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Dieters are shocked and dismayed to discover their dreamy, guilt-free ice cream is chock-full of calories.
By J. NEALY-BROWN
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 19, 2001
Claire Cooper had learned all kinds of tricks with her Big Daddy, a reduced-fat ice cream. Plop a scoop in a glass of diet root beer for a low-calorie float. With strawberries on top, she got a fruity calcium combo.
"Oh, it was so good," said Cooper, of Clearwater. The Big Daddy label claimed that it had only 100 calories and 2 grams of fat in each 12-ounce serving.
But her dream ice cream became an appalling reality when she learned that Big Daddy contained nearly three times as many calories in the container as were listed on the label.
"I went berserk," Cooper said after her sister told her about the discovery. "I was just so disappointed."
She wasn't alone.
"I guess you really believe in the labeling, and it's just unfortunate this happens," said Lisa Craig, a regional spokeswoman for Weight Watchers, which had not officially endorsed the low-fat ice cream. However, its members have discussed the product at meetings. "It certainly makes you feel a little bit cheated."
DeConna Ice Cream, which makes Big Daddy, fielded many phone calls Monday from the weight-conscious public who were upset that the label information was actually for three servings, not just one.
DeConna, which is scrambling to get new cartons with the correct information, strongly insists it was just a mistake.
On its Web site, the company has posted that vanilla-, chocolate- and strawberry-flavored ice creams have 90 calories per 4-ounce serving and 2 grams of fat. Cookies N Cream has 102 calories in a 4-ounce serving, according to company officials. The ice cream still is reduced fat, they say.
Officials say they are unsure how the wrong information got on the product, which has been on the market since 1995.
They learned about the mistake after the South Florida Sun-Sentinel hired a lab to test the ice cream. The Sun-Sentinel reported that the lab results showed a container of vanilla ice cream had 300 calories and nearly 7 grams of fat, which is about as much as a slice of deep dish cheese pizza.
"This is a perfect example of why it's a good idea to check," said Tim McCann lab director of the Food Products Laboratory in Portland, Ore. "It sounded so much better at 90 calories (for the entire container). Now it's the same as everybody's."
Companies are required to provide accurate information on their labels. But they do not have to first seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Big Daddy still has a little less fat than some other ice creams. For instance, a 4-ounce serving of Breyer's regular vanilla has about 150 calories and 9 grams of fat. Breyer's light vanilla with no sugar added has about 90 calories and 4 1/2 grams of fat in 4 ounces. Publix light vanilla ice cream has 110 calories and 31/2 fat grams in the same serving.
This isn't the first time dieters have been disappointed by a reduced-calorie food. In 1994, a Tennessee food retailer tasted a "skinny muffin" that tasted too good to be low fat. So he took it to a Memphis lab and learned that some muffins contained as much as 15.9 grams of fat for the 3.5-ounce muffin.
Within two weeks, DeConna should have containers with the correct nutritional information.
"We're concerned, number one, with the correctness of the product," said Carla Mullins, a spokeswoman for DeConna, which is located in Orange Lake near Gainesville. "We are very conscious with making it correct. This was not done as an intentional thing."
But dieters still feel let down.
"We are definitely disappointed," said Betty Hayward, of St. Petersburg, who tried the product after a friend raved about it. "We were led to believe that it was fine."
Cooper still has all of the flavors -- chocolate, vanilla, strawberry and cookies n cream -- in her freezer.
"Well, I guess we'll still eat it," she said, "But now I have to be a little more cautious about how much I scoop."
-- Information from the Commercial Appeal was used in this report.