Ice cream - such a great treat on hot summer day. In Europe you can find many ice cream vendors on the streets selling huge variety of this frosty delight - coming in different colours and flavours. In my country we have this "Smurf" flavour that is bright-blue in colour (and tastes weird).

However, there is one thing that not many of us do not think about - Why is there no grape flavoured ice cream?!

Maybe you heard some rumours about this, so let’s clarify it and find out!

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Girl, Dog and Fiction

Year 1976 - young lad named Ben from ‘Ben and Jerry’s’ decided to impress Jerry’s attractive sister Becky - by creating grape flavoured ice cream. And he did it! After handing over a freshly scooped ice cream to Becky, she jokingly gave her dog a lick from the ice cream. The little dogo was happy for a brief moment, but suddenly dropped dead! This incident caused the FDA to ban the sale of research of any grape flavoured ice creams due to pet hazard.

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Now. This is a HOAX!!! Maybe you heard about this story or read about it, but it is only a fiction. There is no such prohibition in the US or any other country. Yes, grapes are toxic to canines such as dogs due to high content of anthocyanins. Anthocyanins are water-soluble pigments that change their colour depending on the pH and also make red cabbage, well red (I wrote about it HERE). And we do not ban products due to safety risks to dogs - because then we would have to ban chocolate or avocados as well!

So, what is the real reason for no grape ice cream?!

The great revelation - or not?

There is actually no real reason for not having grape flavoured ice cream! Yes, the fruit is mostly water, so that is a big problem. Freezing something with about 81% of water content turns grapes into frozen hard chunks of ice - and your traditional customer expects a smooth nice texture. This can be avoided by using pureed grapes and subsequently mix them into creamy ice cream base - however this approach is only feasible with small ice vendors. Increase in volume is also an increase in expenses and difficulty. Now think for a while. Cherries. There is plenty of cherry flavoured ice cream. And cherries and grapes are actually almost the same in the terms of water content. So, why going through such great effort to produce this flavour. Well, the answer is quite simple - people love the cherry ice cream, whereas grape flavour was never really a thing. No one associates grapes with ice cream and no one wants it!

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Concluding remarks

If you feel craving for grape flavoured ice cream, then I have good news. It does exist and is occasionally served on Grape festivals - festivals that celebrate harvesting of grapes. I wish you luck!

Aaand hopefully you did learn something new today! If you happened to enjoy this article, please do not hesitate to support me with upvote or comment!

Have a nice day :)

Sources

1. http://thechive.com/2015/04/15/the-reason-why-grape-flavored-ice-cream-will-never-exist-6-photos/

2. https://www.healthyway.com/content/this-is-the-real-reason-you-can-never-find-grape-ice-cream/

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape_ice_cream

4. https://www.rd.com/food/fun/grape-ice-cream/