Should U.S. Legalize Low-Fat Ice Cream?

You’re at a park or a beach or sitting in your office on a sunny day and you need, you really need, an ice cream cone. Luscious, rich, creamy ice cream. The food that’s a reward.

If your waistline says watch out and your cholesterol count says forget it, how about a scoop or two of low-fat ice cream to give your senses and psyche the same satisfaction?

Sorry, it’s illegal.

Ice milk or frozen dessert, yes. Low-fat or nonfat ice cream, no. Those are the federal rules.

Ice cream manufacturers and an aggressive consumer organization want the rules changed. They say that in this age of low-fat everything, it’s time the Food and Drug Administration revised its standards.

Years ago, in an effort to protect the public from labeling fraud, the FDA established specific recipes for hundreds of edibles, ice cream among them.

Ice cream must contain at least 10% butterfat. Ice milk was synonymous with 2% to 7% butterfat. The standards were set before the advent of nutritional labeling.

Later, when people wanted less fat in their diets, the ice cream makers produced ice milk with additives that mimicked the creaminess of butterfat, but they were stuck with the unappealing name.

Then in 1989, Kraft General Foods Inc. took a bold step and came out with Sealtest Free Nonfat Ice Cream. Marketing permits were granted by more than 20 states, but the FDA definition of ice cream as 10% butterfat made other states reluctant.

Linda Eatherton, Kraft’s manager of communications, said the company voluntarily changed the name to Sealtest Free Nonfat Frozen Dessert to skirt the problem. Meanwhile, it petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to change the definition of ice cream.