No Sugar Added: The Not
The no sugar added varieties of ice cream are sweetened with sugar substitutes such as sugar alcohols and sucralose, better known as Splenda. However, this doesnt make them sugar-free. Most no sugar added varieties are made using milk, which contains lactose a naturally occurring sugar. In addition, some sugar substitutes contribute carbohydrates and raise blood sugar, though not as dramatically as table sugar. Whats more, some people find the taste of ice cream sweetened with sugar substitutes unpalatable.
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Best And Worst Halo Top Dairy
The following dairy-free flavors are ranked from best to worst, based on how well they fit into the keto diet.
- Peanut Butter Cup: 80 calories, 3 grams protein, 4 grams fat, 10 grams of net carbs
- Chocolate: 70 calories, 3 grams protein, 3 grams fat, 10 grams of net carbs
- Birthday Cake: 70 calories, 3 grams protein, 3 grams fat, 10 grams of net carbs
- Vanilla Maple: 70 calories, 3 grams protein, 2.5 grams fat, 10 grams of net carbs
- Toasted Coconut: 80 calories, 3 grams protein, 4 grams fat, 11 grams of net carbs
- Oatmeal Cookie: 70 calories, 3 grams protein, 3 grams fat, 11 grams of net carbs
- Candy Bar: 90 calories, 3 grams protein, 4.5 grams fat, 12 grams of net carbs
- Chocolate Hazelnut: 80 calories, 3 grams protein, 4 grams fat, 12 grams of net carbs
- Caramel Macchiato: 80 calories, 3 grams protein, 3 grams fat, 12 grams of net carbs
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough*: 90 calories, 3 grams protein, 4 grams fat, 14 grams of net carbs
Tips For Making The Best Homemade Keto Ice Cream
- use coconut cream without any added gums
- be sure to use cold heavy cream and beat until it reaches stiff peaks
- powdered sweetener such as monk fruit blends in much easier resulting in a creamier consistency
- add some vodka if possible to ensure the low carb ice cream doesnt develop hard crystals & is creamy smooth
- give the no churn ice cream a good stir every 30 minutes so it gets super creamy & tastes just as decadent as regular ice cream
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The Most Nutritious Halo Top Flavors
Halo Top has also significantly expanded its product line over the years and now offers dairy popsicles with 100 calories or less, nondairy options made with coconut milk , and a Keto Series featuring keto-friendly pints and popsicles with 5 to 10 grams of net carbs per pint. Plus, it released three fruit sorbet options earlier this year.
In total, Halo Top currently offers 21 flavors of ice cream, four flavors of nondairy ice cream, three fruit sorbets, and 10 Keto pints, including classics like Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla Bean, as well as more interesting flavors like Chocolate Cheesecake and Vanilla Caramel Milkshake.
The pints of ice cream are its mainstay, and if you go for one, Mass suggests sticking with flavors that have fewer than 300 calories per pint, such as Strawberry, Vanilla Bean, Oatmeal Cookie, and Pistachio. Not only are they low in calories, but they are simpler and contain shorter ingredients lists than the higher-calorie counterparts, she says. Most of the other dairy and nondairy offerings are under 400 calories, but some of the Keto pints have more than 525 calories per pint, which is on par with what youd find in traditional ice cream.
Here are Halo Tops flavors with fewer than 300 calories per pint:
- Vanilla Bean: 290 calories
- Strawberry Sorbet: 260 calories
How To Make Keto Ice Cream
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An Insurgent Ice Cream Company Pitches 240 Calories A Pint And One
Since this is a story about Halo Top, its all but mandatory to open with an anecdote about the moment I first became aware of the magical ice cream that doesnt make you fat.
For me, that might have been when a friend started eating a pint nightly in the months leading up to her weddingso she could fit into her dress. Or when a gym-rat acquaintance began posting videos of himself wolfing down a whole pint after every workout. Or the time I tried my first spoonfulchocolate, the best flavor, of coursein which, armed with the low expectations that accompany a 240-calorie dessert, I thought to myself, this stuff is actually pretty good.
Maybe youve heard of Halo Top? Seen the barren freezer section at Whole Foods scoured clean of every flavor ? Witnessed the barrage of social media posts featuring influencers buried in bathtubs of low-calorie ice cream á la Roger Daltrey?
Consider this. Back in April, Halo Top debuted seven of its flavors in Wal-Mart stores across the country. Within a month, according to sales figures provided by the company, their products accounted for the seven top-selling SKUs in the entire ice cream category. That meant that, at one of the nations largest retail chains, the least sold flavor of Halo Top outsold the best-selling flavor of every other brand. How did a low-calorie dessert invented by a lawyer with an aversion to sugar disrupt a billion-dollar industry? The answer says as much about human psychology as it does about culinary ingenuity.
Snow Monkey Aai Berry
More icy than creamy, this one tastes like you froze your açai bowl. Yes, theres 14 grams of sugar here, but it all comes from fruit, including bananas, apples, blueberries, blackberries, and goji berries theres no added sugar here. Snow Monkey also adds hemp protein powder and sunflower butter for some protein.
Per ½ cup: 120 calories, 14g sugars, 0g added sugars
Coated in chocolate and dotted with crunchy crisp rice, these vanilla ice cream bars are the perfect size to satisfy the buttermilk base adds an extra degree of creaminess. Theyre sweetened with acesulfame potassium and sucralose.
Per bar: 110 calories, 2g sugars, 2g sugar alcohols
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High Protein Vs Low Cal Ice
Now, its important to note not all low calorie ice-creams are high in protein. In fact, most of them arent. However, in most cases, high protein ice-creams are low in calories. Make sense? There arent too many high calorie ice-creams available in Australia at this point in time, but there are plenty in the US, which means its only a matter of time before it hits our shores.
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Is Halo Top Worth Purchasing
All things considered, Halo Top ice cream is a decent frozen dessert option, as long as you stick to reasonable portion sizes.
Its ingredient list is relatively natural, and its a better option than other light ice creams that contain artificial sweeteners and artificial colors .
Still, its low fat content cheats it out of a creamy texture and may leave you feeling dissatisfied. In this case, you may be better off eating a small portion of natural or organic regular ice cream, which generally contains fewer additives.
At any rate, Halo Top products can be eaten as an occasional treat, though we dont recommend eating the whole carton in one sitting. In particular, we found the Chocolate, Peanut Butter Cup, Vanilla Bean, and Sea Salt Caramel flavors worth trying.
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Is A Pint An Actual Pint
Finish off a pint of Halo Top, and you’ll notice something a bit odd. You won’t feel like you’ve just eaten a whole pint. That’s partially because even though you’ve just eaten a pint, you’ve actually eaten less ice cream than you would have if you’d picked up, say, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
Halo Top has a ton of air in it about ¾ of a cup in every pint. It’s part of that flavor science that helps fool us into thinking we’re eating something full of fat and sugar, but it also means a pint only weights around 256 grams. Compare that to a more traditional pint that Food & Wine says weighs in at between 400 and 450 grams, and now you know why you can still get up off the couch after polishing off that pint.
Ice Cream Is Supposed To Be A Treat
We all need to treat ourselves once in a while. Maybe it’s a pedicure, maybe it’s a dinner out and maybe it’s ice cream. Sure, you could eat a pint of ice cream every day, but wouldn’t it lose some of its appeal? Halo Top’s packaging and slogans are designed to encourage you to eat the whole pint. It’s great marketing, but not so great for sensible eating.
Whichever ice cream you choose, keep your portion sizes sensible and only indulge when you really want ice cream. I know, it’s a little more boring but fruit makes a great post-dinner snack-especially in summer when so many delicious ones are in season. Fruit is packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants something that the low-cal ice cream market doesn’t have.
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Halo Top Nutrition Facts
Lets take a closer look at how Halo Tops nutrition compares to conventional ice creams.
As an example, here are the nutritional facts from Halo Tops red velvet flavor :
- 360 calories in the entire pint
- 20 grams of protein
- 1,040 calories in the entire pint
- 16 grams of protein
- 56 grams of fat
- 92 grams of sugar
Their Halo Has Started Some Trouble
Halo Top wasn’t always called Halo Top. According to CNBC, Woolverton originally settled on the name Eden Creamery and sold it under that name for a year, but changed the name early on to avoid lawsuits from the many other Eden-named companies in the world.
That change didn’t get them entirely out of the woods, though. In 2017, NJ.com reported that New Jersey dairy Halo Farm which counts ice cream and milk among their products filed a lawsuit against Halo Top. The problem started when the California company started appearing on shelves in New Jersey, and the suit claims the similar names are confusing customers into believing Halo Farms products are healthy, low-fat, or low-sugar. Halo Farm also cites the potential for stevia and erythritol to cause gastrointestinal distress and discomfort in their suit, saying their products don’t contain it and they don’t want to be confused with those that do.
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Can You Eat Halo Top Ice Cream On The Keto Diet
Halo Tops keto line of ice creams opens a new page for those who follow a low carb diet. With a low carb content per serving, you can easily incorporate Halo Top Keto ice creams into your low-carb diet if you want to.
That being said, you should still watch the serving sizes, especially if your goal is to lose weight.
Halo Top Keto line is low in net carbs, it is still a highly processed food and therefore it should be avoided for those who follow a strict keto diet, but it is fine and manageable for those doing dirty keto or lazy keto.
There are many keto ice cream recipes you can make from home which is more strictly keto-approved because you can easily control what ingredients you put in it.
Even Vegan Isnt A License To Eat Unlimited Portions
NadaMoo! is another ice cream alternative made with coconut milk and water inulin, a prebiotic fiber linked to digestive health and agave. A pint contains about 20 grams of fiber. Some flavors are cleaner than others in terms of the ingredients, and calories vary considerably, ranging from 240 in a pint of vanilla to 600 in a pint of chocolate peanut butter. But in my opinion, the coconut milk base in NadaMoo! creates a richness that makes a half-cup portion feel just right.
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What Do All Those Ingredients Do To Our Bodies
We looked at the ingredients in Halo Top, Breyers Delight, Chilly Cow, Enlightened, Slim Twin, Swell and Sweet Habit. Here are some you might wonder about.
Stevia
Stevia is a high-intensity sweetener containing steviol glycosides, used to sweeten foods. Its reported to be 200 to 400 times sweeter than table sugar.
Stevia is categorized as a nonnutritive, meaning it is low- or zero-calorie. The FDA states that stevia leaf and crude stevia extracts are not considered GRAS and do not have FDA approval for use in food.
Breyers Delights contains a type of steviol glycosides extract named rebaudioside A , and Chilly Cow contains the GRAS Reb M extract. Halo Top and Sweet Habit dont specify which kind of stevia leaf extract they use so its hard to say whether theyre GRAS but stevia is listed last on Halos ingredients, and Sweet Habit contains less than 2 percent of the extract.
Bihuniak mentioned that in April, a study published in the journal Obesity pointed to the effect these sweeteners have on rodents and humans.
Since sweet taste is normally a signal to our bodies that the food product contains calories, some researchers have hypothesized that eating a sweet product that is calorie-free may result in appetite dysregulation and unfavorable metabolic responses, Bihuniak said. Animals consuming nonnutritive sweeteners consumed more calories, gained more weight and had higher levels of glucose in their blood compared to animals receiving glucose.
Erythritol
Xylitol
Halo Top Nutrition: Best & Worst Low
The Halo Top nutrition facts among different flavors is remarkably similar. Most flavors contain 5 grams of carbs, 7090 calories per serving size and 2-3 grams of fat. However, there are a few differences, which are noted below.
If you do not tolerate dairy well, many Halo Top flavors also come with a dairy-free option. Youll find two separate lists below, for both dairy flavors and dairy-free flavors.
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Is It Bad For Your Gut
According to Halo Tops official ingredient list, most of the sweetness comes from organic stevia. Youre familiar with that, but youre probably less familiar with the other secret ingredient: erythritol. Today says its been used for years in the diet versions of all your favorite sweets its a naturally-occurring sugar that doesnt have the negative impact on blood sugar levels weve all come to expect. This stuff was huge in the 90s, but there was a side effect: pretty severe gastrointestinal distress.
Theres the catch, right? Not exactly. A study led by the University of Tokyo looked at how much erythritol would have to be consumed to cause distress in a healthy adult. In fact, youd have to eat about three pints of Halo Top to ingest enough erythritol to feel any discomfort . You do stop at one, right?
I can confirm that Halo Top ice cream does indeed taste amazing.
After hearing hype for months about this low-calorie, high-protein healthy ice cream, I finally caved and bought a pint of their Black Cherry. I devoured it in minutes and was amazed at how much it tasted like traditional ice cream. If I went to a scoop shoppe and someone served me a bowl of Halo Top, I wouldnt think twice. I would think it was some pretty great ice cream.
Why Stevia And Erythritol Are Keto
Stevia and erythritol are two of the most commonly used sugar substitutes on keto. Both are sugar-free, low on the glycemic index, and low in carbohydrates.
In its pure form, stevia contains zero calories and also ranks zero on the glycemic index. Its actually 200-300 times sweeter than regular sugar, which is why Halo Top still tastes sweet, like regular ice cream.
Unlike regular sugar, stevia will not spike your blood sugar, which is what youre trying to avoid on keto. In fact, some studies show that stevia actually benefits blood sugar levels after a meal.
Erythritol also ranks zero on the glycemic index and contains roughly 0.24 calories per gram . Erythritol is classified as a sugar alcohol and can be found naturally in some fruits. Unlike other sugar alcohols, erythritol does not cause digestive stress.
Browse our curated collection of fan-favorites and discover your new favorite snack or supplement.
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Halo Top Is Basically Guilt
When it comes to foods where it’s simply best to avoid looking at the nutritional information, ice cream really takes the cake . However, Halo Top tries to take the guilt out of the equation for those rare occasions, or nightly occurrences, when you devour an entire pint in one sitting.
Halo Top’s 17 flavors contain between 240-360 calories per pint, or 60-90 calories per serving. In comparison, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s vanilla contains 250 calories per serving. Halo Top also contains more protein and both significantly less fat and carbs . It even has three grams of fiber per serving. So, how is this possible?