Halo Top: Chocolate and Birthday Cake

One thing that happens when you're an ice cream blogger is that your friends start to get more into ice cream, which is AWESOME because then you always have recommendations and requests! One friend of mine said that some of his friends swear by Halo Top ice cream, and asked if I would review it for their benefit.

Lizzy has reviewed a few Arctic Zero flavors, but I don't think we've ever had Halo Top on the blog. I get why Halo Top, Arctic Zero, and other 'healthier' ice creams have an audience and respect their place in the ice cream market; however I buy 99% of the ice cream I review. I'm a grad student without a ton of disposable income, so I tend to buy ice cream that I find interesting or think I will like, and 'health' ice creams just don't appeal to me that much.

This post will be in two parts. First I'll review the ice creams, and then I'll provide some rambling thoughts about food, food guilt, and 'health' foods. Feel free to skip the second part; I won't be offended. I thought about leaving it off, but whatever, whatever, it's my blog, and I do what I want!

The review: I've always heard people say that Halo Top is better than Arctic Zero, but after reading Lizzy's reviews of Arctic Zero, it is clear that 'better than Arctic Zero' is a pretty big spectrum. I always assumed Halo Top was pretty close to Arctic Zero on that spectrum, but I was pleasantly surprised (I also had SUPER low expectations).

Chocolate: This flavor is nearly identical to a fudgesicle in both flavor and texture.  The chocolate was a pretty middling chocolate flavor that tasted like cocoa powder. I was pleased that it actually tasted like chocolate, but it wasn't really anything remarkable.

 Halo Top states that their ice cream freezes hard because they don't use stabilizers like 'the other guys,' but, like, why? Ice creams are in and out of the freezer on their journey from the factory to the story, so why wouldn't you make your product able to withstand that. Sure, with homemade ice cream or fatty enough ice cream you don't need a lot, if any, stabilizer, but if your ice cream has a low fat content, why not use it. It's not like you're trying to go organic. It's just a stupid comparison to make.

Lol, stabilizers are not the enemy!

Anyway, the ice cream is so low on fat content that it is dry and flaky. And yet ... and yet, it's somehow still a bit gummy. Also, it melts down into a weird slimy liquid instead of a nice thick cream like higher-fat ice cream.

I'm giving chocolate 🍦.75/4 cones. (When did I start giving quarter cones!? It makes the whole system meaningless!) It's really the texture not the taste that gives this such a low rating. A creamier chocolate with the same flavor would probably be a 2-coner.

Birthday Cake: This was not good. Ostensibly, it is birthday cake flavored ice cream with sprinkles. It had a similar texture to chocolate, only much gummier but somehow still with the same dryness and flakiness.  The flavor and texture of the sprinkles were nonexistent. The birthday cake ice cream was overly fake and flat. It tasted like eating a birthday cake-flavored piece of paper.  Or, and I'm revealing the fact that I came of age in the '00s, that crappy teenage-girl birthday cake scented perfume/body spray. Or maybe paper sprayed with middle school perfume.  Just ew. 🍦/4 cones.

Stop reading here if you do not want to read my ramblings.

So, let's all take a deep breath and talk about how crappy I think Halo Top's marketing strategy is. Like, I said above, I have to problem with Halo Top and other 'health' ice creams, it's just something different than normal ice cream, it serves a different purpose, and appeals to a different audience. I do, however, have a problem with Halo Top's branding.

- First, the 'GUILT FREE ZONE' on the inner lid. Like, can we all agree not to give each other more food guilt and appearance guilt and other weirdness than we already have to deal with?! Especially when it comes to ice cream and dessert! Ice cream and dessert should be fun. It should make you happy. THE VERY PRODUCT ITSELF shouldn't make you feel bad about consuming it.

Haha, fuck you. But actually.

- Second, and I'm not sure I would be bothered by this so much if it weren't for point one, Halo Top comes across as SO DAMN SMUG. Let me pull a few quotes from their site.

• "Finally, healthy ice cream that actually tastes like ice cream.' I'm trying to mimic the text size from the website. The '... that actually tastes like ice cream' is in much smaller text; so small its easier to miss. So it seems like they're just saying, "Finally, healthy ice cream," as if the whole damn world were just waiting for healthy ice cream to come along and save us all. Well let me tell you something, WE FUCKING WEREN'T.
• The Us Vs. Them section: They have this whole section on their website about how much fat, sugar, calories, etc... a serving of Halo Top contains versus a serving of Haagen-Dazs, Ben and Jerry's, and Dreyer's. First of all, they need to be more transparent with where they're getting their information. I know for a FACT each Ben and Jerry's flavor has different nutritional information. Are they averaging? Just using a single flavor? THE PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW.  Also, they report net carbs for Halo Top, but I'm pretty damn sure they're reporting total carbs and not net carbs for the other brands. THIS IS AN INACCURATE COMPARISON.  Also, the numbers are pretty similar to Dreyer's/Edy's, lol. Finally, LOW CAL/LOW SUGAR/LOW CARB/ DOESN'T MAKE YOU BETTER IT JUST MAKES YOU DIFFERENT. There's no such thing as a healthy or unhealthy ice cream, it's all about how you choose to fit different foods into a diet that's healthy for you if you even choose to care about your diet, which you're totally under no obligation to do!