

Vegan ice creams and popsicles: ingredients
First of all, keep in mind that not all ice creams with a tag “vegan” are healthy. When you buy them, take a very close look at the ingredients, to make sure that there are no preservatives and artificial flavour enhancers. Also, pay attention to the type of sweeteners that are used in the ice cream and try to avoid all types of processed sugars, corn syrup etc. As a rule of thumb, if you know all the ingredients and all of them are coming from whole foods (i.e. not processed), then you can enjoy it without major health concerns. You can also make many of the vegan ice creams at home, easily, and then you will be in full control of what’s inside. If you want to replicate the store bought ice cream 100%, however, you will need an ice cream machine (if you are ready to make the investment, take a look at our list of the best ice cream machines here). Here is the list of the most basic ingredients that you will find in the healthier store-bought vegan ice creams:
Cashew nuts

Coconut milk

Soy

Cocoa butter and coconut oil
Among the ingredients of vegan ice creams you will often see cocoa butter and coconut oil, and their content can be quite high. Both are being added to slow down the melting process, and of course to add some fat, in order to mimic the full fat dairy ice cream as closely as possible. Cocoa butter is mostly added to more expensive brands, as it’s quite an expensive ingredient on its own, but taste-wise it does make the texture of the product richer and creamier. Coconut oil was recently making headlines in the media (again) for not being as healthy as it was believed to be. You can read about both benefits and risks of coconut oil here and decide if it’s the ingredient you are happy about. From our side, again, we will mention what we think is the most important: moderation is key. And remember that many traditional societies have been thriving on coconut oil for centuries, given it’s grown and produced, as well as consumed correctly.
Sweeteners
People who lead a full sugar-free lifestyle might argue that all types of sugars and sweets are unhealthy. Why it’s not incorrect, it should not be taken to the extreme: as long as the sweeteners are natural, and are not eaten in excessive quantity, there is nothing wrong with having them in your diet . So, look for natural sweeteners (and this is what health-oriented brands usually use), like coconut sugar and syrup, raw cane sugar, stevia. As I’ve mentioned at the beginning of the article, if you are looking not just for a vegan ice cream, but for a healthy vegan ice cream, a type of sweetener used is one of the main things to pay attention to. Agave syrup is a very common ingredient, but this is something you might want to be careful with – we are talking in detail about all types of sweeteners, and why things like agave syrup are unhealthy in our Healthy Desserts Course.
Thickeners
In traditional ice cream production milk powder is often used to give a better texture to the ice cream. You will also see different types of thickeners in vegan ice creams. Usually, it’s different types of flours, which should not be a big problem unless you have particular food intolerances and allergies.
Flavours
If you buy an all-natural vegan ice cream, you will never have a question about the type and the quality of the flavours that were added. What’s all-natural is easy to understand: those kind of brands will have on their list of ingredients things like fresh fruits and berries, raw cocoa powder, pure vanilla etc. They will never have anything starting with “artificial”, or written in numbers and letters instead of words. This is as easy, when choosing a healthy product: just make sure that you don’t need to google any ingredient that you see on the box! Of course, the only way to have full control over what your vegan ice cream is made of, is to make the ice cream yourself, and to be frank, it’s quite simple too. We have a detailed step-by-step video guide for making simple vegan ice creams without an ice cream maker. Making it yourself will allow you to create your favourite flavors, eat it at any time you want, and save a lot of money on expensive vegan brands.

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