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.
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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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We haven’t bought store bought fake “ice cream”, in years.
We prefer to make our own, with our KitchenAid ice cream attachment. Easy peasy.
“A little sucralose into real cream tastes really good to me.
A little of Splenda (sucralose) goes a long way as it is approximately 600 times sweeter than sugar. One of life’s more saved delicacies.
wy69
Said nobody, never, under no circumstances.
Even more troubling, though, is the fact that it’s made from people.
Breyer’s Frozen Dairy Dessert is made from people!
Kroger ice cream is ice cream. Just checked.
“...The scam is simple: charge the same, deliver less...”
Actually, it’s charge MORE, deliver less.
You like creamer as opposed to cream.
Listeria costs extra.
Big box stores aren’t the only stores. Stores that big can dictate terms with factories. So I can imagine they would be one place with 100% turn over from one factory to another.
I don’t buy tools but the stores I frequent certainly had American made items side by side with Chinese. At least for a time.
Yes. I especially like the Cremora brand.............
The Piggly Wiggly near me in northern Illinois closed up a few years ago. Did not shop there much, but when the ex and I did shop there we would get a good laugh, their muzak system would play a commercial “At Piggly Wiggly…..Shop the pig!”
Which is why I only buy ice cream at a regional dairy store, which only sells REAL ice cream.
I like to stir in local honey and it’s a lot like soft ice cream with a taste that is reminiscent of cheesecake.
I think I’m addicted to it now. It’s so easy to make, so insanely tasty and delicious and its actually good for the body, too!
Who needs ice cream?
“are all sold by weight”
Take cartons to the produce section and weigh them to get a better sense of value.
Every four or five years, I get a hankering for Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Swiss Almond. It’s worse every time. The last time — last year — it was much lighter than it used to be, so it has had a greater percentage of air incorporated, what ice cream pros call “overrun.” The weight of the formerly 16-oz. package was now 14 oz., and the indentation in the bottom of the carton was deeper to disguise the diminished quantity. The Swiss almonds were now small pieces rather than the whole almonds, or at least bigger chunks, they used to be. Of course, the price was higher than it used to be, too. Always over $5, sometimes approaching $7.
That was it for me. I promptly did some research, bought a fairly pricey Italian gelato maker (Lello Musso) and a few good ice cream books. I now make ice cream as good as what we used to get at the dairy store when I was a kid in the Midwest, and my Vanilla Swiss Almond is what Haagen-Dazs (peace be upon them) used to be.
There’s no substitute for cooking at home if you can do it. Fewer and fewer can.
Pritzker.
“Shop the Pig!” lol.
Now, all they would need would be an “Oinking” Dialtone for their company phone number.
“Press 1 Oink for Accounting, 2 Oinks for Today’s Sales,
3 Oinks for Customer Service 4, to hear these choices again!”
Does it still need to be kept frozen? Does it melt? Just wondering???
Likewise.
That’s the only kind we buy. But they pissed me off when they downsized their 1/2 gallon to a smaller amount.
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