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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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Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
In fact, I just found this regarding Snow Star: https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/wuhis5/it_was_probably_was_the_lowest_quality_cheapest/
That’s like one big goldfish being gobbled up by an even bigger goldfish.
**Are there still Piggly Wiggly stores?
I always thought that was a fun name for a grocery store.
Haven’t seen one in decades.
Blame Unilever. They bought out Breyers some time ago and started monkeying with the ingredients quickly. The Strawberry used to have four ingredients, not any more.
It started with Cool Whip. Companies saw that people buy that crap and started thinking...
“Cool Whip Original is made of water, hydrogenated vegetable oil (including coconut and palm kernel oils), high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, skimmed milk, light cream (less than 2%), sodium caseinate, natural and artificial flavor, xanthan and guar gums, polysorbate 60, sorbitan monostearate, sodium polyphosphate, and beta carotene (as a colouring).[12] Cool Whip is available in an aerosol can using nitrous oxide as a propellant.”
“**Are there still Piggly Wiggly stores?”
We have one here....................
At least they have to label it as something other than ice cream. I’m not crazy about everything the FDA does, but I’d hate to think what food manufacturers would be doing if the FDA had never been created. If you read about some of the food adulteration from before the FDA, you’ll realize that many (if not most) American food manufacturers are no more scrupulous than Chinese or Indian ones.
Bryers Butter Pecan label.
INGREDIENTS:
Skim milk, cane sugar, corn syrup, pecans, cream, coconut oil, corn syrup solids, fructose, less than 2% of: dairt product solids, water, mono and diglycerides, butter (cream, salt), peanut oil, guar gum, salt, carob bean gym. tara gum, nataural flavir, annatto (for color) whey.
Contains milk and pecan
Elsewhere on rhe container it says: 100% milk and cream
Is the brown stuff fudge or something else?
Piggly Wiggly was the first modern style self-serve grocery store.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly
She should check out the Aldi’s Premium line of ice cream. It has a short ingredient list and very little whipped in air. You can tell by the weight of the container that you’re getting your money’s worth. They only sell it in two flavors — vanilla and chocolate — but it is excellent and the price is right.
“They made it LOOK like ice cream… the fancy label, the ‘Rainforest Alliance’ leaf
***
Any intelligent person could have stopped reading right there. PT Barnum was right.
My coffee. 6% Alexandre’s.
What?
We’ve been there and back before. McDonald’s HAD been “shakes” but went back to meeting enought milkfat that they are now milkshakes again.
Dairy Queen used to have signs in every store, “Ice Milk Served Here”. DQ uses 5% milk fat. “Ice Milk” has disappeared as a classification, replaced with “reduced fat ice cream”, “low-fat ice cream”. “Soft-Serve” and “Frozen Dairy Dessert” are also acceptable.
I would normally solve that by going to Carvel, but they barely exist around here. Covid casualty.
Real IcdeCream:
The basic ingredients needed to make homemade ice cream typically include milk, heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla extract. Some recipes also use egg yolks for a richer, custard-style base (French ice cream), while no-churn versions often rely on sweetened condensed milk or whipped cream for sweetness and texture. A pinch of salt is commonly added to enhance flavor. Optional stabilizers like guar gum or xanthan gum can improve smoothness and prevent ice crystals.
FWIW: Breyers claims its milk is sourced from cows that are not treated with artificial growth hormones
All the Great Value branded cartons are labeled "ice cream".
One Gallon of Great Value vanilla ice cream is listed at $7.27.
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