Best Ice Creams to Eat for a Jacked & Shredded Physique

There is a major error in the Encyclopedia Britannica. I am talking about perhaps the biggest information error in all of human history.

If you look up the wonders of the ancient world only the following seven are listed:

1. The Great Pyramid at Giza in Egypt.
2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
3. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia in Greece.
4. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
5. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.
6. The Colossus of Rhodes.
7. The Lighthouse at Alexandria in Egypt.

They are missing the most important one, ice cream.

This is not hyperbole. Of all the things in the history of the world, ice cream may be the most important.

As we go into summer and your ice cream consumption begins to peak, I felt personally responsible to ensure that you have the best information with regard to the most important decisions you will face this summer. You need a list of ice creams that you can consume that will help you still hit your goals of either bulking or shredding.

To make it on this list there were a few requirements:

• They had to be widely available. A local niche ice cream store you couldn’t find at your grocery store would have been torturous and super unhelpful.
• Nutritional information had to be readily available.
• All of these have been verified for top tastiness by me, personally (hazard of the job).
• Gelato was also included in the list because well, I got to make the entry criteria.

Each ice cream has been rated on overall taste, mouthfeel, and ability to control consumption, and rate on a 1-10 scale.

While this list is clearly not a list of boutique style, super high end ice creams, they will leave you satisfied and on the trail to your goals.

Best Ice Cream for a Bulk

When we talk about adding mass to that… well, you know what I am referring to, getting enough calories is a critical piece of a successful bulking cycle. We all know that it can be very difficult to get enough calories without eating a lot of calorie dense foods. Show me one person who got huge eating chicken, kale, and brown rice.

Related: 5 Tips to a Successful Bulking Season

When you are bulking, ice cream can be a super effective way to get a substantial amount of calories in a small volume. The combination of sugar, fat, and some milk based protein can make it an awesome calorie source in the right situation.

This category gets two choices since I couldn’t make up my mind. So, here are two of the top go to high calorie ice creams:

1. Ben and Jerry’s Chunky Monkey

Overall Taste: Chunky Monkey hits all the right notes, it is light, chocolatey, crunchy, and has a little hint of banana. It is not super sweet which means you are going to eat a lot before hitting the saturation point. I give this one a 9 out of 10. A touch of sea salt would put this at a 10.

Mouth feel: Silky, with a little crunch. This one really has a nice mouth feel. The banana can be a bit weird if you let it thaw out too much so you have to be fairly careful with the timing. This one gets an 8 for mouth feel.

Ability to Control Consumption: This is super light, not very filling, hits the sweetness factor spot on. It is very easy to put down an entire pint and feel like you could have another. This makes it a good candidate for a bulk. This gets an 8.5. That touch of salt would take this to the next level.

Nutrition Facts

• Serving Size: 1 cup (no on eats half a cup)
• Calories: 590
• Protein: 8 grams
• Fat: 34 grams
• Carbs: 64 grams

2. Talenti Gelato Sea Salt Caramel

Overall Taste: Salted caramel is either a home run or salty, sweet, nasty mess. Talenti hit a home run on this. I actually just polished off a pint right before finishing this article so it is fresh in my mind.

What really makes this is the bitter chocolate chunks. This really evens out the salt and the sweetness and gives a nice little crunch to it as well. This gets a solid 9.5. Eating this in a waffle cone would push it to a 10, easily.

Mouth feel: Since this is gelato, the mouth feel is a little more “full and chewy”. This is easily one of the smoother more “silky” ice creams I’ve ever had. The little bit of crunch also makes this a very nice choice. It was a tad dense and could have been a little lighter. This gets a solid 9 out of 10.

Ability to Control Consumption: This one is harder to consume in large quantities, about 1 cup is enough to fill me up. It is SUPER palatable with the salt, sweet, chunk, and full fat, but the density makes it super filling. Since this is the “bulk” category, I give this a 6 out of ten for ability to control consumption.

Nutrition Facts

• Serving Size: 1 cup (no on eats half a cup)
• Calories: 500
• Protein: 50 grams
• Fat: 22 grams
• Carbs: 64 grams

Best Ice Cream for a Cut

For most of us going on a cut to lose body fat means we have to choose foods that are lower in calories.

This often means either lowering portions or choosing less calorie dense foods, which ultimately means your quality of ice cream suffers… au contraire! 

There are some very solid low-calorie ice cream choices.

3. Dreyer’s French Vanilla

Overall Taste: Any real ice cream connoisseur will tell you that you judge an ice cream company based on their vanilla. If they can’t make a good vanilla, the rest are using flavor tricks to cover their short comings. While often thought of as just a big, mass-produced ice cream company, Dreyer’s actually nails this one, their French vanilla is really well done. I give it a solid 8 out of 10.

Mouth feel: For a mass produced vanilla ice cream, the mouth feel on this one is pretty solid. The slow churn really gives this the mouth feel of a high fat ice cream. The only downside, it is really prone to freezer burn which obliterates the mouth feel so don’t let it get freezer burn. Bonus tip - mix in about 5-10 dark chocolate chunks in for a little extra crunch and flavor.

Ability to Control Consumption: One of the best parts of this choice is that it tastes delicious but isn’t overly palatable. 1 full cup is enough to quench your ice cream desires and you don’t feel the need to plow through the whole quart. I give this an 8.5/10.

Related: M&S Complete Healthy Snack Recipe Database

Nutrition Facts

• Serving Size: 1 cup (no on eats half a cup)
• Calories: 200 
• Protein: 6 grams
• Fat: 6 grams
• Carbs: 30 grams

Best Ice Cream Alternative

Ok look, in no universe do ice cream alternatives qualify as ice cream. They are not dairy based so by definition they are not ice cream. You can try and debate this, but you are wrong by definition.

Ok, now that we got that formality out of the way we can move forward. While these are not ice cream per se, they are often legit frozen desserts that can meet the same emotional and calorie needs as ice cream. These are often harder to find in stores and after a month of searching and trying as many as I could find, one made it to the top of the short list.

4. Halo Top Chocolate Almond Crunch

Overall Taste: This clearly isn’t ice cream so it doesn’t have the normal ice cream taste but the chocolate is pretty decent. It uses eryhritol and stevia so the sweetness is a bit off but for a low sugar, non-ice cream based frozen dessert the chocolate taste gets about a 7 out of 10. The almonds are roasted and in a good chunk size which balances out the chocolate nicely.

Mouth feel: Definitely not super creamy and is a bit “icy”. I do prefer this to coconut milk based products for the mouth feel. I would give this a 6/10.

Ability to Control Consumption: A full pint of this stuff will leave you full for hours. Probably due to the high fiber content and the fact that a whole pint of ice cream is pretty darn filling. I would be really impressed by someone who could put down two of these things.

Nutrition Facts

• Serving Size: 1 pint
• Calories: 320 
• Protein: 24 grams
• Fat: 12 grams
• Carbs: 52 grams

What recommendations do you have for ice cream this summer?

Leave your selections and reviews in the comments of the article so we can build a giant ice cream database!