Vanilla Ice Cream Taste Test

We had a family activity Monday night that we do every once in a while--an Official Taste Test. We get five or six samples of something and give it a go to see what's the favorite.

It all started with Andrew's claim that his body had developed a toxic reaction to diet soda and that he would go into instant seizures should the stuff ever pass his lips--only the non-diet stuff for him. I believe my response was "Oh yea? Prove it!" and the first taste test was born.

We started with root beer and interestingly enough Andrew was unable to discern the difference between diet A&W and the real stuff. Perhaps he had a cold that day. Results showed that in a blind test five Mittons out of six preferred Big K diet root beer (the Fred Meyer generic brand) over Mug, A&W and Barqs. So there.

Anyway, we sampled various chocolates the next time around and Grace learned that she does, in fact, prefer Hershey's over Lindt, Dove, Nestle and Toblerone (not that I understand that but what are you going to do about it? It just means the good stuff gets saved for me). The overall family favorite proved to be Lindt.

I was going to try apples this time and compare Granny Smith, Braeburn, Delicious, Fuji and Gravenstein but I got outvoted, apparently there just weren't enough calories to make apples an appealing option so vanilla ice cream it was (big surprise--I was completely stupid to tell them what I was going to test before I bought it).

I picked up samples of Ben & Jerry's, Safeway Select, Haagen-Daz, Breyers Double Churn and Breyers French Vanilla and we subjected ourselves to a highly scientific test. Normally it would have been $1600 or $1700 worth of ice cream but they were on sale and I had a two-for-one coupon.

I printed up "Official Taste Tester Forms" on cardstock where everyone could write their name, the date, the item being tested and the five brands of vanilla ice cream. Then we tasted and rated each brand for three criteria: taste based on flavor and creaminess, then cost and calories, giving a score of 1 to 5 for each criteria then giving each brand a total score by adding the points up.

So I know you're dying to hear what the results were right? Grace liked the Double Churned Light the best, Andrew the regular Breyers, Spencer the Haagen-Daz (or as David called it Hog and Dog--apparently he's no whiz at fake Danish words) and I went for the Ben & Jerry's. What can I say? The calories don't lie and 290 of those little guys can't be wrong.

Going purely on taste wasn't conclusive, we all seemed to prefer different brands, but when taking into account the calories and cost the Double Churned Light easily won with an overall total of 14 points. It was the 100 calorie servings and low cost that edged it ahead of the others that tasted slightly better. Good work Breyers, you've made the world a little better place.

Maybe we'll try apples next time.

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Thank you so much to the Wall Street Journal for including me in their list of ten Top Motherhood Blogs and thank you to those who were nice enough to notice and send their congratulations--what a thing to wake up to! It was the best thing I've ever had happen at 6:45 am. Thanks too, to Susan at FoodBlogga who sent me the email about it--you're on my Top Blogs list!

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Totally unrelated but with Lillian practicing her Totally Amazing Reading Skills lately we found this online book site with a cute children's book titled (and if this doesn't grab you I don't know what will) The Wiener Dog Magnet by Hayes Roberts. If you've got a new reader around, it's just a hoot to read together. Reading it slowly just builds the suspense.