Gelato is increasingly gaining popularity in America, but do you really know what the difference is between gelato and ice cream? The first thing you need to know is that gelato is the plural form of gelati -which is Italian ice cream – and it means “frozen.”
Gelato originated in northern Italy in the 1500s and the sale of gelato was one of the major sources of income for the area; so at one point in history, only royalty could afford gelato. Like ice cream, gelato is made with milk and sugar, but it has less than 35% air which makes the flavors more intense than traditional ice cream while still allowing it to be creamy. But the big difference is that the milk used in gelato is not homogenized, so that allows the gelato to melt much more quickly than ice cream. The basic ingredients of gelato are milk, cream, eggs, sugar, and natural fresh flavors (like fruit, cocoa, nuts, or vanilla.)
I know what you’re thinking: Isn’t gelato supposed to be less fattening than ice cream? Well, the answer is yes, simply because gelato is made with less butterfat than ice cream, so the fat content usually hovers around 8%. Gelato uses fresh whole milk as its source of butterfat as opposed to milk solids. But it is what happens after the ingredients are mixed that also make it different. Gelato is served cold, but not frozen – unlike its meaning – so the appearance is more like frozen yogurt than solid ice cream. Apparently gelato cannot be frozen as properly as ice cream, so for that reason it is made daily and best served fresh – although I’m not sure what the retailers do with the leftovers. Maybe they eat them and go home happy?
So we know that ice cream is very similar to gelato, but did you know that American federal labeling standards require true ice cream to have a minimum of 10% milk fat and 20% total milk solids by weight? I guess that way we’ll know the fattening stuff from the rest. Ice cream can contain up to 50% air by volume so that means that even lower fat ice cream will most likely contain higher amounts of sugar, and consequently will have more calories. If the fat content is less than 10% then it should be called ice milk, but in the United States it’s usually just called low-fat ice cream.
And for all of those people who think it’s only the western world that loves ice cream, then think again. A survey taken in Japan in 2007 found that two in five adults in Japan eat ice cream once a week. My guess is that their serving size is a lot smaller and they probably don’t go crazy with the toppings like we do.
