Only the Best

by Chewy

You’ve gone to the grocery store, stuck religiously to your list, brought the coupons you meticulously cut out and avoided all the stores padded for profit items. Much to your surprise, there is a little left over for a treat. Now comes the hard part, what to spend it on. None of us want to buy that item with the exceptionally yummy photo on the packaging, only to get it home, open it up and discover you bought a mutant facsimile that leaves you disappointed and under-satisfied. Thankfully, we have Consumer Reports to aid us in obtaining our “just desserts” .

In July’s issue, they have rated the best frozen treats, and it’s none too early as some of us have been scouting out frozen treats since March! They broke the article down into three sections, taste, nutrition and bottom line. There were a few surprises and some “of course, what else” responses.

Take, for example, the strawberry fruit bars. Whole foods 365 Everyday Value placed an Excellent, the only one to do so. It has a few more calories then the others on the list, but isn’t that where the great flavor is? Actually contains large chunks of fruit! Runners up in the Very Good column included Dryer’s/Edy’s, Whole Fruit and Blue Bell. Coming in third under Good was Weight Watchers and Dole.

When it comes to Ice Cream Bars (dark chocolate over vanilla ice cream) there were no real shockers here. Haagen-Dazs’ and Dove’s strong dairy/vanilla taste and rich chocolate coating, raises them to Excellent status. Although the coating was painted slightly chalky, Julie’s Organic ranked Very Good. Klondike, Magnum and Good Humor ( flavor described as waxy, artificial vanilla, and hint of wooden stick….still if this is your fancy, who am I to judge) arrived at Good.

Ice Cream Sandwiches (vanilla ice cream inside chocolate wafers) was a tough category, no one ranked Excellent. The top of this class, Very Good, goes to Walgreens Old Fashioned (still supporting my jaw over this one). I would have never sought out this brand, but with this knowledge I will definitely put it on the “list”. Trailing behind under Good, we find Klondike, Great Value (Walmart), Blue Bunny, Weight Watchers, Klondike 100 calorie and Skinny Cow.

When it comes to nutrition, no real stunners to consider. Fruit is lower in fat and calories, the dairy items have comparable calories to each other and the “diet” entries didn’t necessarily have fewer calories.

There is a small blurb for non-dairy (think soy, artificial flavoring, corn syrup). Delicious Dairy free Vanilla minis and Tofutti dairy Free Cuties Vanilla sandwiches were summed up tersely as, artificial vanilla flavor, soft and sticky wafers, stale and NOT delicious. This is why I prefer to make my own non-dairy ice cream.

The bottom line seemed a bit simplistic but sensible: choose the ones with an excellent rating.

With this information in hand, I hope it helps to make your summer a little sweeter!