We’ve got the scoop on ice cream

By Rebecca Kendall

The coolest course in Canada just passed its 90th birthday. U of G’s Ice Cream Technology short course started in 1914, and students have been scooping up spaces in the classroom ever since. Currently taught by Food Science Prof. Doug Goff, an authority on eating and making ice cream, the seven-day course welcomes students from across Canada and as far away as Mexico, Venezuela, Japan, Italy, France, Jamaica and Barbados. They come to Guelph to learn from Goff’s research on the physical chemistry, formation and structure of dairy products and frozen foods, i.e., how to make the best ice cream.

Here’s the scoop on our favourite summertime treat.

• Vanilla is the most popular ice cream flavour in North America, accounting for more than one-third of all ice cream consumed. Think of all those milkshakes, malts and à la mode desserts!
  
• Canadians eat 9.7 litres of ice cream products each year, including low-fat products, sherbets and frozen yogurt, putting us third in worldwide ice cream production and consumption.
  
• The main ingredients in ice cream are fat, milk solids, sugar, stabilizer, emulsifier and flavouring.
  
• Ice cream is a great nutrition choice because of its high calcium content. It also has lots of vitamins A and D.
  
• Eat your ice cream slowly to avoid “brain freeze” — that 30-second ice cream headache is caused by the dilation of blood vessels in your head. Too much cold ice cream may chill a nerve centre located above the roof of your mouth that overreacts and tries to heat your brain.
  
• Hip and trendy ice cream makers are leaning toward the exotic with new lines of gourmet coffee flavours, liqueur-based brands and flavours with international flair. How about lychee cream and ginger, chocolate orange trifle, blackberry cabernet sorbet, Irish cream or spicy seven-pepper ice cream?
  

For a bigger scoop of ice cream trivia, check out Goff’s dairy education website at www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu.
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