Episode 51: Best and worst ice creams for kids

Episode 51: Best and worst ice creams for kids

It’s officially ice cream season, and today’s episode is all about navigating the frosty aisles with confidence. From vibrant ice blocks to creamy favourites, I’ll guide you through the nutritional minefield of what’s hot—and what’s not—for your kids.

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Links
https://nourishwithkarina.com/feedingbabies
https://nourishwithkarina.com/membership

Highlights:

Introduction(00:00.574)
Ice Cream and Ice Blocks for Healthy Kids (00:28.878)
Ice Creams and Artificial Colours: A Concern for Children (02:50.26)
Ice Blocks: A 100% Fruit-Based Alternative (05:15.166)
Ingredients in Paddle Pops (07:36.706)
Ice Cream for Kids: Natural Flavors and Avoiding Artificial Colors (09:55.618)
Choosing Healthy Ice Cream Ingredients (12:19.054)
Ice Cream Ingredients Comparison (14:34.958)
Regular Product Review and Ingredients (16:53.218)
Managing Kids' Food Choices: A Breakfast Recipe (21:30.026)
Homemade Ice Blocks for Kids (23:51.16)

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

Episode Highlights

Spotting Hidden Additives
Learn how artificial colours and preservatives in ice creams can impact kids’ behaviour and health.
Surprising Ingredient Lists
Find out what’s really in popular ice creams and why "reconstituted dairy" isn’t as wholesome as it sounds.
Healthier Store-Bought Options
Discover my top picks for cleaner, healthier ice cream brands, like Proud & Punch and Buller Frozen Yoghurts.
Homemade Ice Creams Made Easy
Get creative with simple, nutritious recipes, including watermelon mint and berry yoghurt swirl ice blocks.
Helping Kids Choose Healthier Treats
Tips for guiding your children towards better options without the tantrums.

We’ll also chat about the latest trends like plant-based ice creams and how to spot genuinely good-for-you treats amidst the hype.

If you’re ready to cool down with peace of mind, press play now!

Show Notes
Explore more resources and recipes mentioned in today’s episode:

Nourish with Karina – Kids Recipes
Smoothie recipes for homemade ice blocks (Pikachu, Incredible Hulk, and Bananarama) on my website!
Follow me on Instagram for tips and updates on upcoming episodes.

Thanks for listening! Don’t forget to leave a review and share this episode with a fellow mum. 💛

Introduction (00:00.084)
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number 51, best and worst ice creams for kids. Hi there, I'm Karina Savage and with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learned all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast.

Ice Cream and Ice Blocks for Healthy Kids (00:28.878)
Hello. Hello. I hope you're well. Today we are talking about ice creams and ice blocks and anything and everything in between. It's been prompted by my latest segment on TV. We talked about ice blocks, ice creams, homemade ice block recipes, basically how we can allow our children to have healthy treats, healthy ice blocks. Well, not healthy ice blocks. Basically what we do.

Over summer, especially when our kids are hitting us up for ice creams and ice blocks all the time. So what's healthy, what's not, what do we need to look out for? Because I tell you, it is a minefield out there. There are so many ice blocks and ice creams available now. It has seriously exploded. And I mean, you've got your old favorites. You've got your Golden Gay Times and your bubble o'beels and your

Maxi Bonds, which are probably one of my kid's favorites, but then you've also got newer options as well. Some of those are actually healthier, although some of them are the new sugar ones and then they've got the sweeteners. And also you've got your plant-based, which has completely exploded over the last few years, which I think is a great option, especially for those that are lactose intolerant and just need an option where they're not going to get tummy pain or they have...

Dairy allergy and need a dairy free alternative. So I think it's a great thing that we've got more and more plant based options out there as well. There's even vegan magnums, which is brilliant. Lots of good options, but at the end of the day, we also need to check the ingredients list because they can put anything in our icebox and our food. We need to be vigilant with looking for artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and whatnot. So I'm going to be sharing.

a little bit of that today. So if we start off with the ice block, icy, juicy type ice blocks that kids often like, these are good for kids that do have dairy problems or lactose intolerance because they don't have any milk in them. Well, often they won't. The thing you need to watch out for though with these ice blocks is artificial colors. Now inside my Nourishing Kids membership, we talk a lot about

Ice Creams and Artificial Colours: A Concern for Children (02:50.26)
additives, preservatives, artificial colours, and I've given them a list of the actual numbers that you need to watch out for because artificial colours are often in these ice blocks. And I've talked about it on previous episodes, artificial colours are 100 % linked to children's behaviour and attention issues. It can cause poor attention and poor behaviour in children. This is a real concern.

I've also talked about the fact that in other countries, so for example, the UK, they have to actually have warning statements on foods containing these artificial colours, saying that they may impact or may influence a child's behaviour and attention. Nope, not in middle of Australia. We don't have strict food standards or food labelling laws at all. In Australia, anything goes.

We don't have any warnings about these nasty food colors on our ice creams or on any food for our children. We buy these ice creams, but they could potentially be impacting our children in more ways than we know from an attention and behavior perspective. But who knows what impact they have on other things like gut health. It's really important to be mindful with those icy, juicy ice blocks.

Stay away from anything super bright, super bright, red, blue, green. Just be careful with those because often they will have, most of the time they will have artificial colors and yeah, they're just not great for our kids. So be careful of those. What I would go for instead is something that's like a plain lemonade. So you can still get the plain lemonade icy pole and that does not have artificial colors. That is yes, still sugary, but it's fine. Like it's a.

It's a sugary treat and it's still pretty diluted and it's completely fine to have as a treat. I you're not going to throw lots of sugary things down their throat after the ice cream because then it would be too much. But if it was an occasional treat, don't have a problem with the, lemonade icy pole. The other good option is a hundred percent fruit based ice block. And actually Shad, I'm going to actually have to bring the picture up.

Ice Blocks: A 100% Fruit-Based Alternative (05:15.166)
shared a, a picture, well, sorry, I shared a number of pictures of ice blocks on the segment. So real fruit made from a hundred percent juice, basically. So no added preservatives, colors, flavors, anything, or no added sugar either, which is great. So literally a hundred percent juice. And look, you can make these yourself. What you do is you just buy a hundred percent fruit juice.

those little Tetra packs, know, buy the fruit juices in six packs or whatever. Just throw them in the freezer and then cut the side and it will keep the kids going for a while because they've got to get through the whole Tetra pack of frozen juice. But otherwise you can buy them in the supermarket as a hundred percent fruit juice. Another option that's been around for years is the frosty fruit. And that's still a reasonable option. There's no artificial colors in there.

And that's still a reasonably clean ice block option. So just be really mindful of all the colored stuff and try to steer away as much as possible. Anything that's bright red, green, orange, and definitely blue. All of those tend to be poorer options. Stick to the lemonade options or the fruit based options like your frosty fruit, which is still fruit based. Okay. Moving now onto ice blocks that are creamy.

So by this, mean things like your Maxibon, Cornetto, Chocolate Paddle Pot, Barbeleau Bill, all of those types of ice blocks. I just want to draw your attention to the fact that often these will also have artificial colors. So you just need to look out for anything that says colors and the number or the word E and the number, because that means artificial color.

Last time I checked the bubble O'bill had artificial colors. I reckon even the paddle pop had artificial color, which is surprising because it's been around for years and you think it's a good option because it's not too high in sugar, but I'm pretty sure that one also had, I'm just going to check as we speak, paddle pop chocolate, paddle pop. I'm going to bring up the ingredients list and have a look because yeah, it's got lots of colors in it. It's got four. If you read.

Ingredients in Paddle Pops (07:36.706)
the ingredients list. So this is another thing I've got a problem with. They don't just use milk or cream in the product. Well, a lot of them don't. They use dairy ingredients. So it's called reconstituted skim milk or reconstituted buttermilk. And basically in that is made up of milk solids, water, sugar, soluble corn fiber, glucose syrup, vegetable oil, maltodextrin. So it's not even.

just fresh milk or fresh cream. They've like reconstituted this based on milk powder, mixing it with sugar, corn fiber, glucose syrup and vegetable oil. And who knows what the vegetable oil is. So it's just not a simple, clean product. Then they've got cocoa powder, is white chocolatey, emulsifier, vegetable gums. They've got five vegetable gums. Then they've got flavor. Don't say what that is. Salt, gelatin and colors. And they've got five colors.

And then malt extract. it's not good for people with celiac. So it's not as good as we think, just the simple basic paddle pop, not as good as we think. Uh, but there is a new product I was emailed about 20 minutes ago, 19 minutes ago, and it's being brought out by Streets who also make paddle pops. So watch this space because there is a new range coming out. They're to be called Twister.

And they're claiming that they have no artificial colors or flavors. So I'm just about to check out the ingredients list. She's emailing them through to me. I don't think they've hit the supermarket shelves yet, but just keep an eye out for those. Here we go. So she said they have water, fruit, apple puree, lemon juice, blueberry puree, sugar, glucose syrup, fructose maltodextrin, food acids.

stabilizers, flavors, and then the colors are all natural colors, anthocyanin, turmeric, beta-carotene and spirulina concentrate. So that's actually a really positive thing that this new, what's it called? Twister monster. It's literally spelled M-O-N-S-T-A-A-H-H monster. Twister monster, that is going to hit the shelves soon.

Ice Cream for Kids: Natural Flavors and Avoiding Artificial Colors (09:55.618)
So that one might be a better option because it's flavored more naturally. I was even having this conversation with one of the moms inside my membership because she was wanting to put sprinkles on her child's birthday cake. And we were talking about artificial colors and hundreds and thousands have the artificial colors in them. And it was actually really hard to find a brand that used the natural food colors to color them. And I remember we did find one, but it's just a tricky one to try and avoid.

So where possible, try and choose ice creams that don't have the artificial colors, but even with the creamy ones, some of them do. So really be vigilant with reading the ingredients list. And that's the best way of knowing. As part of my role, I like to give you some inside tips and the ice creams that I recommend using for your kids, if they're wanting, you know, come home from school in this hot summer's afternoon and they want an ice cream.

I really liked the Proud and Punch range. They're a very good natural range. The Choc Bananas ones are great because they flavor it with banana. That sweetness comes from the banana and the cocoa. And there's no nasties in that one. Wee Spars are also a good option. They're 30 % fruit. The Mingo Wee Spars, 30 % fruit. So that's a great one. I quite like the Smoos Ice Blocks. They've found where you find jelly and other dairy desserts that don't need to be frozen. I'm in a box.

called Smooth, you can get mango ones, coconut ones, and they're kind of like a little triangle. In my, back in my day, they used to have Snips, which were similar, but Smooth is a healthier version and I'm pretty sure they were mostly dairy free. So that's a great one, Smooth, and they're only about 10 grams of sugar per serve, which is what you want. You don't want anything too high. So we've got the Weasbars, the Pratt & Punch, the Smooth.

What else did I have on sunrise the other day? had one other option that was a good option. Oh yes, it was the Bulla frozen yogurts because they are another option that again is simple. It's yoga, it's fruit, there's a bit of sugar, but there's nothing too artificial or fake. So a much simpler, cleaner treat for the kids to have in the afternoon or in the morning. Depends on when it is, whether it's a weekend or in the middle of school holidays, but you know, it's a better option for them. Okay. Moving on to ice cream.

Choosing Healthy Ice Cream Ingredients (12:19.054)
hubs, the same rules apply. We really want to be looking for ingredients lists that are simple, where you see cream, milk, fruit, and trying to stay away as much as possible from the reconstituted milk products. When I was reading the ingredients list for the paddle pop chocolate, it says dairy ingredients reconstituted. That means it's not the fresh

products, they've reformulated it with milk powder, vegetable oils, thickeners and bits and pieces. So it's more highly refined. The more you refine and process a food, the less nutritious it's going to become. The more you tamper with mother nature, the less nutritious it's going to become. So trying to stick to ingredients where it's literally just fresh milk or cream. So for example, when you look at a product and yes, it's expensive.

But if you can get it on sale, it's a good option. It's the Hug N' Dust. I think it's H-A-G-E-N-D-A-Z. My husband loves this ice cream. I have to say my family love ice cream, especially my husband and my kids. I tend to be more dairy free, but the rest of my family love ice cream. And I should have started this podcast by saying that there have been times, no lie, where there has been five ice cream tubs in my freezer.

It is ridiculous and it takes up way too much room, but you know, hug and dust will be on staff. So they'll each get their own little tub and write their name on it. Two kids and my husband, although I don't think my husband's got his name on it cause he probably eats the whole tub in one go. But my kids have their name on it cause my son will smash it a lot more quickly than my daughter. My daughter would tend to snack on it over a lot longer.

And then we'll already have a few tubs in there for other things. If your family has lots of ice cream in the freezer, it just takes up too much room. It means I can't freeze other foods, which is really frustrating. Back to the hug and dust. The hug and dust is a good option because the ingredients list is very short. It's cream, sugar, chocolate. Like it's quite short. I quite actually like the Buller range as well because Buller's simple. But then I was looking at the Peters.

Ice Cream Ingredients Comparison (14:34.958)
It's one of those ones where it's all reconstituted again. So I was quite impressed by the Buller. But then if we go Peters and Apollotans, funny they make connoisseurs on their website. Water, dairy ingredients. It's got reconstituted skim milk, milk solids, sugar, glucose syrup, vegetable oil and or cream slash butter, maltodextrin, cocoa solids, vegetable, origin, emulsifiers.

And then they've got a color as well. And that's because it's the Napolitana. So not as clean as some of the other options. wonder what the Twin Pole looks like. The Twin Pole reconstituted their ingredients again, and it doesn't have a color, which is good. It's got the cocoa solids. It's got vegetable origin emulsified. So again, it's not as simple and clean as some other ice creams, but at least it doesn't have.

artificial colors, which is a good thing. The other one I wanted to talk about from a good perspective was the Bulla. If you buy Bulla ice cream, and I must say, Connoisseur is probably good as well. I'll have a look at that in a sec. The Bulla ice cream is a much cleaner option. The first ingredient is fresh milk. None of this reconstituted stuff. It's fresh milk, then sugar, then fresh cream. That's a cleaner option.

And the colors, interestingly, are natural, like a Kermin and beta-carotene to make it vanilla, I guess, which seems a bit weird, but it's a cleaner option. No artificial colors and preservatives. So it's a much better option. And I'm sure if I Google connoisseur, this is what my family quite like, often we'll find these tubs in my freezer. Let's do the cookies and cream because that's actually one that's usually in my freezer.

Let's have a look at that one. tell you, ice creams is an absolute minefield. Hmm. Not really getting far with that ingredient list. I tell you, if you ever want to look for ingredients list for things, think Woolworths is usually a better website to look things up for. Sometimes you just don't get what you're looking for. So I'm going to have to go to the actual website to find out what's going on with their ice cream. It's good just to have a look and look.

Regular Product Review and Ingredients (16:53.218)
You only have to look at a product every couple of months or every six months to make sure that nothing's changed too much because it's just good to know what you're putting in your body and your kids' bodies, especially when it's a regular thing, even if it's once or twice a week. Now let me find these cookies and cream. feel like they've changed their, thank goodness me, they've got a jam doughnut ice cream. Wow. That looks amazing. Baked chocolate.

Chip cookie, classic vanilla. there it is, cookies and cream. Okay. So let's look at that ingredients list now. Dairy ingredients, skim milk concentrate, cream, which is good, 22%, water, glucose syrup, sugar, wheat flour, vegetable oil, coco solids, high fructose syrup. So anyone that's got fructose in time is be warned. Invert sugar, wheat starch, vegetable, origin, emulsifiers, flavors, minerals, salts. They've got.

Colour 160B. Actually, one of my members asked me about this the other day. I reckon this is the one that's got the natto. So this is a natural food colour and it's basically the bottom line is unless your child reacts, you know, has an allergic type and they get itching, sneezing, rashes, or they've got significant beten- betention, behaviour and attention issues.

Then I wouldn't worry about 160B. It's a natural orange yellow color made from the seed coat of the tropical annatto tree. So it's a natural food color, but sometimes kids react. The cookies and cream connoisseur, which I think would probably be one of people's favorites, seems to be relatively clean. It doesn't have any of those artificial colors or flavors apart from that 160B. And it actually has some real.

dairy in it, which is kind of pleasing. It's scary. It's so sad that we actually have to look for real dairy ingredients in ice cream. I'll never forget seeing that once. So when I pulled up to drive through, maybe it was KFC. And you know, someone told me what that stands for, Kids Fattening Center. I'll probably get sued for that. No, it wasn't done by me. No, it wasn't said by me. It was said by someone else. I was just repeating someone else's.

Understanding the Impact of Dairy-Free Ice Creams (19:16.276)
explanation for what KFC stands for. But anyway, I pulled up to KFC and to their credit, they were advertising the fact that they put real dairy in their ice creams. And I was like, wow, that's really scary because that means that the other food chains have ice creams that don't actually have any dairy in them. Some don't. This just made up of highly processed, refined ingredients are put together, somehow resemble an ice cream with enough sugar and fat in it that makes it taste good.

These food companies are geniuses at making food highly delicious and addictive. It hits our senses in our brain, in our hypothalamus, and it actually trains it to become addicted to these foods. So it's very scary, makes the food companies lots of money and makes us very unhealthy.

And our kids very unhealthy. Be warned with those things that don't actually have dairy in them. Although they may have a tiny bit of dairy, they're highly, highly processed. So it's better to stick to an ice cream from the supermarket where you can read the ingredients list and keep it as simple as possible as the bottom line with the ingredients list. Your plain vanilla, your plain chocolate are your best bet. But even if you are going for like a cookies and cream or something like that, yeah, your connoisseur is good. Probably your Buller might be good as well. We're going to have time to go into all of the different.

you know, brands and ingredients today, but have a look, have a look at the different brands and you'll be surprised. You can always compare the sugars per hundred meals. That's a nice way to compare products. And if you're worried about weight and calories, you can compare the energy per hundred meals. Always put it in a bowl, take it to the couch. Don't take the tub to the couch because you're much more likely to consume double or triple if you're sitting there with the tub on your lap.

Okay. The final thing I wanted to talk about was homemade icebox and ice creams, because they are a brilliant way of creating a healthier option for your child. The older they get, the more pushback you're gonna get. they're like, I don't want that. I want the Maxi Bonner. I want the cookies and cream. And you're like, no, just have a smooth or just have a hundred percent fruit juice ice cream. My son was like that the other day. I've got a whole freezer full. Cause you know, we, bought ice creams and we had lots of ice creams.

Managing Kids' Food Choices: A Breakfast Recipe (21:30.026)
in preparation for this segment I did on Sunrise, we've got all these frosty fruits and yogurt, ice blocks and whatnot. And he's like, I don't want that. I want like the vanilla and the chocolate. He's like, he wants that junk, not the junky stuff, but the more creamy stuff. So, you know, as best we try to negotiate and guide our kids to healthier choices, the older they get, the harder it becomes. And I'm like, no.

I want the Maxibon, I don't want that. I don't want that healthier option. I don't want the pound punch. So it becomes harder and you need to be confident to stand to ground and say, well, no, it's either that or nothing. And trying to explain to them why, why you're saying that's a better option, why that is a better option than like a Maxibon. So explaining why, especially in children like over 10 or 12, where you can have a more rational conversation with them and explain to them about the health differences. You know, that may help.

dissuade them, but at the same time, not having those junkie options at home and only having the other options means that they, they only choose, well, they can only choose those options or a homemade option, which is what I was about to say. The other day I shared on Sunrise the two options. I had a watermelon mint one. So literally I pureed up watermelon and blended it with a little bit of mint and it was delicious. Like a minty, refreshing.

frozen watermelon. The other one was simply half vanilla yogurt. And I use the organic 5am vanilla yogurt, cause I think that's a good one. It's got lower sugar than some of the other products, but you can use whichever vanilla yogurt you want. You can use a coconut based yogurt as well. That would be delicious. You blend it half yogurt, half frozen mixed berries, or you could use banana or you could use, you know, any other fruit that you wish.

You don't have to blend up the berries. You could put the berries in the vanilla yogurt as it is. You blob the vanilla yogurt into the mold and then poke some raspberries and blueberries. That would be very colorful. Or you can blend up, mean, the sky's the limit. You could blend up the yogurt and the berry mix and then put a little bit of plain yogurt, like the plain white vanilla yogurt with it and swirl it. So you kind of have this berry white swirl pattern. That's if you're really good at doing rice cream.

Homemade Ice Blocks for Kids (23:51.16)
patterns in moulds. I don't think I'm that capable. Yeah, I probably need to practice. I probably could, probably underselling myself there. But who knows? I don't know. I was going to try it the other day for TV and then I was like, I wonder if it tears out bad. And I'm like, no, they'll stick to the pureed, like, so they work. They came out a beautiful, like pinky purple colour, but I was like, that was my one chance to do it the night before they had to freeze overnight. And then the next morning I had to jump in the car and get to the seven studios. And I'm like, I don't have time if these don't work out. They look terrible.

So if you can make it look pretty though, it doesn't need to look pretty. Look, it just needs to taste good and be an icy treat for the kids, right? They can have a bit of fun. If you'd make a pretty looking homemade ass block, take a photo and send it to me on the gram or send it to me. You know, my email, I'd love to know. I'd love to see how yours looks because I'm guessing you just bought blobs of the pureed strawberry yogurt mix and the blobs of the white yogurt and then kind of just with a skewer or a

knife just sort of gently mix the two together to make them swirly, right? I'll probably have to Google this. It would be all over Google. So I'm sure there's YouTube videos on this, but anyway, you can just make it plain or swirly or chuck some freaking chunks of kiwi fruit, whatever floats your boat. The bottom line is, you know, what is in this product. You know that it's a healthy option for your kids.

The other thing you could do is use leftover smoothies that they haven't drunk because I've rushed after school and throw that into an ice cream mold and use that for an afternoon school snack. The sky's the limit. Options are endless. I've got some good smoothie recipes actually on my website, nourishwithKarina.com. Head to the kids recipe section and you'll see three that we used for Sunrise, the Pikachu, the Incredible Hulk and the Banana Rama. And they're all three really good recipes that you can freeze as homemade icebox as well. So.

There's some tips for homemade ice blocks. As I said, if you make them, take a photo and send it to me. I'd love to see them. And I reckon we will leave it there for today. I hope that's been a nice little insight into the nutritional differences of ice creams. Let me know what you think. And please leave me a review. I would love you to leave me a review. Leave me a rating. We'll get this out to more parents.

and I will chat to you very soon. Have a great week. Bye for now.