Ice cream really isn't as bad for you as you think, says nutritionist Ian Marber. And there's no need to feel so guilty about chowing down on a 99 this summer.
In the most smile-inducing piece of news (aside from Ryan Gosling's waxwork unveiling) you'll read this year, ice cream really isn't that bad for you. Hurrah!
In an article for the Telegraphexpert nutritionist, author and co-founder of The Food Doctor Ian Marber explained opting for sorbet over ice cream might be pretty pointless.
Why? It's all in the glycaemic load score. Bear with us.
Marber explains that a 100g portion of plain old vanilla ice cream "serves up 17g of fat, 14g of sugar and 251 calories". Opting for a more adventurous flavour like Belgian chocolate equals 21g of fat, 24g of sugar and 313 calories.
Choose a seemingly healthier sorbet and "the same portion would have delivered 0.5g of fat but 13.5g of sugar and 77 calories".
So far, so confusing. But wait a second. If you opted for vanilla ice cream, the effect of the sugar would have been alleviated by the fat, because "the digestive system is slower to break that down that any other food group".
The process is made simple by glycaemic load scores - the level to which, as Marber explains, food triggers an insulin response.
The higher score the quicker the fat breaks down and the more likely you are to feel hungry afterwards.
According to Marber vanilla ice cream scores around 68 whereas a low fat version with the same amount of sugar comes in at 114 and the sorbet at 85.
In the grand scheme of all things food and diet, regular ice cream isn't as bad for you as you think.
Opt for the ice cream over the sorbet and you'll feel fuller for longer - which will keep your snacking urge at bay.
On that note, why not try your hand at making your own?