Why is the American Dietetic Association Pushing Low-Fat Ice Cream?

I confess: I’m completely baffed.

Why is the American Dietetic Association — the the nation’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals — promoting low-fat ice cream?

Forgive my ignorance, but I just can’t fathom why the ADA — which professes to be dedicated "to helping people enjoy healthy lives — would proclaim, as it did in its one-page Web item that "We All Scream for Ice Cream!"

We do? That’s news to me. Even the most diehard of sugar addicts don’t necessarily find ice cream compelling. Sure, many folks go for the creamy stuff but hey, why push it on us? And bear in mind that low-fat ice cream still contains all kinds of chemicals and even sugar. So what’s so great about its nutritional content?

Very strange.

Suffice it to say that this "ad" — because that’s really what it seems to be — raises lots of questions, the first of which is: Why would such a piece be produced by the ADA’s Public Relations Team? Doesn’t the organization employ writers with no special PR needs to fulfill?

I have lots more questions about this questionable low-fat ice cream push, but my fellow bloggers,first Regina Wilshire, in her Weight of the Evidence blog, and then Parke Wilde, in his U.S. Food Policy Blog, both eloquently covered the subject so I encourage you to read their takes on this controversial ADA move.

Then ask yourself: Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense if the oft-quoted ADA spoke out favorably about vegetables and fruits instead of unnatural, sugar-filled, low-fat ice cream?

Sure makes a lot more sense to me.

Thank you, Regina and Parke, for pointing out this curious ADA PR ploy to us.