Ice cream theory put to test by savvy shopper: 'This is wild'
An Aussie finance blogger has uncovered the “wild” truth about the contents of certain supermarket ice cream brands.
Queenie Tan, from Sydney, compared two brands of ice cream from her local supermarket as part of an experiment to find out whether the less expensive brand contains more air.
“Did you know that cheap ice cream has more air inside of it than expensive ice cream?” she said in a recent video shared to TikTok.
“Here are two ice creams – one cheap and one expensive,” she explained in the clip.
In the video, Ms Tan compares the contents of a 475ml tub of Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Ice Cream to a 2L tub of Peters Original Vanilla Ice Cream.
The tub of Haagen-Dazs currently retails for $11.50 at Woolworths, while the Peters ice cream tub is available for $5.
Scooping out the contents of each tub, the savvy shopper weighed the ice cream using her digital scales to determine which contains more air.
“This one has a volume of 2L but it weighs 885g,” she explained after weighing the Peters ice cream.
She concluded that the Peters tub contained 44 per cent ice cream and 56 per cent air.
The more expensive Haagen-Dazs ice cream proved the blogger’s theory, as it contained a much higher volume of ice cream.
“The expensive ice cream has 457ml but weighs 391g, which is 86 per cent ice cream and 14 per cent air,” she revealed.
'This is wild': Aussie shoppers weigh in
The jaw-dropping video quickly gained traction on TikTok, amassing over 18,900 views within an hour of sharing on Monday.
“Damn, this is wild,” wrote one viewer.
“Now this is a scientific experiment I can get behind,” commented a second.
Several viewers joked that it was even more reason to eat cheap ice cream – as they were mostly eating air.
“All I heard was if I eat cheap ice cream I’m mostly eating air, so the calories don’t really count,” joked one woman.
“So, you’re saying I get to eat more of the cheap stuff because it’s lighter?” wrote another.
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Why is air an important ingredient in ice cream?
While most shoppers might not be thrilled to discover there is so much air in their ice cream, it’s an important ingredient that is often overlooked.
According to Dream Scoops, the main role of air in ice cream is to make it soft. Without air, ice cream would be solid, meaning it would resemble more of an ice block than a creamy dessert.
Additionally, air contributes to the sensory properties of ice cream. The air makes the ice cream light, fluffy and easy to scoop – when you try to scoop a ball of ice cream you will pass through ice cream, solid fat and air bubbles.
As ice cream uses a lot of air, shoppers will often notice a discrepancy between the volume and the weight of the ice cream.
It’s because of the air needed to make ice cream that 1L of ice cream may only weigh 500g when measured on a scale.
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