(Especially not this one...)
Posted on 12/01/2025 6:05:48 AM PST by Red Badger
Companies didn’t improve the recipe — they cheapened it.
The scam is simple: charge the same, deliver less.
The label tells the truth the ad won’t.
*********************************************************************
BRIEFING
Grant here. Here’s a story that’s going to hit people right in the nostalgia and the grocery cart. A couple’s video is going viral when they bought what they thought was the Breyers they grew up with… and instead they stumbled straight into a corporate magic trick. Let’s break it down.
In the video, the couple discovers after closely examining the box that their Breyers “ice cream” isn’t legally ice cream — it’s actually labeled “frozen dairy dessert.” Why? Because companies reformulated years ago to dodge FDA rules. Less cream, more air, stabilizers, gums, and cheaper fillers mean it no longer meets the federal definition of ice cream… but still sits in the same freezer aisle with the same familiar branding.
SOURCE
AMERICANS ARE JUST NOW REALIZING THEIR “ICE CREAM” ISN’T EVEN LEGALLY ICE CREAM ANYMORE
“Does anybody know what’s happened to Breyers ice cream…that it’s no longer ice cream?”
A couple posted a viral video after buying a tub of what they thought was normal ice cream only to discover the packaging never uses the words ice cream anywhere.
Instead, the label says “Frozen Dairy Dessert.”
Why? Because years ago, companies quietly changed their recipes:
• Less cream
• More air
• More gums & stabilizers
• Cheaper fillers
• Ingredients that no longer meet FDA standards to legally call it ice cream
The wife says she bought this thinking she was being “moderately healthy,” until she noticed something insane:
“NOWHERE on here does it say ice cream.”
“It literally says frozen dairy dessert.”
“This was the ice cream of my childhood…now it tastes TERRIBLE.”
She opens the container and immediately freaks out:
“First of all… what is this texture?”
“It tastes metallic.”
“It’s forming a FILM inside my mouth.” “
This is NOT ice cream.”
Her husband jumps in:
“This used to be the PREMIUM ice cream of the bourgeoisie.”
She stops him, but keeps inspecting the tub:
“They made it LOOK like ice cream… the fancy label, the ‘Rainforest Alliance’ leaf… the Grade A milk logo… but WHAT am I actually eating here?”
“Because it’s definitely not ice cream.”
People across the internet are now checking their own tubs and realizing the same thing – half the brands in their freezer aren’t even allowed to be called real ice cream.
Did you know companies legally reclassified this stuff… or have you been eating ‘frozen dairy dessert’ without realizing it?
Snopes actually dug into this “ice cream mystery” a year ago, long before this current viral outrage, and confirmed the entire thing: many brands like Breyers stopped meeting the FDA’s legal definition of ice cream. Once the milkfat drops too low or the overrun (air) gets too high, companies are forced to relabel the product as “frozen dairy dessert.”
Snopes lays out exactly how the reformulation happened: less cream, more gums, more fillers, and more air. And why brands quietly pivoted to the new label to avoid violating federal standards.
SOURCE:
Breyer’s sells both ice cream and frozen dairy desserts. The difference between the two products is not due to proportion of air whipped into the product, but due to the percentage of milk fat used in it. Legally, in the United States, ice cream contains 10% or more milk fat — per the FDA — while frozen desserts contain less.
In May 2024, a post on Facebook claimed that ice cream manufacturer Breyer’s no longer sold ice cream, but “frozen dairy desserts,” as it failed to meet standards of quality for ice cream set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA):
Breyer’s, America’s favorite ice cream, is no longer ice cream. It now legally has to be called Frozen Dessert, as it is 50% air, and has only a tiny percentage of actual milk or cream.
DEBRIEFING
So what we have here might look like a silly viral moment, but it’s actually a window into a much bigger story. Food companies have spent the last decade quietly rewriting the product underneath us. And they didn’t do it because consumers asked for more integrity or higher quality. They did it because the economics reward dilution.
When you swap cream for gums, you save money. When you whip more air into the mix, you inflate the volume without improving the product. When you lean on fillers instead of fat, you stretch every dollar further. And once you fall below FDA standards for “ice cream,” you don’t fix the recipe. You just change the label to a loophole category: “frozen dairy dessert.” And just quietly hope the public doesn’t notice.
This isn’t just about a creamy frozen delight; it’s just further exposing the same pattern we see across appliances, food, consumer goods, and even fast food. Quality shrinks silently, marketing stays glossy, and the customer pays more for less.
NOW YOU KNOW The scam is simple: charge the same, deliver less.
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In the future, people are going to own frozen dairy dessert, and they’re going to be happy.
If the milkfat isn’t being put in the ice creams, then where is it going?.................
Yet another example of why the word “enshitification” has emerged to define almost everything one buys these days.
Did you notice during the COVIS crap cans of soup etc got smaller ,LOL
So, the dessert has less fat, which may be healthy.
Does it taste good?
My experience is non-ice cream desserts taste as good and have less fat. I still have to be careful because they tend to be addictive.
Humans love sugar and fat. We tend to eat too much when it is easy and cheap.
McDonald’s started using a shake mix rather than ice cream for their shakes over 60 years ago. This has been the practice by a number of sellers. Cost effective.
wy69
Häagen-Dazs still makes real ice cream, and it’s the only one I buy.
Damn. We have some Breyer’s “Homemade Vanilla” in the freezer. Going to check this out right now.
Why don't they have to say WHAT is bio-engineered? At least it's still a half gallon....
Just a note from Blue Bells website:
“ Blue Bell’s flagship flavors (e.g., Homemade Vanilla, Dutch Chocolate, Cookies ’n Cream, etc.) all meet or exceed these requirements—typically containing 12–15% butterfat and using real cream and milk as primary ingredients. Because of this, Blue Bell can and does legally label its core products as “ice cream.””
(Especially not this one...)
Ive known this for years. It taste nothing like ice cream. Hard to miss. Mr. Softee and Carvel seem to be unchanged from what they were in the 1960s.
They are grown up and are just now learning to read the package? Idiots. Most of us caught on to that during grade school. Plus anyone who watched the fictional “Rich Man Poor Man” during the 70s learned about how to get rich by manufacturing and selling fake ice cream. This all didn’t just now happen.
They increase the sugar or other sweeteners to compensate for the loss of the fat and milk solids.
Fat and milk solids are actually food and sate hunger.
That’s known as ‘shrinkflation’!
Check out baskin-robbins, its still ice cream and cheaper than haagendas
Every loaf of publix bread bio eng
Salads too
I asked manager what is bio eng
Never heard back
Racket city
Well this is what I found: nowhere on the carton does it say “Ice Cream”, but nowhere does it say “Frozen Dessert” either. Maybe on some other flavors, Breyer’s has many. I only bought it because the store was out of Hagen Das, and I remembered that as a kid I like Breyer’s vanilla, it had specks of real vanilla beans. This one doesn’t that I can see, and it is just not as good as I remember.
Häagen is as Häagen-Dazs...................
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