Ice Cream and Frozen Yogurt
Its 95 degrees in the shade and you need ice cream now. But not just any ice cream will do. You’re thinking a 4-oz scoop of Baskin-Robbins Baseball Nut ice cream. That’ll hit it out of the park, with 270 calories and 14 grams of fat.
“You have to pick nonfat or low-fat yogurt to get any kind of decent calorie savings over ice cream,” Switch to a 4-oz scoop of vanilla nonfat yogurt – though probably not as much fun – for 150 calories with 0 grams fat. Another option: “Try a fruit-flavored frozen treat,” A fruit-flavored treat on a stick has about 60 calories.
If you simply must have real ice cream, turn to the more virtuous – but still tasty – varieties, says Elaine Magee, RD, MPH, a nutrition expert for WebMD. “The good news is that you can now find almost any flavor you might desire in a low-fat version. And the better news: Many of these ‘light’ ice cream brands are great-tasting.”
Some of the newer “slow-churned” ice creams are particularly tasty, she says, without an overdose of fat. Dreyer’s and other companies claim their new churning technologies make ice cream taste like it has more fat than it does. The Double Fudge Brownie by Dreyer’s (called Edy’s on the East Coast) has 120 calories and 4 grams of fat per 1/2 cup serving, Magee says.
For ice cream shoppers, read the labels, since not all “light” varieties are created equal. Magee suggests going by this guideline: a 1/2 cup serving should have no more than 4 grams of fat, 120 calories, and 15 grams of sugar.
