The majority of supermarket ice creams are ultra-processed products, full of sugar and risky additives.
Ice creams and sorbets seem to be the only sweets capable of refreshing us when it’s hot. Nutritionists also validate their consumption. But as delicious as they are, some ice creams sold in supermarkets turn out to be “ultra-processed” displaying endless lists of ingredients and catastrophic nutritional profiles. The magazine 60 million consumers reveals in a survey the worst ice creams in the supermarket.
The organization analyzed more than 70 references. By evaluating the length of the recipes, the sugar and fat contents and even the number of additives, he was able to assign scores and a ranking. Among the ice creams that contain the most ingredients, we find the Magnum Classic© stick which displays a record of “33 ingredients” in total. For this family of ice cream sticks, the association specifies that “the grades are generally bad” and fall “below ten” as soon as there is a white chocolate topping. As for the vanilla-strawberry cones, no products “does not reach the average”. It is here the Thiriet© brand which holds the absolute record of the study with “11 additives” for 33 ingredients in total. These chemical substances (emulsifiers, stabilizers) are added to “facilitate the holding of ice cream throughout its production” and replace noble materials with air.
According to the association, the worst ice creams in the supermarket in terms of nutrition are tied for Kinder© and Raffaello© ice creams. These two references obtain “lowest scores in our test” and are positioned at the bottom of the general ranking. Sugar represents “up to a third of the weight” of the product. The impact on the body is heavy: consuming a single portion leads to absorbing between “45 to 60% of recommended sugar intake” for a whole day. For health, this saturation of sugars and fats causes violent peaks of insulin which fatigue the pancreas, while ultimately promoting weight gain, the appearance of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Other brands are in the red zone of the ranking, like vanilla sticks where no brand “doesn’t get the average” because of a widespread Nutri-Score E. Red fruit cones also see their ratings plummet due to “high sugar content”in particular the Extreme ice cream from Nestlé© which conceals “12 sweet ingredients”. Beyond sugar, the toxicity of additives is worrying. The survey recalls that mono and diglycerides of fatty acids (E471), present everywhere, are associated with “increased risk of cancer”. Likewise, carrageenans (E407), used in 14 products including Magnum Classic©, are “pinned to increase the risk of breast cancer”while an Inserm study links food coloring to diabetes.
The brands with “best grades” according to 60 million consumers, they are all in the category of red fruit sorbet sticks. Picard©, Carrefour© or Adélie© products from Intermarché stand out at the top of the ranking due to a very sober composition, counting only “three to four ingredients” and without any additives. The choice of excellence goes to Naïce© sorbet from Biocoop: with its “60% fruit puree” and its only natural additive, it demonstrates that a healthy alternative remains possible in the supermarket.
