Vanilla Ice-cream - Scandal

Better to  make your own ice-cream

So many of the ice-creams in the shops are not what they seem to be.

A Shop Vanilla ice-cream is more likely not to contain any vanilla.

For Vanilla is very expensive so they will insert something else into the ice-cream so as to fool that it is a real Vanilla ice-cream.

Also the shop that you have bought in the shop will more than likely not have any cream or  any fresh milk in their ice-cream. Scandal indeed.

Those cheaper ingredients are replacing traditional elements to cheat us.

Vanilla ice-cream is traditionally made from fresh milk, cream, egg yolks, sugar and vanilla, which are frozen and aerated.

In many of those ice-creams bought in shops that  cream and milk were substituted with partially reconstituted dried skimmed milk, and in some cases, whey protein. Vanilla was often replaced with a general “flavouring”.

Much more so the non-dairy ingredients in some of the ice-creams included palm oil, coconut oil, palm kernel oil and water.

There are currently no requirements for a shop to meet before a product can be called ice-cream so you could make it from water and still call it an ice-cream.

To protect yourself and get  the items in the shops that are labelled as “dairy ice-cream”  for they should contain at least 5% dairy fat and some protein from a dairy source and no vegetable fats.

 Saffron is the  most expensive spice in the world  shortly after which is vanilla that is obtained from many workers - Vanilla is more expensive than silver at about  £440 a kilo.

Vanilla beans, which are part of the orchid family, are hand-pollinated on family farms.

Each flower opens for only part of one day during the season. If it is not pollinated on that day, no pod is produced.

Once picked, the curing process, which involves drying the beans in the sun by day and allowing them to sweat in a box at night, takes three to six months.

Vanilla is grown in tropical regions.

More than 75% is produced in Madagascar, an island off the south-eastern coast of Africa.

The region was struck by a powerful cyclone last month that damaged many plantations.

Some manufacturers use synthetic vanilla flavouring, known as vanillin, but it is less potent and scented than its natural counterpart.

You may be surprised to find out that the vanilla ice-creams available to buy in supermarkets can vary wildly in terms of the ingredients they contain.

For those looking for a more authentic ice-cream or trying to avoid controversial ingredients such as palm oil, our advice is to check the ingredients list, and look for these three key ingredients – natural vanilla, dairy cream, and fresh milk.