Multifunctional Ice Cream - A Recipe For Success?

I have tried countless ice cream recipes in my time but the 'recipe' I read about today was something I've never encountered before - multifunctional ice cream.

Apparently, food scientists from the University of Missouri have been busy trying to create a healthier ice cream by adding four key ingredients: antioxidants, dietary fibre, prebiotics and probiotics. It all sounds fine in theory but apparently each of these 4 ingredients has its own impact on the texture and/or taste of the ice cream.

Given that the texture and taste of ice cream lies at the very heart of what makes ice cream so appealing (in my view anyway!), it looks like the scientists have quite a challenge on their hands.

Hats off to them for trying to make us all that little bit healthier of course but I still think that ice cream is like many things in life - a little of what you fancy now and then does you good. So for now I'll stick to my occasional rich homemade ice cream full of taste and texture :)

Food & Health - Chocolate to Green Tea

When I work through a new ice cream recipe I'm always interested to look beyond the end result of the homemade ice cream itself and read up on the properties of the ingredients. For example, when I made a honey ice cream I read about the history of honey and was fascintate to read about its health properties.

The same applied when I made chocolate ice cream and green tea ice cream. I read that chocolate is a great mood enhancer because it contains phenylethylamine; indeed two of the oldest women that ever lived (ages 119 and 122) admitted to being big eaters of chocolate all their lives. Could there be something in chocolate that benefits women's health? There's a lot of scientific research being done into chocolate and many other everyday foods; unravelling their mysteries will take time but may eventually be worth it.

Until then, perhaps women who like chocolate (like me!) will continue to seek more conventional women's health products to help cope with the stresses of modern living - from vitamins to detox remedies and more. Then there's your children's health to think about - vitamins for kids are well worth reading up on in order to ensure they get a good balanced diet - with a little chocolate thrown in for good measure of course!