Well the weather is feeling a little more stable and I'm feeling more like being outside and actually enjoying summer! Along with summer inevitably comes ice-cream and I've noticed a lot more adverts for dairy-free ice-cream lately which is both good and not so good. It's great for people who don't eat dairy to have an option however, do not make the mistake of thinking dairy-free means healthy. Hmmm...does this sound familiar? All the gluten-free but highly processed foods? Anyway, back to dairy-free. Remember sugar is still dairy-free, fructose-syrup is dairy-free, colourings and flavourings are dairy-free, you get the idea. A well known ice-cream brand has the following ingredients in it's dairy free option: Water, sugar, cocoa components (cocoa butter, cocoa mass), coconut oil, glucose, glucose/fructose syrup, pea protein, flavours, emulsifiers (sunflower lecithin, E471), stabilisers (E412, E410, E407 (contains wheat)), salt, vegetable oil, colour (E160a). A slightly better version: Coconut cream 48% (coconut cream, xanthan gum), water, sugar, glucose (corn), emulsifier (471), vegetable gums (guar, carob, xanthan), natural flavour, salt, vanilla bean seed <1%. You can see it still contains gums, sugar, glucose from corn (likely to be genetically modified unless otherwise stated), flavour (remember natural flavour is not natural in the way you and I would think about it). So what is the alternative? A genuinely simple home-made Berry Ice-cream, no ice-cream maker required, just a good food processor or thermomix. The basic recipe contains just 2 ingredients, frozen banana and frozen berries. You can then get creative if you like by adding cocoa powder, maple syrup, almond butter, coconut cream, cinnamon etc. I would love to hear and share your favourite version so let me know what you come up with. Happy summer ice-cream eating! Carla :)
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