This New Frozen Dessert At Costco Comes With A Laundry List Of Ingredients

Costco's latest ice cream treat, Frosty Peach and Mango Fruit Shaped Ice Cream, is making the rounds on social media. Accounts like @costcohotfinds on Instagram and posters on Reddit are excited for the viral sensation normally found at Asian grocery stores to make it to Costco's freezer shelves at a reduced cost. It even caught our eye and made it onto our list of nine Costco must-haves this June. Some people commenting, however, are pointing out one potential downside: a long ingredient list. Or, as one commenter put it, "Full of bad chemicals."

It shouldn't be a surprise that a treat advertised as a 3D dessert and shaped and painted to look like a peach or mango will have more ingredients than the fruit itself. The ingredient list is long and includes some trigger words such as: sunflower oil, palm oil, soy lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, carmine, FD&C Red No.40 Aluminum Lake, fructose-glucose syrup, mono- and diglycerides of fatty acids, locust bean and guar gums, and carrageenan. "How many oils and gums can they possibly fit in that," quipped one Reddit user.

Let's compare that to the chemical breakdown of a naturally grown peach, which is also long and has compounds such as quinic, oxalic, and tartrate acids, (E)-2-hexenol, (E)-2,6-nonadiena, (E)-2-hexenyl acetate, and d-limonene. As an example, 2-hexenyl acetate in its purest state is considered hazardous and is used in perfumes. The trace amount in a peach is what gives it its pleasant smell and flavor — and is perfectly safe.

It depends. "What the frig is aluminum lake," asked one poster on Reddit. Like 2-hexenyl acetate, FD&C Red No.40 Aluminum Lake sounds scary, but Red Dye Number 40 is allowed in both the US and the EU in limited quantities. As long as you are not allergic to it, it is safe. (It was Red Dye 3, not Red Dye 40, that was banned last year.) Aluminum Lake is a type of dye that is formed by reacting the original dye with salts and precipitants to make it non-water-soluble. Others may be sensitive or allergic to something else on the long list of ingredients.

The Frosty Peach and Mango Fruit Shaped Ice Cream already should be an occasional treat regardless, not a regular meal. The dessert is a creamier approximation of a perfectly ripe mango or peach. Both fruits are incredible when they are ripe and in season. If you want to know how to tell if a mango is ripe, it's not the color of the fruit but how it feels when you gently squeeze one. (Peaches, however, will signal their ripeness with a change of stem color!) Better yet, compare a ripe peach, ripe mango, and this ice cream to see which you prefer, as this ice cream (probably) won't hurt you!