If you’ve ever noticed your store-bought ice cream sandwich has a freakish ability to withstand heat without melting, you’re not alone. Show
One Australian woman just made headlines after posting about an ice cream sandwich that appeared mostly unmelted despite being left outside in nearly 80-degree heat for an entire weekend, Time reports. On Monday, Mary Salter of New South Wales shared a photo of half of an ice cream sandwich from the Australian grocery chain Coles. She said her grandson threw the treat on the lawn on Friday after it broke into two pieces, and amazingly, the ice cream kept its shape. “Now I am a little concerned just WHAT is in this ‘treat,’” she wrote on Coles’ Facebook page, adding, “I am interested in your reply Coles!!”  Facebook/Mary Salter Salter’s experience follows a viral story from 2014, when a Cincinnati mom discovered Walmart’s ice cream sandwiches don’t seem to melt, either. According to Coles, added thickeners are the reason its sandwich maintained a structured appearance. “Our ice cream sandwiches make use of very simple, commonly-used food techniques that help slow the melting process,” a spokesperson told HuffPost. ”...This technique includes adding thickener to the cream, creating a honeycomb-like structure which helps to slow the melting process. When the product starts to melt and liquid evaporates, you are left with what appears as foam.” Indeed, some companies use gums and other ingredients like mono- and diglycerides in their ice cream to slow melting, according to a 2014 video from Consumer Reports. Known as thickeners or stabilizers and emulsifiers, ingredients like these can also help prevent ice crystals from forming on treats while they’re in the freezer. The result is ice cream with a foamy, gummy feel instead of a “clean” melt on the tongue, plus an aversion to melting overall. See how five well-known U.S. brands of ice cream sandwiches fared in 100-degree heat when tested by Consumer Reports: An ice cream’s water and cream levels may also alter its melt rate: More cream, aka fat, typically causes ice cream to melt more quickly, the Washington Post reported in 2009. But additives like stabilizers and emulsifiers are much more important in helping ice cream keep its shape on hot days, said David Everett, director of the Dairy Innovation Institute at California Polytechnic State University. Some companies that make less expensive or lower fat ice creams tend to whip more air into their products to cut costs. Stabilizers help keep this air within the ice cream structure, building “a network of molecules that keep the ice cream intact,” Everett said. Emulsifiers, meanwhile, help fat molecules clump together, “thus maintaining the air cells and causing the ice cream to maintain some of its shape when it melts,” he added. This could explain why ice creams that have higher fat content and lots of air keep their shape. It also explains how your ice cream sandwich can technically melt, but not “look melted” at all. Ick. Walmart vaguely cited the cream content of its ice cream sandwiches when it responded to headlines in 2014, but shortly explained its sandwiches contain stabilizers, too. Ingredients for Walmart’s ice cream sandwiches include mono- and diglycerides, guar gum, carob bean gum and cellulose gum, which help explain its ability to hold shape. Coles doesn’t list its sandwiches’ ingredients online, and didn’t respond to an inquiry from HuffPost. Other processed foods also contain stabilizers and emulsifiers, which the Food and Drug Administration approves for use as additives, Consumer Reports points out. If you prefer ice cream without these additional ingredients, try making your own instead. Before You GoCreative Ice Cream Sandwiches Shutterstock It sounds like something that's a complete urban legend, but Snopes says it's at least partly true that Walmart's Great Value Ice Cream Sandwiches don't melt in the sun. The claim started in 2014, and the
video proof you may have seen circulating is legit. It's actually pretty neat stuff, so let's look at just why Walmart's ice cream sandwiches don't melt in the sun — not as fast as your ice cream cone, at least — and why that's not such a big deal after all. The first logical question is, "What's in this ice cream that's making it seemingly
heat-proof?" Fortunately, Walmart has a list of the ingredients in their Great Value Vanilla Flavored Ice Cream Sandwiches, which are the brand mentioned in the original viral claims. It's a long enough list, but the first is the most important to our purposes. In their ice cream, they say, is milk, cream, buttermilk, sugar, whey, corn syrup, one percent or less of
mono- and diglycerides, vanilla extract, guar gum, calcium sulfate, carob bean gum, cellulose gum, carrageenan, artificial flavor, and annatto for color. Sure, there are some artificial-sounding things in there, but they're all names you recognize. Nothing too bad or unexpected, right?
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Clearly, there's something that must make the ice cream in these ice cream sandwiches different than the ice cream you get on your favorite cone, and there is. There actually has to be, because if you tried to make an ice cream sandwich out of your favorite Ben & Jerry's flavor, it wouldn't work. It would ooze everywhere as soon as you tried to bite into it, so in order to get the
sandwich version to hold its shape the ice cream has to be thicker. According to Geek.com, that's where some of those additives come in. Both guar gum and calcium sulfate are crucial to the creation, and while guar gum acts as an emulsifier to stabilize the whole thawing process, calcium sulfate absorbs moisture and helps it retain its shape. All those other "gum" ingredients are also thickening agents, but those two are the biggest contributors to what makes this ice cream
different from other kinds. That's not all, though.
Shutterstock There's yet another factor playing a part in the ability of these ice cream sandwiches to seemingly go against the laws of nature, and that's fat content. According to Virginia Tech professor and food chemist Sean O'Keefe (via the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), it's not just temperature that determines how fast ice cream melts, it's fat, too. An ice cream that's made with less fat is actually going to melt slower, because it needs to absorb more heat before the melting reaction can take place. It's food science!
Shutterstock All this talk of stabilizers and fat content sounds like one of the least healthy things you've ever eaten, but all ice cream depends on a bit of chemistry to work. Since it's made from sugar and fat, other additives are needed to keep those
ingredients from separating. In your standard gallon of ice cream, the American Chemical Society says lecithin is a common emulsifier, used to turn ice cream from a soupy mess into scoopable deliciousness. And if you want some extra stability to your ice cream, they also talk about some other ingredients that should sound familiar by
now: guar gum and carrageenan, the stuff that's in our strange ice cream sandwiches. They're pretty common! All those ingredients are acting together to actually change the freezing point of ice cream, and different amounts of ingredients ultimately mean that ice cream isn't going to behave quite like you were taught to expect in science class.
Shutterstock Of all the chemical ingredients listed in the ice cream sandwich, guar gum is the one that might have given you some pause. That's probably because in the 1980s, guar gum was used in the manufacture of diet pills, an idea that went terribly sideways. LiveScience says the pills were banned by the FDA because too much guar gum could have some nasty side effects, like swelling of the esophagus. But, don't fret! They also say in small amounts, guar gum is safe and it's even been found to have some serious benefits. Guar gum — which is made from guar beans like the ones pictured — has been found to help ease symptoms for those suffering from irritable bowel and Crohn's disease, as it gels in the intestine to help keep things moving along. It's also been shown to help lower bad cholesterol, and if you ask us, that's a legitimate reason to add ice cream sandwiches to your diet plan! It's not just Walmart ice cream sandwiches that don't melt
Shutterstock Just in case you're still leery about Walmart's ice cream sandwiches, you should know they're not the only ones that use stabilizers to help keep their ice cream thick, creamy, and weirdly melt-proof. WCPO Cincinnati did a melt test to compare ice creams, and the test confirmed what we now know. While a cup of Haagen Dazs ice cream melted pretty quickly, a Klondike Bar — which contained some of the same stabilizers as Walmart's ice cream sandwiches — also melted more slowly than expected. In 2017, we found out slow-melting ice cream sandwiches are actually a global phenomenon when one Australian grandmother posted about her grandson's non-melting ice cream sandwich. The Coles brand sandwich stood up to the heat of the Australian sun (via News.com.au), and while she was quick to jump to the conclusion there was something mysterious about her ice cream sandwich, Coles confirmed it was simply the same bit of food magic found in Walmart ice cream sandwiches — half the world away. Should you worry?
Shutterstock This is what you really want to know: should you worry? Absolutely not, says Geek.com. There are no suspicious ingredients or dodgy surprises hiding in your favorite ice cream sandwich, and there's no reason to avoid buying them. It's just a matter of some basic food science and a bit of chemistry, and once you know how it works, it's not weird at all! That's fortunate, because ice cream sandwiches are delicious. Can you freeze ice cream sandwiches?If you want to save some for later, wrap individual sandwiches tightly in plastic wrap, then store the individual sammies in a zip-top bag or airtight container. They'll keep for up to three months in the freezer.
How do you keep ice cream sandwiches from melting?Keep your cooler full. Air pockets will cause your ice to melt more quickly, so make sure to eliminate as many open pockets of air as possible. There's always room to add more ice cream sandwiches!
Why do ice cream sandwiches get soggy?Answer: The migration of moisture into an unprotected, low moisture, hard baked item, like a cone or a sandwich wafer, from the unfrozen portion of ice cream with it comes into contact is unavoidable.
Why do Walmart ice cream sandwiches don't melt?According to O'Keefe, the amount of fat in ice cream helps determine how fast it melts. The less fat, and more water in ice cream, the slower it melts. The Walmart ice cream also contains a number of ingredients used as stabilizers to help the ice cream keep its shape. They include guar gum and cellulose gum.
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Why do ice cream sandwiches not freeze?
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