Eat a Pint of Ice Cream!

Face it, there is just something about sitting down and devouring a pint of ice cream. We've all done it. You  go to the store, you think you are being "good" by just buying a "little" container of ice cream, you get it home, suck it down, say to yourself, "Hey, it's only 300 calories". Then you see the "per serving" and realize that a "serving" is 1/4 cup and you just ate 8 servings.

Or worse, you buy "diet" ice cream, and feel good about saving the calories until you see the ingredient panel, and realize that you just consumed a pint of something that contains absolutely no ingredients that you can pronounce, but you know for sure that they didn't come from no cow. Well maybe a mutant soylent green type of cow but not the kind that goes MOOOoooo.

So, you have the following choices:

• Eat 1/4 cup of real ice cream and feel deprived and beat yourself up and go back for more.
• Eat a bunch of nasty tasting chemical laden ice "creme" like dairy-ish product (hey, the chemicals might cause you to grow another head out of your arm pit, but at least you won't be fat!)
• Say screw it and allow yourself a treat of a pint of really good ice cream every now and then, with real sugar and fat in it. This is by far the best option. There is absolutely nothing wrong with treats now and then. 

But today, I discovered there is actually one other option for an ice cream fix. My trainer told me about this new stuff called "Arctic Zero". I tried the Vanilla Maple flavor today - the nutritional information is  amazing:

• Serving Size: A pint (the carton says 1/2 cup, but we all know we aren't going to stop there, so I did the math here to eat the whole thing)
• Calories: 150
• Total Fat: 0
• Sodium: 320 mg
• Total Carbs: 24 g
• Dietary Fiber: 8g
• Sugars: 15 g
• Protein: 14 g

What gets me is the ingredient list: Filtered water, whey protein concentrate, organic cane sugar, chicory root, guar gum, anthem gum, natural flavors, sea salt, organic monk fruit. No Aspartame or even Splenda here!

The consistency is more like ice milk, and it tastes better if you let it melt a bit (although I think all ice cream tastes better melted) but the flavor of the Vanilla Maple is amazing. David tried the Chocolate Peanut butter, and thought it was ok. I didn't love the chocolate peanut butter flavor, but I'm not a huge peanut butter fan either.

The only problem is that it isn't that easy to find. I got mine at the Publix in Vero. The Sebastian Publix doesn't carry it yet (although I really really really really really really really hope they start!) 

Let me know if you try it and what you think. Personally, I love it so much I would marry it it. But that's just me.