice cream.

Re:Wrong -- galactose not ice crystals = grittines

[Scaba (183684)]

Wow - all that science and research done by an actual food chemist proven wrong by a single ridiculous assertion by Slashdot's most famous member, Anonymous Coward!