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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.

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.