Keto Ice Cream?

Does keto ice cream really exist? When you decide to ditch the carbs and go keto there is typically two groups of food that are the most missed. Those are deserts and bread. From day one you look for some magical recipe that tastes just like the real deal but doesn’t destroy your macros for the day or kick you out of ketosis.  Some choose to simply cut these two groups out completely. IF you’re only following a low carb lifestyle for a short time, this can be done fairly easily and is probably the right option.

BUT, if the ketogenic diet has become a way of life for you or you need to diet for an extended period of time cutting desert and bread out completely might be off the table for you. Eating a keto friendly version is much preferable to breaking your diet.

Strict restriction also has another problem associated with it. BINGING. The longer and more restrictive your diet is the more likely you’re going to take a hard left off the keto path and take a detour straight into sugar city. It’s human nature. The more we can’t have something, the more we want it. Their also can be some physiological reasons for the cravings as well which make them all the more difficult to do away with. Eventually, theirs a good chance you’re going to snap and go on a binge.

It will play out something like this. Your day starts normal enough. You have bacon and eggs for breakfast. You wash that down with some coffee mixed with heavy cream and some stevia. For lunch you might have a nice piece of smoked salmon and a salad. But later on in the day you start to hear a little voice in the back of your head. That little voice wants SUGAR. That little voice is a craving and its now moved into your stomach as well. Later on you find yourself staring at a carton of ice cream thinking what would one bite hurt. Fast forward 20 minutes and the whole carton is empty and self loathing is quickly setting in.

Here at Keto Culinary™ we don’t want that horrific scene described above to happen to you. So the next time a craving hits you should know about the full range of tools at your disposal for dealing with it. Enter, Halo Top.

Halo Top – Mint Chip

I specifically chose the Mint Chip flavor to review because I thought that that would be the easiest flavor to do well, under the circumstances. Why do I think this? I have no clue. Regardless, below I will rate it on taste, price and nutrition.

Taste:

Halo Top Mint Chip tastes surprisingly good, considering it’s essentially diet ice cream.  My only real complaint with the flavor was that it wasn’t creamy enough. Halo Top isn’t specifically made for people doing keto so in making it “diet” they also skimped on the fat. Which is a real shame. Because if it was creamy it would be near indistinguishable to real ice cream. While typing this I just had the idea of mixing it in a blender with heavy whipping cream to make a mint keto shake. That might actually be the best use of it. I’m going to try that and report back with the results.

Nutrition:

Halo Top Mint Chip essentially has 6 grams net carbs per serving. Which, isn’t bad at all for desert as long as you’re keeping an eye on your total carb counts for the day. Other than the six net carbs you’re getting 5 grams of protein and 2 grams of fat. It’s not ideal, but it’s not exactly bad either. As a desert replacement you can definitely squeak it into your macro count for the day. It does contain erythritol which is more or less considered benign. In multiple studies it’s been shown to not produce an insulin response in healthy individuals. It does contain a small amount of cane sugar as well. So that’s just something to keep in mind.

Price:

Here in South Carolina a carton runs between $4.50 to $5. So, it is a bit pricier that your average supermarket ice cream, especially considering the amount you get. Whether you can fit it into your budget is up to you but I would like to see a buck knocked off the price. My bet is, you’ll find a way to fit a keto ice cream in there.

All in all, Halo Top can be enjoyed responsibly wile following a keto diet as long as you exercise some self control. It definitely tastes better then some of the other diet ice creams I’ve tried and is worth you giving it a shot when you feel those cravings creeping up. If you want a keto ice cream, give it a try, in moderation.

Interested in other keto snacks? Give our recipe for Keto Nachos a try!