Unlabeled propylene glycol, a form of antifreeze, lurks in commercial ice cream, risking health issues for those that consume it.
One thing I try to do on this site is alert folks to the sneaky, underhanded, and frequently toxic chemicals that Big Food processors add to their products.
One of these dirty little secrets is the fact that propylene glycol, a cosmetic form of antifreeze, is added to commercial ice cream. (1)
You see, when you make ice cream at home, you immediately notice that it is as hard as a rock.
This is VERY unlike store ice creams (even the organic ones) that seem to scoop out of the container so conveniently.
Homemade ice cream has to be taken out of the freezer and softened on the counter for a few minutes before you have any hope of scooping some out into a bowl.
I even store mine in a shallow, Pyrex baking dish as this makes it much easier and faster to scoop out when I want some.
Antifreeze, then, is simply ice cream manufacturers’ answer to hard as a rock ice cream and the ice crystals that inevitably form as it is shipped long distances and moved between many different freezers before it finally makes it to your supermarket.
If you’ve ever left homemade ice cream on the counter too long and then put it back in the freezer, you notice how icy it can get.
Antifreeze added to store ice cream helps prevent this from happening!
Why is Antifreeze Not Listed in Ingredients?
Sometimes when I tell folks this for the first time, they have trouble believing it. Why?
Because propylene glycol isn’t listed anywhere on the ice cream label or ingredients list.
While it may come as a shock to some of you, there is such a thing as an “Industry Standard”.
This means that if everyone does it, you don’t have to label it!
For those who need specifics, USDA reg 21 CFR 101.100 deals with labeling exemptions dealing with incidental food additives.
Nice, huh?
Where I grew up, this was called deceit.
Just because commercial ice cream manufacturers make a practice of adding a little bit of antifreeze to their ice cream, then it doesn’t have to be labeled! (2)
What About Organic?
I don’t even trust organic ice cream brands. It is way too easy to scoop out of the container straight from the freezer for my comfort level.
My efforts to confirm this one way or the other were not successful, so at this time, it is only a very strong hunch.
Just to get you a little more hot under the collar, the FDA actually had the gall to grant GRAS status to antifreeze!
What is GRAS? It is an acronym for “Generally Recognized As Safe”.
Well, isn’t that interesting? Antifreeze is safe to eat! You learn something new every day!
Wait a minute! Antifreeze safe to eat, yet a dog would probably die if a car radiator leaks in his owner’s driveway and he laps some of it up?
Ok, ok…I know that the antifreeze used in radiators is ethylene glycol (EG). However, the fact is that propylene glycol (PG) is a closely related chemical.
Studies show that it causes heart, kidney, liver, and central nervous system damage if sufficient quantity is absorbed by the body.
Propylene Glycol Contamination
In addition, depending on the manufacturing process used, propylene glycol may be contaminated with measurable amounts of ethylene oxide and 1,4-dioxane.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies ethylene oxide as a known human carcinogen and 1,4-dioxane as a possible human carcinogen.
Ethylene oxide can also harm the nervous system, and evidence has shown that it may interfere with human development.
Americans eat approximately 5X the ice cream they did 50 years ago. Hence, it is anyone’s guess what the long-term effects of frequent consumption of small amounts of PG might be.
So, ethylene glycol will kill you quickly and propylene glycol will kill you slowly and perhaps painfully. That seems to be the gist of it to me.
Beware of maple syrup too. If it isn’t labeled organic, chances are propylene glycol was used in the production process as well.
Side Effects of Eating Antifreeze
Many people might wonder why whenever you eat commercial ice cream or devour an ice cream cone at the Mall, the next day you might seem to have a very close relationship to the bathroom.
Turns out that a side effect of consuming antifreeze is loose bowels, even diarrhea.
Propylene glycol is even used to clean out the bowel before surgery and for conventional colonoscopy preparation.
It is also a primary ingredient in some over-the-counter constipation meds!
Other Unlabeled Toxins
By the way, there are MANY other chemicals added to commercial ice cream that are toxic and unlabeled.
Piperonal, for example, is used in place of vanilla and is a chemical used to kill head lice.
So, you’re not even safe getting a basic flavor like plain vanilla ice cream! (3)
Watch out for so-called “premium” ice creams like Jack Nicklaus Ice cream. Even the ludicrously named “Homemade Vanilla” has zero vanilla actually in it. You get to pay extra for …. chemicals!
What if the ingredients label lists vanilla?
Does this mean there is no piperonal in there? Not necessarily.
A mixture of piperonal and vanilla could be used with the vanilla listed (to make the customer happy) and the piperonal not listed (to fool the customer and increase profits).
Not surprisingly, piperonal is cheaper to use than vanilla.
Food manufacturers are really good at cat and mouse games and are virtuosos at playing the USDA regulations.
Are Any Brands Safe?
I recently received an email about this post that inquired as to whether ANY brands of commercial ice cream are safe.
My reply was to examine the ice cream brand you like. Is it scoopable very quickly (immediately or within a few minutes) of removing from the freezer?
If so, it almost certainly contains unlabeled propylene glycol. Even organic brands are suspiciously scoopable. But, they can add unlabeled PG too since the FDA inexplicably granted this chemical GRAS status.
I personally have not found ANY brand that is as hard as homemade. This is my test of purity.
The only exception is the locally made ice cream from my grassfed farmer. It is hard as a rock just like the ice cream I make myself.
How to Naturally Soften Ice Cream
So, if you aren’t into eating antifreeze with your ice cream, check out my recipe plus a video demonstration on how to make healthy ice cream!
It uses a very small amount of vodka to keep the ice cream naturally and safely scoopable!
(1, 2) Foods & Drinks With Propylene Glycol
(3) Harmful Chemicals Turn Ice Cream From a Treat to a Threat
On a different note, once I phoned the headquarters of a local grocery that sells organic ice cream with few ingredients listed to ask whether it was gluten free. Nothing like gluten appeared on the list of ingredients, but the carton was not labeled “Gluten Free.” I was informed the ice cream was not gluten free without any further comment. They can put quite a few ingredients into ice cream without labeling them. And as for the conventional national brand of vanilla that lists “only four ingredients,” I wonder what else that product contains. I’m sharing your article with friends who love ice cream and think it’s fairly harmless.
I never eat commercial ice cream except occasionally if on vacation and we are going out to get a cone. Maybe 1-2 times a year. And, I ALWAYS have a reaction to it the next day or two no matter the brand (in house made even).
I stick with homemade …. once you make your own and you SEE the difference between commercial and homemade, you realize something very funny is going on at the ice cream factories!
Fortunately, our local dairy makes its own grassfed ice cream, so I can enjoy that too if we are having a birthday party or whatnot. Our locally made grassfed ice cream is hard as a rock too … completely unlike commercial brands even top of the line.
Should labels tell us if there is propylene glycol in something? Yes. But sometimes things are deemed “generally safe” because they are (wait for it…) generally safe.
And “chemicals” are not always bad or unnatural. For example: piperonal is found naturally in black pepper, dill, and vanilla. Nor is something being used as a pesticide, or especially fungicide or insecticide, a clear indicator that it is dangerous to humans or the environment as a whole. For starters, we have very different metabolisms, so there are plenty of things that harm insects but not mammals, and vice versa. That’s why cinnamon is a very effective fungicide and adequate insecticide, but ok for us to eat. And why lavender and mint are effective ant repellents, but safe to eat. So the mere fact that piperonal is an effective lice repellent, and used to be used to kill lice, isn’t evidence that it’s dangerous or harmful to us.
Everything is a chemical, just some more complex than others. If anything, artificial substances are sometimes safer than natural ones. For example, we know exactly what the compounds are that give almond extract its flavor, and can easily synthesize them in a lab. So when you buy artificial almond extract, you’re getting the exact same substance as when they squeeze almonds to produce it (no, they don’t literally just squeeze them—I’m being poetic).
…Except that the artificial almond extract is pure almond extract, while natural almond extract potentially contains very low (non-dangerous) levels of a cyanide precursor. And the reason it doesn’t contain more, or ideally doesn’t contain any? Because they put a bunch of chemicals in it to neutralize the cyanide. So, you tell, would you rather have the artificial almond extract that definitely doesn’t have a cyanide precursor (because it’s only the chemicals necessary for the almond flavor), or the natural almond extract that has been more heavily processed and has a tiny chance of still having some cyanide precursor in it?
Corporate disinfo much?
To all those saying that if the Food Standards Agency says propylene glycol is safe to eat, it is safe to eat, why is it not approved in the EU as a food additive?(And thank God for that! Ice cream is my kids’ favourite dessert)
Well made homemade ice cream is just as easy to scoop(if not easier, more on this later).
My ice cream recipe is as follows
16 ounces of half and half
3 whole large eggs
3 large egg yolks
Add flavoring and sugar to taste over medium low heat until eggs are fully cooked, cool in the fridge, and then churn for 40 minutes.
Rest in the freezer for, optimally, at least two hours(honestly you should go for three).
At this point, it will have approximately the texture of commercial ice cream but will be SOFTER. This is because my ice cream is never going into a -50 degree commercial freezer. My current batch has been in the freezer for three days and is only now getting close to the hardness of commercial ice cream.
Your ice cream is just poorly made- work on it!
All I know in regards to this and hence my search is that (and I stress just recenyly) and only lately most brands of ice cream I buy are not freezing completely in perfectly working refrigerators/ freezers. I don’t care how safe you say Propylene Glycol is , it is still a chemical that has no place in food. The only brand that does not become soupy is Haagen Daz.
This article is not accurate. After working for a gelato company, you get a great deal of insight into how ice cream and gelato are made. The reason the store bought ones are easier to scoop out is because of the amount of air in them (called overrun) and the amount of sugar in them. Overrun in store bought ice creams is sometimes over 100% and this is what makes ice cream light and fluffy. Sugar is an antifreeze, meaning that it doesn’t freeze. Ice cream has to have the right balance of sugar and fat in it to make it easy to scoop out of the tub. Hence why when you make yours at home and you use no or very little sugar, it is much harder than store bought ones.
Almost all ice cream now contains gum. You can leave it on the counter in a bowl and it doesn’t even melt. Sometimes you buy it and it isn’t even very cold but it isn’t melted. Gum is listed in the ingredients. I dislike the consistency of ice cream containing gum.
The US FDA limits Propylene Glycol in food to 0.1% by weight. It is not required to be listed in the ingredients list, because it is in such low concentration. That is approximately 1/30 gram per 1.5 quart (1 Kg) container of ice cream.
Propylene Glycol is a very good anti-freeze, but it is not used much, because it is more expensive than ethylene glycol. The liver converts Ethylene glycol (and many other small molecules) to Oxalic acid, which has a low solubility in water and if it is over a certain concentration, it causes sharp kidney stones (and it can be fatal to any mammal). Propylene glycol has no such effects on mammals.
Propylene Glycol is easily broken down in the liver to chemicals that are normally absorbed in the large intestine (released by “good” bacteria). It does not cause diarrhea or other intestinal problems.
Propylene Glycol can kill some intestinal microbes, and the proteins in the microbes can cause allergy/sensitivity problems. Polyethylene glycol and polypropylene glycol are used as laxatives, but they are very different products (more closely related to mineral oil than to propylene glycol). An average healthy person can ingest up to 5 grams of propylene glycol per day, per KG of body weigh over the long term, without causing any perceptible toxic effects (T50). That is almost 2 cups per day (similar to the toxicity of alcohol when ingested in small amounts at a time). The low FDA limit is to protect people with poor liver function.
0.1% is 1 gram per kg genius
Seems like a scare post to me. There’s a lot of cited resources in the post…except the ones that state that propylene glycol is completely non-toxic. This argument that there are “chemicals” in food is TRUE…but water is a chemical. You are composed of chemicals. Everything we interact with can be broken down to chemical components…stop using this word as a scare tactic for uninformed consumers.