Sunday, May 11, 2014

Arctic zero - a low calorie protein bar disguised as ice cream

The other day I was in the kitchen with two of my roommates, one a zumba-teaching vegetarian, the other a nurse who once dead-lifted me - picture a mouse deer lifting a walrus - and Mousedeer was eating this oddly-named ice cream, Arctic Zero. The other goes, "oh you eat that too?"

If both of these super fit, healthy, hawt girls are into this, I had to check it out.


"There can be miracles... if you believe..."

The first thing I saw was their clever pitch that one tub of Arctic Zero is 150 calories*. But wait, not one serving, ONE PINT. THE WHOLE TUB.

Ok, that's great, but surely it's just 150 empty calories that will do nothing for your bod, right?
Curious, I asked my roommate what it was made of. Concentrated Aspartame?

No!! No artificial sweeteners, except Monkfruit. I googled it, and Monkfruit is another name for Luo han guo, which I see in Chinese medicine halls and markets all the time, which means it does not violate the "Don't eat it if your great grandmother did not recognize it as food" rule.

Working down the ingredients list, the first ingredient is water (great), the second is....

WHEY PROTEIN.

Each serving gives you 3g of protein. If you eat the pint, that's 12g of protein for 150 calories, which is better than a lot of protein bars. WHAT?!



Furthermore, this is fat-free, gluten-free, and "lactose-intolerant friendly" (lactose-intolerant friend confirms eating the entire tub without lactaids and surviving).

Also, it has fiber. What ice cream gives you fiber??? Maybe this ice-cream also fights cancer and contains the tears of angels??

All sounding too good to be true, I finally caved and bought a tub from Safeway.

The first bite was meh - it was way less sweet and fatty than other ice-cream. But after the first few spoonfuls, I quickly adapted and it started tasting great. It was actually creamy, not like a sorbet, with an actual ice-cream-like texture.

I started hungry, and managed to go through 3/4 of the tub before starting to feel full. All that protein and fiber must have been doing its job!

TL;DR:

Pros
- ICE CREAM
- PROTEIN
- Fiber
- Very low calorie
- No artificial sweeteners
- Relatively filling
- Many flavors
- Fat free, gluten free, "friendly" levels of lactose

Cons
- Not as rich or sweet as normal ice cream
- Premium ice cream price ($4.59 at Safeway per pint)


Yeah so it's not exactly Haagen Daz, but hey if it prevents me from eating 1400 cals of sugar and fat when I have an ice-cream craving (and supplies proteins to the guns-in-training), yes please. Will probably be trying more flavors in future!


* There was a report that this may be off by as much as 68%, but that is still only 250 for the whole tub, which is less than a half cup serving of Haagen Daz.

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