When an email about “ice cream with hidden veg” entered by inbox, I was more than a little intrigued.
Our toddler is almost two and like many kids her age, she’s really finding her stride in terms of what she likes (mainly pasta) and what she doesn’t like (the list is long).
But could ice cream with vegetables in it – we’re talking parsnip and beetroot – really fool her? I was massively unconvinced.
The brand behind the idea, Smugglers, is the brainchild of three dads who wanted to make something delicious, but with enough hidden vegetables to deliver “a little added goodness”.
The vanilla ice cream features parsnips, while the chocolate ice cream features beetroot – and there are added vitamins, too.
There’s also less fat, sugar and calories than a leading equivalent pot of ice cream, according to the brand’s press release. So that explains why it’s featured in the “healthier ice cream tubs” section of Waitrose’s website.
We try to eat healthily in our house, and I’m constantly shovelling fruit and veg into my child’s hands, but as a working mum who has a grand total of 15 minutes between finishing work and picking my toddler up from childcare, sometimes dinners are more about convenience rather than home-cooked goodness.
I feel bad about it constantly. But it’s something I’ve had to make peace with on the days when I haven’t prepped a meal in advance and I’ve had all of 10 minutes to rustle something together while my hangry child screams at me.
So, hearing about vitamin and veg-filled ice cream made me perk up. Right now, I’m all for packing in the extra goodness wherever you can.
The ice cream is available at Waitrose, so it doesn’t come cheap – a 460ml tub will set you back (*takes a deep breath*) £5. But is it worth it? And more to the point, with veggies getting in on the action, is it even tasty?
Here’s what my toddler thought
In a very scientific and rigorous process, I sat down with my daughter and gave her two teaspoons and two small bowls with little servings of ice cream in each so she could try both flavours. (To be honest, she was most excited about the teaspoons at this point.)
The vanilla ice cream went down an absolute treat – I admit, when I tried it I could definitely taste the parsnip undertones, but it clearly wasn’t enough to put off my ice cream-obsessed toddler.
Next, the chocolate ice cream. Now, she hadn’t had chocolate ice cream before – but is partial to the odd bourbon biscuit – so I wondered whether she’d actually like the flavour.
Initially, her face said it all: she scrunched up her nose, looked at me and gave me the bowl back (which was fine because I personally much preferred the chocolate one, you can’t taste the beetroot at all).
When I explained that it was chocolate ice cream, however, she was willing to have another go at it. Cue: her finishing the bowl and declaring it was her favourite. Fickle.
The texture of the ice cream is super creamy and the flavours are good – granted, the vanilla one could be more vanilla-y but the chocolate one is bang-on. It’s rich, it’s creamy and oh-so-moreish. I would happily devour the tub.
Would I pay £5 for it? Only as a treat every now and then. I like the idea of packing a bit of extra goodness into pudding and my daughter doesn’t have massive scoops, so these tubs will probably (/hopefully) last us all summer.
Although, who am I kidding? With this scorchio weather and my knowledge of how tasty the chocolate one is, we’ll be lucky if it lasts until the end of the week.