Is Sorbet a Healthy Alternative to Ice Cream?

Social media loves to push the idea of “healthy desserts” or desserts that are actually good for you because they contain less calories or you swap sugar for agave or sweetener or you add a heaped spoon of protein powder in place of some of the flour. My question is why can’t a dessert just be enjoyed as a dessert? Why do we have to healthify it? I would argue that a tasty dessert that we get a lot of enjoyment out of is an important part of our diet and can absolutely be enjoyed guilt-free in moderation. Often we can get so caught up in “clean eating” that we nearly feel ashamed if we eat something sweet that doesn’t align with the trendy healthy dessert standards. I remember one time I was craving something sweet and cakey so I made a mug cake that was on a fitness influencers Instagram with no sugar in it but it contained a spoon of Nutella and it literally just tasted like baked bread soda like it did not satisfy my cravings in the slightest. I think we need to move away from this idea that we can only enjoy a food if it’s “clean” because these “clean” desserts often honestly taste like shite compared to the real thing. If you well and truly enjoy these desserts then of course keep eating them there’s nothing wrong with that but we need to work on eliminating food guilt and shame because its incredibly damaging to our relationships with food and with ourselves. I would say we should move towards having that slice of real cake and really savouring every bite mindfully, to maximise enjoyment and satisfaction because life is short, we deserve it!

Are Healthy Desserts Even Healthy?

How many times have we seen an influencer online or a food business pushing their healthy alternative to our favourite desserts? I would say personally at least like 4 times a day which is kind of just annoying but it can also be quite harmful. I think a good example of a “clean” dessert is a protein ball. I think a lot of the time these are advertised as like more of an energy boosting snack but I’ve also seen them advertised as more of a healthy sweet and are sometimes advertised as “bliss balls” which is again, more sweet leaning rather than exercise snack leaning. I have no real beef with protein balls as they can be very useful if say you’ve done a really intense workout in the morning and you’re rushing to work and don’t have time to have a proper post workout meal or even I know they can be used sometimes to provide energy to underweight people like the elderly, because they’re so small and energy dense. But that’s the issue with protein balls being advertised as a healthy sweet, is that you could eat one and it wouldn’t really fill you up because of its size even though it’s quite high in calories. For example Good4U’s protein balls are 127 calories per ball which is slightly more than 1 Twix bar which is 120 calories. The thing with the protein balls though, are that there’s 3 of them in the packet so are you only going to eat one or are you going to eat all three? Like you can see how the calories can build up here. This isn’t to say that Twix is healthier because you’re obviously going to get more nutrition out of a protein ball but if you’re trying to lose weight and you’re munching on protein balls freely because they’re healthy you may need to take a closer look at the label. Again, if you enjoy protein balls, by all means enjoy them! It’s just important to remember that just because they’re a “clean” dessert doesn’t mean you should really have a massive portion of them regularly. Another example is any dessert that swaps sugar for honey or agave or sweetener. At the end of the day, honey and agave are still seen by the body as sugar so still need to be eaten in moderation and sweeteners have been shown to be bad for our gut health and cause dysbiosis of the gut microbiome so should also be enjoyed in moderation (1). Basically what we need to keep in mind is that if you want to enjoy a “healthy” dessert, we should treat it the same way as a normal dessert and enjoy it mindfully in moderation!

On to Sorbet vs. Ice Cream!

I’ve often seen people order sorbet over ice cream because it’s perceived to be healthier for a number of reasons. One, it contains water instead of cream and milk so has lower calories. Two, it’s vegan so it fits the whole vegan is healthier trend as well as the dairy is poison conspiracy that I addressed in one of my previous posts. Three, it has a fruity flavour so it seems like the healthier option. But is Sorbet actually good for us? Is it a health food? Let’s discuss!

I’ve mentioned in a previous post that I am currently working for Murphy’s Ice Cream, an artisan ice cream company that makes ice cream using the best quality ingredients with no artificial additives, preservatives or colourings. Our milk is organic, our ingredients are fresh (I literally crack like 1000 eggs a day for the ice cream so if that isn’t fresh I don’t know what is), and our ice cream is honestly amazing. For this post, I will be analysing Murphy’s Sea Salt Ice Cream vs. their Raspberry Sorbet, both of which were actually made by me!

So, in terms of calories the ice cream definitely comes in higher than the sorbet with the ice cream having 153kcal/100ml and the sorbet having 87kcal/100ml. This is definitely a big difference so if the goal is weightloss the sorbet could be a better option. Fat is also definitely higher in the ice cream with 10.5g of fat per 100ml vs. 0.1g in the sorbet. If we look at the other nutrients though, we could argue that the ice cream is superior. It contains a lot more protein at 1.9g/100ml whereas the sorbet contains 0.2g. It also contains a lot less sugar at 11.8g/100ml vs. 21.4g in the sorbet. Ye should see the amount of sugar I put in the sorbet, my back would be in bits from lifting bags of sugar. If we were to analysis these two foods as health foods I would say if you are diabetic, sporty, or trying to gain weight, the ice cream may be a better option but if you are someone who is trying to loss weight or is obese, I would say the sorbet is the better option. Of course, these clearly aren’t health foods though and aren’t meant to be. So what I would really say is if you prefer the flavour of the sorbet choose that one and if you prefer the ice cream choose that one, enjoy it and move on! Moderation is key when it comes to a balanced diet and ice cream and/or sorbet can absolutely be included in that. We don’t need the “clean” ice cream or the “no sugar” sorbet, because honestly they just aren’t as nice and when the real version is this good, why wouldn’t we enjoy it!

Links

Suez J, Korem T, Zeevi D, Zilberman-Schapira G, Thaiss CA, Maza O, Israeli D, Zmora N, Gilad S, Weinberger A, Kuperman Y, Harmelin A, Kolodkin-Gal I, Shapiro H, Halpern Z, Segal E, Elinav E. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Nature. 2014 Oct 9;514(7521):181-6. doi: 10.1038/nature13793. Epub 2014 Sep 17. PMID: 25231862.