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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is this “Ben and Jerry’s” still in business?
At about age 16 or earlier, my dad, a shipyard welder, told me that I needed to get a job, or he find more work for me, and at about age 16 (1968) IIRC, and for about 16 years total (a couple years of excursions) I worked in a family owned retail dairy, with its own cows, and processed, sold and delivered milk and ice cream. The product was tested at 16% butterfat and 42% milk solids (despite selling their own milk, the ice cream was confected with high temp milk solids).
. For most of the years it was confected in a "batch freezer," (larger crystals, called "homemade" as to style) refrigerated *(via ammonia) metal drum with steel paddles inside. 5 gallons of ice cream mix poured in the top, and then flavors added thru a hopper, and it churned until the consistency of cement, and out came approx.10 gallons, which for us went into 3 gal. tubs. Before those we used 5 gal metal barrels.
Unlike continuous freezers in which air content can be controlled, this overrun of 50% air was normal in a batch freezer and with that there is not much you can do to change that (brands like Ben and Jerry's made via continuous freezers had less overrun, but lower butterfat content, though not all flavors are the same). The higher the butterfat then the more it incorporates air.
The more sugar and or alcohol then the lower the freezing temp (Rum Raisin was a hard one to keep firm in a chest, and so I put them in a corner-two walls), while the more liquids that were added, like real strawberries, then the more diluted the mix was = a heavier product but less creamy (I think the gov. would test Vanilla for the butterfat and weight).
Thus there was a noticeable difference in the weight as you lifted them. As ice cream must be 4.5 lbs per gallon (whole milk is 9.6) then a 3 gallon tub of ice cream was sppsd to be at least 13.5 lbs, but the heaviest flavor, Peanut butter cup, could be close to 18, while the lightest was "Orange Creamsicle, maybe about 12.5 lbs. It did bother me as a Christian that i was delivering something that meant the consumer was not getting legal ice cream, yet that was not intentional, and could not be controlled much, and the company charged the same for all the 64 or so flavors.
However, ice cream melts and souls live forever - in one of two distinctly different places and experiences - and the Lord convicted me in 1986 to leave everything to serve Him full time, without pay for this work, and He, if not always me, has been faithful to keep His promise of Mark 10:29,30, to God be the glory.
Pinged to some friends.
Traidtionaly, it was hard to standardize ice cream. See post https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4355439/posts?page=162#162 Only ice cream and its pale substitutes allow the infusion of air to replace actual product.
Actually, if there was no air in ice cream it would be like eaten like cubes, lacking texture and hardly scoopable. brands like Ben and Jerry's have less overrun, but still lots of air.
Breyer’s used to be our go to for ice cream.
After buying what we thought was ice cream and finding out it was *Frozen Dairy Dessert*, they lost a customer. Can’t trust them any more.
Buy local.
Yuppers...
I got a Hankering for a Drumstick
With Nutz!
.
I can’t point to Any moment other than
Seeing a Man on a White horse in the Clouds coming at me From the West
when I was 6 or 7.
I wondered why the sky seemed to be falling faster today.
You can ‘homebrew’ yer own!!
Breyers used to be good - was what we mostly bought back in the day. I can’t eat ice cream now (unless somebody can point me to a good low sugar variety) so I hadn’t noticed the decline, but I checked the local grocery store and the post is correct - most Breyers containers are not labeled ice cream. And it costs about as much as the brands that are so labeled.
Every few years new ones can be bought at your local Big Box Store.
Go south, young man - go south.
And now millions of people actually prefer the silicon based, ummm, 'toys' and avoid the hassle of dealing with the real thing.
Now go and find some sliced American cheese that’s actually cheese and not “cheese product”. It’s hard but it can be done.
They use real ones?
I don't care if Ben and Jerry make Pol Pot look like Franco.
Their ice cream is the best in the world and I'm not gonna stop eating it!
I can only sacrifice so much.
Breyer's became frozen desert when half their ice cream consisted of mashed-up Snickers bars.
This is why I can only eat Hagen Daas
Haha everyone has their limit…;)
I just checked my freezer, and Vanilla Homestyle and Mint Chip both state ICE CREAM in multiple places on the container.
Now the ingredient list is LONG, and I wasn’t wearing my glasses.
To be legally labeled “ice cream” in the U.S., a product must contain at least 10% milkfat and weigh no less than 4.5 pounds per gallon. These standards are set by the FDA under 21 CFR §135.110.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a product must meet the following criteria to be labeled as “ice cream”:
Minimum Milkfat: Must contain at least 10% milkfat. This can come from cream, milk, or other dairy ingredients.
Products with less than 10% milkfat must use alternative labels like “frozen dairy dessert.”
Minimum Weight: Must weigh at least 4.5 pounds per gallon. This ensures proper air incorporation (overrun) and density.
Pasteurization & Freezing: The mix must be pasteurized and then frozen while stirring to create the final texture.
Optional Ingredients: May include caseinates, hydrolyzed milk proteins, sweeteners, flavorings, and stabilizers — as long as they’re safe and suitable.
Egg Yolk Clause: If the product contains at least 1.4% egg yolk solids, it must be labeled “frozen custard” or “French ice cream.”
Products made with less than 10% milkfat
Items using non-dairy bases (e.g., almond, oat, coconut) — these must use terms like “non-dairy frozen dessert”
Formulations that don’t meet the weight or ingredient standards
These rules protect consumers from misleading labels and ensure consistency in product quality.
Many store brands and “light” or “low-fat” options use alternative terms like “frozen dessert” to comply with labeling law
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