The Guardian Reports on Vanilla, Cream Content in U.K. Ice Cream

A U.K. television show has aired a report on the ingredients in locally available vanilla ice creams, finding that many products do not contain cream, fresh milk or vanilla. “One in five of the ice-creams examined by Which? contained none of the three ingredients shoppers might reasonably expect to find in vanilla ice-cream,” The Guardian reports. The program reportedly found that ice cream products replaced cream and milk with “partially reconstituted dried skim milk, and in some cases, whey protein” while vanilla “was often replaced with a general ‘flavouring.’” The Guardian notes that the United Kingdom has “no requirements for manufacturers to meet before a product can be called ice-cream.” VICE compared U.K. regulations to those promulgated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, finding that the United States has stricter standards that dictate a product’s minimum levels of dairy fat to earn “ice cream” on its label.