I have always been one who loves ice cream. Afterall, is there anything more refreshing to the palate on a hot summer day? I can’t think of too many things I would rather have on a hot August day here in Kansas than a creamy bowl of sweet goodness that had to be inspired by God above.
I simply love the stuff!
However, as much as I enjoy ice cream, I very rarely consume any of it since most brands contain sugar or sweeteners that leave a bit to be desired when it comes to taste. Face it, when it comes to any type of food, many store bought foods that are supposed to contain sugar, but do not contain any, can be greatly lacking in flavor and bring little enjoyment when consuming.
I am not one who promotes the Keto diet as it is unnecessarily too restrictive on carbohydrates. Keto advocates say to not eat more than fifty grams of carbohydrates in a day. This is plum ridiculous as carbs are our main source of energy. That being said, I do not believe in eating simple carbs or foods with added sugars unless it is in the case of fruit where there is a fiber component to prevent sugar from just dumping into your bloodstream. What I do advocate is to eat foods that contain complex carbohydrates while keeping your daily consumption in a range that is diabetic friendly. You will find this is quite simple to accomplish when you avoid all foods which contain added sugars or are full of simple carbohydrates.
It has not been too long ago that Halo Top was all the rage for those seeking out a Keto friendly ice cream they could eat while on their “diets”. I personally thought it was one of the most awful ice creams I have ever tried. Not long after Halo Top hit the store shelves, along came keto ice creams from Rebel Creamery, which I found to be a little better than Halo Top, but not by a wide margin. I will not be buying either ever again. I might have a serving of Rebel ice cream to be polite if it was served to me, but I would simply refuse the Halo Top. That being said, you might enjoy both…
Saturday as I was doing my weekly grocery shopping, I was loosely eyeing the ice cream aisle since my wife had said something about wanting some. I was debating on a couple of sugar free options when I spotted the Simple Truth brand of Keto ice creams. I had never tried this store brand of ice cream before but thought it would be no great loss at $3.50 US if it were not too great. I bought two flavors to try, Chocolate Chip for her and Coffee Chip for myself.
Both flavors were really quite good, in fact, I really enjoyed how much the Coffee Chip tasted like coffee. Loraine and I both also thought the vanilla flavor of hers was as good as any more expensive brands of ice cream. As with Halo Top and Rebel, you will need to let the container sit out to soften a bit before consuming. Once softened, I found the texture to be better by a narrow margin over that of the other two brands. You would think that an ice cream made of fat and cream would be more creamy than any of these three brands are. The ice cream is pretty dense and still not as creamy as I would prefer even after softening. But, I did enjoy this one enough that I might have it again on a hot summer day, if I feel like I have the calories to waste on something that is more a treat than anything.
I buy a lot of Kroger Store brand Simple Truth products. They taste as good as name brand items and are a usually a pretty good bargain. But, for the life of me I wish I could figure out why in the hell they made the nutritional information such a burden to look up on their internet site. The pictures above are what you will find. This may not be a big deal to some, but if you are one who does your shopping online, not being able to get nutritional data easily is not right. I wish I had taken pictures of the actual containers before I did this review. I am genetically prone to type 2 diabetes and I do read the labels of everything I consume. I recommend this to everyone else too if you care about your health or that of your loved ones. It is a simple habit to incorporate and takes very little time to do a quick scan in order to look for hidden sugars, unhealthy fats, sodium and preservative contents. The fact it is such a burden to see this information on their website is just bewildering to me to say the least.
In closing, I will say that 190 calories per serving is not bad for this ice cream. But, are you going to eat just one serving, or are you going to eat the entire container in one sitting? At 580 calories per container, you might find your weight increasing if you are going over your daily caloric needs by this much. If you are on Keto, you need to understand that you still cannot exceed your daily caloric needs without the worry of gaining body fat. You will find the reason why Keto works in the first place is because you are placing yourself into a caloric deficit, and not because you cut out all carbs.