NEW ORLEANS — Science has finally led us to one of the greatest innovations of humankind: ice cream that doesn’t melt quickly on a hot day. The secret, according to a new study? Banana plant waste.
Not only are researchers saying their new concoction will last longer, but it’s creamier and potentially even healthier than your typical frozen treat.
Keeping ice cream from melting has been a mystery that has eluded research teams from around the world for years. Just last year, Japanese scientists developed a melt-resistant ice cream using polyphenol compounds from strawberries, but never before has a compound been found to improve the creaminess and texture of low-fat ice cream as well.
So Columbian researchers Dr. Robin Zuluaga Gallego and Jorge A. Velásquez Cock teamed with scientists from the University of Guelph in Canada to see what would happen when they added tiny cellulose fibers from the banana plants into an ice cream recipe. When bananas are harvested, the remaining plant matter is disposed of as waste. The research team used the microscopic fibers — thousands of times smaller than the width of human hair — from the banana plant stems, or rachis, to slow the melting in ice cream, as well as replace some of the fats used to make the frozen delicacy.
The study found that when mixed with the banana fibers, ice cream melted far slower than the dessert normally does. Even better, the shelf life of the product was longer and the ice cream’s creaminess and texture wasn’t worsened. Velásquez Cock believes their discovery may even lead to a lower-fat ice cream product as the fibers could potentially replace fats used in conventional products.
Healthier product aside, just being able to give ice cream lovers a product that won’t leave their hands sticky and pants stained is good enough.
“Our findings suggest that cellulose nanofibers extracted from banana waste could help improve ice cream in several ways,” explains Gallego in an American Chemical Society media release. “In particular, the fibers could lead to the development of a thicker and more palatable dessert, which would take longer to melt. As a result, this would allow for a more relaxing and enjoyable experience with the food, especially in warm weather.”
This breakthrough could mean big-time changes to a huge industry. The United States alone produced 1.3 billion gallons of ice cream in 2016, according the US Department of Agriculture. On average, each American consumes approximately 23 pounds of ice cream each year.
The research was presented last week at the 255th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Please don’t mess with our Blue Bell Ice Cream!
Dr. Cock makes it possible to lick again
Just don’t breath in those nano fibers.
Why would anyone want to eat that?
Willy Wonka already came up with that idea. They must have been the ones who stole the idea from Willy
It’s horrible and barely different than what Mcdonalds already sells as “ice cream” in its shakes. Its neither ice nor cream. Just a hodgepodge of non-dairy, fibrous, gelatinous goo that can be grown by slave labor, harvested prior to ripeness, processed by machines, irradiated, sterilized and preserved by chemicals so the sewer-like conditions of the factories or the month long boat ride from the third world, enroute to our tables won’t cause food poisoning or toxic disease. Nothing better than good old fashioned full fat ice cream on a summer evening after supper, or after the ball team finishes the game. Avoid the modern fakes.
Isn’t that the ice cream OJ was eating?
Yep, no clue as to what rhe article is about. This crap has already been around for a few years. There are some videos of this garbage on youtube including whic brands to avoid. In one of these videos, there was a test where several ice cream brands were left out in a dish. Most of them melted. The test was discontinued after twenty one days. All of the ones which melted grew mold in their dish, except the ones which didn’t melt. He mentioned phenol as a binding agent in the article. Phenols are plastics. Who cares if you get them out of strawberries? It boils back down to fake food. Hell, everything else is.
Take a chemistry course. Phenols are not plastics.
Obviously, your type of chemistry is taking meth or some other type of brain eradicator. Among other things several hundred million tons of plastics are made each year with bpa or BADGE as the building block. I’ll bet that you drink soy milk while you are on drugs. Can’t get it up? No sperm in the tank from all the phenolic acid screwing with your body as endocrine disruptors?
It’s not Ice Cream now, is it?
Soylant Green keeps it cold and fresh.
This sucks….
I don’t like bananas.
sucks to be you
I kind of tune out when an article writer appears ignorant about fat. You need fat. Your body can’t process vitamins and food without fat. Have fun eating cardboard. Sugars lead to heart disease, not fat content.
I love the assertion that the product is healtheir. Nothing to back that assertion up. I see thi new ice cream hit the shelf, I won’t buy it. Yes I do go into frozen foods for veggies and berries, full stop.
Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Has anyone read the ingredients in ice cream? It’s already garbage. One is much better off making their own and if you don’t want it to melt, put it back in the freezer!
but Ali G already invented the ice cream sleeve
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDu9CvbrnlM
Neat, Can we cure something this century next
Yeah. Keeping ice cream from melting is more important than finding a cure for cancer with these people.
“….that has eluded research teams from around the world for years.”
Really? Like it was some Holy grail of science? TEAMS of researchers working around the clock….? /smh
we had ‘melt resistant’ ice cream 40 years ago when I was in grade school. it just has so much gelatin in it that it holds it’s shape
Spray this stuff on the icebergs to keep them from melting. That should shut up all the global warming false alarmists.
and poison our water supply? Lets just send the global warming kooks back to 4th grade science, it debunks the whole global warming bull crap.
When did bananas become a poison?
WALMART already has this tech there ice cream sandwich’s don’t melt.
Turds don’t melt either.
Could we put some in the artic ice caps?
just what we need, more poisons in our food
Next: Scientists develop waterproof paper towels…
Solar powered flash lights
Ice-Nine
Freakin leave it alone!!!! ICE CREAM.. Water+32F=ICE you IDIOTS!!! It will melt. Quit jerkin around with our food A$$HOLES
agree.the more they mess around the more bad things happen when consumed by humans.
I’ve already seen stuff called frozen dairy dessert that basically doesn’t melt, so I always opt for stuff that says ice cream and has an ingredient list that only reads something like: cream, sugar, chocolate.
Ice cream that doesn’t melt would be a great follow up for last nights dinner’s extremely spicy dishes for your morning bowel movement.
Condom that keeps you hard.
It was never a problem in the first place. A solution in search of a purpose
Taxpayer funded, I’m sure.
It’s only trying to lower cost of production. Less dairy and more waste product added equals more profit
And who cares if it’s bad for people to eat it. Food science, death. Feed your body clean fuel period. I know this personally. I was the typical Western diet. Then cancer said wake up you jerk. Now eating very clean zero processed food science crap. My body is healing itself. Yeah, it can do that!
Riiiiight… cos even ICE CREAM has to be about the Global Warming Hoax!
If your world, ice cream NEVER melted and dripped all over your kids shirt because this planet is COLD like FOREVER and any chocolate stains on the shirt were just FAKE NEWS.
So yea. Beyond the context of global warming… Melting ice cream has been a problem since the dawn of…. ice cream.
One more molecule and it’d be plastic. No thank you
but but but I desire to grow another arm and hand to scratch my back
Well then your dumb ass should stop drinking water, just one more molecule and it’s hydrogen peroxide
You mean one more atom.
notice, he attempts to displace MANKIND, with huMANkind. Man is still the predominant word for these snowflake bolsheviks
I’m in my 70’s and never consider there is a problem with pure cream, sugar and cold. I like it just the way it was originally intended. I say hands off MY ice cream.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!
Good, now sprinkle it on the north and south poles to shut these environmental whackos up…..
Good one.
When was the last time you heard an “anti racist” say that a particular country or population was “Too Black”? That it needed to bring in more non Blacks to promote “Diversity”?
Have you ever heard an “anti racist” say that?
Diversity means chasing down every White population until they become acceptably non White.
Its Geno Cide
Its Anti White
I’m all for sprinkling this stuff all over Leftists…
What the heck does your comment have to do with the subject of this article or this comment thread.
‘nanofibers’Correction: nanafibers ;0)It probably tastes like crap too. Stop messing with something that ain’t broke.
Nothing but Breyers Vanilla for me
I never liked banana ice cream
Brilliant….an expensive technology laden product which could only be possibly targeted at locales lacking air-conditioning, in other words where they will not pay more for the technology and probably have better local treats made with fresh ice. Clever to claim it’s a benefit to remove fat from ice-cream…..eat flavored ice if that’s the goal…….Ben Renner’s drug dealer probably tells him how awesome it is that he’s cutting his cocaine with banana cellulose, so it’s healthier. Tootin Ben…..not gonna fly.
Heck, you could get this stuff thirty years ago in Israel. They had to develop an ice cream that wouldn’t melt in the heat. And yes, it was truly awful.
I just want Ice Cream with 5 ingredients, the way it was invented.
I agree. You will of course need to make it yourself in order to obtain. Don’t worry it will be the best you have ever eaten. I suggest you try adding blueberries, delicious!
yummy ^_^
Healthier? Right……… Naw, give me the full dairy fat real ice cream. DELICIOUS, and good for you.
How about no? Bananas are an allergen to plenty of people, let’s not be putting them where they don’t belong to solve a problem that doesn’t need solving.
unilever will buy you out$$$$$$
Well, I am allergic to bananas, so will this be listed on the ingredient list? Does being allergic to bananas mean I would be allergic to banana fiber as well?
But I love melty ice cream… no wonder food is crap these days.