Summer is just around the corner. Our thoughts and desires are mainly dedicated to achieving the perfect beach body. Changes in our dietary plan start to be even more regular. With the coming of the summer months and hot weather, our wish to try out more and more cold drinks builds up, as well. Lemonade, cold tea, ice coffee, and cold soups turn into an absolute hit. Our appetite for a very special and favorite dessert called ice-cream is here, too. It turns out that, apart from its lovely taste, it also has a lot of positive qualities and healthy features. Its fans have benefited from them over the years.
The US Department of Agriculture has found out that a ½ cup of vanilla ice-cream contains exactly 137 grams of calories. This turns ice-cream into a great source of nutrition and energy. Especially, when we need to recharge our batteries swiftly. When our ice-cream’s active ingredients are natural, it is rich in carbohydrates, healthy fats, proteins, and important minerals, like phosphorus and calcium. If you decide to go for a high-end product, then, it will most likely contain popular vitamin complexes like Vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K. Of course, you shouldn’t eat too much of it so that your blood sugar levels won’t go up. In this case, you can always apply a product for influencing your daily energy levels and feeling of vitality. An example of such a product is the HeartTonic nutritional drops with wild larch bark, leaves, and tar. If you would like to learn more about how to forget 5 of the worst eating habits.
A Brief History of Ice-Cream
It is believed that ice-cream was first made in Ancient China. During this time, Chinese emperors mixed mountain ice with fruits. It is thought that this was the first ice-cream dessert. During the 11th Century, Marco Polo took this recipe to Europe, where the Italian nobility started to enjoy it.
The recipe was held in secret. Cooks were sworn not to mention even a word about it. During Napoleon III’s rule, Italians first started mixing up the sweet product with flavorings – fruits, nuts, biscuits, and liqueurs. The first city where ice-cream started being sold was Paris. It is also where the first ice-cream cafe opened.
It was a place for meet-ups for a lot of influential people from that time, including Voltaire, Balzac, Rousseau, and Napoleon. Then ice-cream moved up north from France to their neighbors from England. There, Charles I made this new cold-and-sweet dessert part of his feasts, where no one had tried it before. After his death, the Royal Chef sold the ice-cream recipe to rich merchants. This is how the sweet tempting dessert spread around Europe, as well. During the 18th century, English migrants took the recipe to North America, where the first automated machine for ice-cream production was patented later.
What are the Health Benefits of Ice-Cream
Ice-cream continues to enjoy the same popularity around the world nowadays. But in our contemporary society, a lot of foods are processed and contain all kinds of chemicals and harmful ingredients. Does ice-cream continue to be so natural and healthy?
Examples of the unexpected benefits of ice-cream
1. It Gives us Energy
This, of course, is due to the amount of sugar and the rest of the nutrients that ice cream contains – carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. What is more, according to German scientists at the University of Berlin, ice cream reduces stress and fatigue. This is due to L-tryptophan, an ingredient that is included as a natural content in milk and cream.
2. Helps Improve Brain Activity
According to scientists from Tokyo, ice-cream influences our brain activity well, especially if we eat ice-cream for breakfast. The researchers conducted a study between people who ate it for breakfast and those who did not have breakfast at all. They established that those who had ice-cream had higher levels of alertness and concentration. This happens thanks to the hormone dopamine, whose levels rise because of ice-cream.
It also has a positive influence on memory, as well as motivation. Besides them, dopamine also participates in many processes of the nervous system, kidneys, and heart. Another way to start your day is with a cup of bulletproof coffee.
3. Ice-Cream Helps the Body to Burn Calories
Calcium, which is contained in any spoonful of ice cream contributes to the maintenance of good metabolic rates. This does not mean that overeating with the sweet-and-cold temptation would have a good influence on our body. Ice-cream portions should be consumed moderately. An alternative natural product for tempering your appetite is the dissoluble beverage with a cocoa extract called Choco Lite.
4. It Contains Vitamins and Minerals
The contents of the sweet dessert carry with them a bunch of useful minerals – vitamins A, B6, B12, C, D, E, and K. And these are just some of the potentially beneficial nutrients in its content!
Ice-cream flavorings, such as different types of fruit or dark chocolate, could boost its beneficial properties even more. It can act as an antioxidant and contribute to the lowering of cholesterol levels.
5. Ice-Cream for Stronger Bones
One of the many useful ingredients of ice cream is calcium. It is one of the most important minerals for our bones. However, it is not produced by our body itself and must be obtained from an external source. But with a little help from ice-cream, this could happen, too!
Ice cream is made from milk, which is one of the products with the highest amount of calcium. Having enough calcium in our body is extremely important. Its deficiency can lead to osteoporosis, which is a destruction of the collagen matrix of the bones. As a result, they begin to lower their density. This makes them thinner and more fragile.
6. It Makes Us Happier
We all know people who reach for a cone of ice cream as their ‘comfort food’ after something unpleasant happens to them. Eating the delicious dessert stimulates the secretion of the hormone serotonin. One of its benefits is having an elevated mood. It also has a positive influence on aggressiveness, sleep quality, and maintaining normal body temperature.
7. Ice Cream Has a Positive Influence on the Immune System
Ice cream is a type of fermented food and is believed to have a positive influence on the immune system. Milk contains lactose, which also occurs in many probiotics people usually take for this purpose. They also help to improve the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract and the respiratory system.
Let’s Eat Healthy & Sweet
In order to maintain good bodyweight, it is important to eat healthy, balanced, and natural. Summer is a great reason to add fresh fruits and vegetables to our diet. They are natural sources of healthy nutrients. Combining such healthy food with regular physical activity is an easy way to keep ourselves in shape. Warm weather also favors our efforts – we can walk, jog in the park, swim, climb mountains or ride our bike.
All of them become much easier and more enjoyable. And we need only a couple of bites of ice-cream as a reward for a job well-done. And we could also try one of the natural products for influencing our feelings of satiety, such as Choco Lite, the cocoa-flavored drink which has become the preferred choice of many people.
