By: Nelson Zhang
Most of us probably don’t know that Ronald Regan was a big lover of jelly beans. He also had a taste for ice cream, his favorite flavor being Pralines and Cream In 1984, he issued Proclamation 5219 declaring July as National Ice Cream Month and the third Sunday of July as Ice Cream Day.
If you all don’t know, the regular ice cream recipe primarily uses milk and sugar. There are still more ingredients than those 2 but those are the most common and important ingredients. Ice cream was created by the Arabs in the 9th century. The Europeans did not discover this until the 16th century but ice cream did not come to the US until 1744. Thanks to the Arabs, we have a delicious cold treat!
Even though the US knew about ice cream late, we are the world’s largest consumer when it comes to ice cream. We eat an average of 20 pounds (9 kg) of ice cream per person each year. Even though a lot of us are eating this amount of ice cream, we need to remember to not eat so much of this or else too much sugar may cause diabetes, high blood pressure, and weight gain.. The US spends over $6 million for this cold sweet treat, and most of it coming from California because it is our biggest ice cream producer in the US. ice cream brands such as Blue Bell and Baskin Robbins are some of the most popular ice cream brands.
There are over 1000 flavors, yet the most basic flavor can be the most popular: vanilla. There are also some other popular flavors such as cookies and cream, chocolate, strawberry, and mint chocolate chip. According to Baskin Robbins, places such as Texas prefer cookies and cream, and places like Mississippi prefer chocolate. Surprisingly people make some of the weirdest ice cream though at this point it isn’t even a surprise. People use ingredients such as Parmesan, ginger, and even brown bread-flavored ice cream to make some new ice cream flavors. This can be found in places such as Baskin Robbins or Sweet Republic, Arizona.
This frozen dessert can even set world records. Shockingly, a person named Germany’s Andre Ortolf set a record for eating the most ice cream — 1.25 pounds (568 grams) — in 30 seconds! In 2018, Italy’s Dimitri Panciera set a record for balancing 128 scoops on only one cone. But remember, ice cream isn’t the only good frozen treat in the world. We still have shaved ice, milkshakes, frozen yogurt, etc.
Image Credit by David Disponett