Ice creams on sale in UK supermarkets that don’t contain ANY cream

There’s nothing vanilla about some vanilla ice creams on supermarket shelves, according to recent investigations.

A social media influencer, popular for his videos about health, this week sparked shock after revealing over half of supermarket versions of the classic flavour don’t contain the traditional ingredients including vanilla, cream or even fresh milk.

Bringing a resurfaced investigation by the UK’s consumer watchdog to light, he told viewers several products instead included seed oils such as palm, palm kernel and coconut.

Such oils have long been vilified for reportedly raising the risk of heart disease, obesity and other illnesses. 

Cream and milk, meanwhile, were substituted with partially reconstituted dried skimmed milk or whey protein, with vanilla often replaced with a general flavouring.

In the viral video, YouTuber Evan Edinger who boasts more than 800,000 subscribers, noted the use of oils in ice creams wasn’t strictly banned in the US.

However, most manufacturers choose to opt for higher quality ingredients to meet stricter legal requirements that allow them to use the ‘coveted ice cream label’. 

The investigation, carried out in 2018 by consumers’ association Which?, found that one in five products examined had none of the three ingredients shoppers could expect to find in vanilla ice-cream. 

Only half of the 24 products surveyed contained all three traditional ingredients.  

Up until 2015, anything labelled ice cream had to contain at least five per cent dairy fat and ‘no less than’ 2.5 per cent milk protein.

Now, however, since the introduction of the Food Information Regulation, UK manufacturers can choose to use vegetable oils for their fat content rather than cream.

There are currently no requirements for labelling a product ice cream. 

Only those labelled as ‘dairy ice-cream’ should contain at least five per cent dairy fat, some protein from a dairy source and no vegetable fats. 

The move, the watchdog said, was to enable more flexibility for reformulation and product innovation.

This has allowed for vegan products, or reduced fat substitutes – such as Halo Top or Ben and Jerry’s Moo-phoria Light Ice Cream – to be sold as ice creams.

In the video, one vanilla Morrisons own-brand soft scoop tub chosen by Mr Edinger contained a combination of coconut, pal stearin, palm and palm kernel oils. 

It also comprised ‘partially reconstituted skimmed milk concentrate, glucose syrup, sugar, whey powder, dextrose, emulsifiers and flavourings’. 

‘It’s not bad, it’s just not ice cream,’ he said. 

‘It just tastes like really low quality ice cream with my fill of seed oils for the month.’ 

‘Ice cream with a higher milk fat percentage is generally considered creamier, smoother and subjectively much tastier.’

He added: ‘The US isn’t immune to the use of these cheaper ingredients either. 

‘You’ll find ice creams in grocery stores that also use vegetable oils and other fillers.

‘But the catch is, if a product does not contain at least 10 per cent milk fat, they can’t legally call it ice cream.

‘So, many companies are opting to use the higher quality ingredients to maintain that coveted ice cream label.’

Palm oil has long been considered particularly bad for our health as it contains high levels of saturated fat. 

Emulsifiers, meanwhile, are used in thousands of ultra-processed foods to help bind ingredients that don’t usually mix, like oil and water. 

But some experts have linked increasing consumption of additives like emulsifiers with the rise in early onset bowel cancer and inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s and colitis.

In the UK growing numbers of people have turned their backs on cow’s milk, instead opting for plant based alternatives.

In recent years allergy-related diseases in children have increased, with the World Health Organisation predicting that half the world’s population will suffer from an allergy by 2025.

Latest Government figures suggest around 2.4million adults are living with a food allergy in the UK, with hospital admissions for severe reactions more than tripling within the last 20 years.

The increasing number of allergies in children includes those who cannot drink cow’s milk.