Why Some Ice Cream Bars Don't Melt

They've got too much gum and syrup
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 27, 2014 9:13 AM CDT
Why Some Ice Cream Bars Don't Melt
   (Shutterstock)

Don’t you hate it when you get distracted after opening an ice cream sandwich and it melts? On the flip side, don’t you hate it when it … doesn’t melt? An Ohio mom tells Cincinnati's WCPO that she got a little alarmed upon discovering that her son's Walmart Great Value sandwich bar was still mostly intact after being left on the patio for 12 hours on an 80-degree day. Christie Watson conducted a second test with similar results, and the TV station then confirmed it by comparing the Walmart brand against Haagen-Dazs and Klondike. Melt-off results showed that the other two brands liquefied at rates you’d expect after 30 minutes in the sun—read: fairly quickly—while the Walmart sandwich melted only a wee bit.

So what gives? It's because of "certain specific ingredients that, when taken together, have the net effect of creating un-cream," writes CA Pinkham at Jezebel's Kitchenette. Consider that Haagen-Dazs ingredients' list consists of just cream, milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. It melts fast. But the Walmart brand has a much bigger list of ingredients, including "stabilizers" such as corn syrup, guar gum, and cellulose gum that slow down melting, explains Fox News. All are FDA-approved, and they generally keep the price of store-brand bars relatively low—even if the resulting "ice cream" doesn't quite behave the way you'd expect. (Another childhood staple, McDonald’s Happy Meals, also have a long shelf life.)

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