Arctic Zero: 150 Calorie Pints of Ice Cream
Update: I no longer "diet" or count calories or eat shitty light foods. I highly recommend you quit that shit too. If you can afford it, order some Jeni's Ice cream and have half a cup every night as I now do. You can always get more exercise if you're so worried about calories.
Confession: I made this post in order to drum up traffic to my comedy clip.
I'm in the Funniest Person in Austin competition. I was the alternate in my round, so now whoever gets the most Likes on Youtube gets to go on to the semi-finals.
Follow these simple instructions, and you'll be my favorite person for the day:
Step 1: Click on this link
Step 2: Watch it for at least a minute... THIS IS A VITAL STEP
Step 3: Like it (And actually, hopefully, you like it)
Step 4: Repost this post on your Facebook page
Step 2: Watch it for at least a minute... THIS IS A VITAL STEP
Step 3: Like it (And actually, hopefully, you like it)
Step 4: Repost this post on your Facebook page
Teamwork doesn't seem work!!!!!!!!
I don't review products that often since it doesn't seem healthy, but I make exceptions for innovative and awesome foodstuffs. Lactose intolerant-friendly ice cream is also a big deal to me.
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| Vanilla Maple - One of - if not the - best flavors. |
I first found Arctic Zero* in 2010 at a bodega in NYC where it sold for $7 a pint ($6 at Whole Foods). Fortunately, it's a little more widespread now. They should have it at most Whole Foods as well as lots of other yuppie-serving grocery stores. In Boston, Whole Foods charges about $5, but I pick it up at either of our Harvest Co-op locations for $4.19.
This stuff is 150 calories for the entire pint! Not only can you eat a whole pint (as you might well do with regular ice cream anyway), and not feel calorically irresponsible, but the calories aren't really bad calories either! It breaks down to 14 grams of protein, 8 grams of fiber, 20 grams of sugar 4 grams of what I call mystery carbs*, and 0 fat.
And the ingredients aren't fucked up! Take a look at the ingredients for Cookies and Cream, for example:
It is a little fucked up though, which you'll see if you watch the videos on their website, that some people are clearly addicts who are eating two pints a day, which means they have the equivalent financial drain of a medium level smoker. One woman talks about her willingness to cross state lines, and though you know she wanted her video to be put online, you can also tell she's sincere. Then there's the woman who orders it off Amazon. One guy praised it because now he can give up having stupid fruit for dessert - now he can have ice cream again!
Some of the flavors are great and others not so much, so here's a breakdown, in order of worst to best:
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| Strawberry - If you think it looks like medicine, you're onto something. It's like if a pink Starburst were made into a frozen children's cough syrup. It's actually somewhat enjoyable, but you wouldn't choose to get it a second time. |
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| Chocolate Peanut Butter: It tastes like nothing. Cold, creamy-ish nothing. Actually, that's not true. There are notes of that candy you only ever got on Halloween that was like a peanut crunch thing. It ranked somewhere around non-pink Starburst on the Halloween candy hierarchy. |
Mint Chocolate Cookie (picture forthcoming): It's good! I'm not the biggest mint person, but if you're a mint chocolate fan who appreciates the place of diet food in the world, you're sure to love this.
Chocolate: It tastes like a low fat fudge ice pop.
Coffee: coffee's another great flavor for low calorie products because you can just add real coffee without adding any calories. It's pretty freakin' tasty.
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| Cookies and Cream: Awesome! Of course it's not as rich and satisfying and delicious as actual cookies and cream ice cream, but it is really tasty, and it's hard to believe how good it is for you. |
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| Vanilla Maple: It's damn good. I guess it's easy enough to get a pleasing maple flavor in without the calories. I think this one is the best. At least until I try the pumpkin, which will then surely become my favorite. |
Combinations:
-I tried chocolate peanut butter + cookie and cream, but since chocolate peanut butter, again, tastes like nothing, it actually equalled less than the sum of its parts, the CPB watering down the CaC.
-Chocolate + Maple = sucks (different melting points)
-Cookies and Cream and Coffee:
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| Same melting points and flavors combined fine, but actually the combo isn't really better or worse than the sum of its parts. |
-Vanilla Maple and Coffee:
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| Great flavor combo and similar melting speeds = awesome |
They also now have a pumpkin spice flavor. Oh ho ho I can't wait to find this. Are we to wait for the fall for it to be available? Oh sweet torturous anticipation!
And they've added 85 calorie bars to the mix, though that caloric breakdown isn't as magical as the pint for 150 thing. Still, I'm sure I'll try them for curiosity's sake. They come in vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, orange cream, and chocolate coating.
*For some reason, everyone calls this stuff "Arctic Freeze." I did it for a year, but have since corrected myself, if for no other reason than that reviewing it has seared the real name into my head. I would've though it was just me being silly, but the girls who check me out at the grocery store refer to it as "Arctic Freeze" even though I never called it that in front of them. Furthermore, I see the search results that lead people to my blog, and people search for "Arctic Freeze" about 2:1 to "Arctic Zero." This fascinates me.
**Total carbohydrate-fiber-sugar = mystery carbs
**Total carbohydrate-fiber-sugar = mystery carbs
