We all scream for ice cream, but some brands are worth screaming for more than others.
A Consumer Council study published Monday summarized results from sampling 29 of our favorite ice cream brands, from XTC Gelato to McDonalds to Haagen Dazs. The watchdog group tested sugar levels, fat content and other things that—well—aren’t very good for us.
Here’s what we know.
Sugar levels
Of the 29 samples tested, 19 had sugar levels considered high. According to the city’s Center for Food Safety, food with fewer than 5g of sugar per 100g is considered low-sugar—a standard none of the samples meet.
The one that comes closest is Ten Ren’s green tea ice cream, which contains 12g of sugar.
The worst offenders? XTC Gelato’s chocolate gelato and Magnum Classic, both of which have 22.7g of sugar per 100g.
Fat content
Ten Ren’s green tea ice cream again takes the cake, with the lowest fat content at 6.2g per 100g. Other worthy mentions are Apollo’s mint chocolate ice cream, Godiva’s dark chocolate ice cream and MILK TOP Hokkaido Milk ice cream, all of which have less than 9g of fat per 100g.
Best avoid Marks & Spencer’s Dessert Menu chocolate ice cream. The dessert has a whopping 21.4g of fat per 100g, more than three times of Ten Ren’s offering.
Saturated fat
Sweets House CHA CHA’s matcha deluxe soft serve has the lowest saturated fat content—1.1g per 100g.
The study found that Nestle’s vanilla-flavored Joystick has 14.6g of saturated fat per 100g, the highest of the 29 brands tested.
(Saturated fat is the unhealthy cousin of unsaturated fat, known to raise cholesterol levels and increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases.)
Bacteria levels
Two of the 29 samples tested were found to have excess levels of bacterial count, which the consumer watch dog said could be linked to the way the food products were produced, transported, stored or sold.
The result showed that the Apollo mint chocolate ice cream and KFC milk chocolate cookies sundae contained 58,000 bacteria per gram and 280 coliform organisms per gram respectively, exceeding the legal standard in Hong Kong.
