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Dripping, Fast Melting Ice Cream Could Be a Thing of the Past, Researchers Say

New study reveals that a banana plant extract could slow melting and increase the shelf life for ice cream

What to Know

  • The sticky, messy nuisance of melting ice cream may be a thing of the past now that scientists say they are closing in on a solution
  • Researchers looked into cellulose fibers extracted from banana plant waste to solve the problem
  • They found that the extract not only slows melting, but could increase shelf life and possibly replace fats used to make the beloved dessert

Picture this: you’re enjoying a nice cold ice cream cone on a blistering summer day, only to have it start melting and dripping down your hands.

This sticky, messy nuisance may be a thing of the past now that scientists say they are closing in on a solution, the American Chemical Society reports.

Researchers have found that adding the cellulose fibers extracted from banana plant stems, known as rachis, to ice cream could not only slow melting, but could increase shelf life and possibly replace fats used to make the beloved dessert.

For years, food scientists have tried to find a solution to some of ice cream's shortcomings. The most obvious disadvantage facing this dessert? It melts when exposed to heat. To address the problem, researchers have tried using wood pulp extracts in recent years. In 2017, scientists in Japan developed a melt-resistant ice cream based on polyphenol compounds found in strawberries, according to ACS.

As a result, Zuluaga Gallego, Jorge Velásquez Cock and colleagues at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Colombia started investigating using banana plant stems, which are considered waste once the fruit is harvested.

Working alongside fellow researchers at the University of Guelph, in Canada, the scientists extracted cellulose nanofibrils (CNFs), which are thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair, from ground-up banana rachis, mixing it into ice cream at varying concentrations, the ACS reports.

The groups of scientists found that ice creams mixed with CNFs melted more slowly than traditional ice creams and could increase the shelf life of the frozen treat. The CNFs also increased the creaminess and texture of low-fat ice cream.

In the future, the researchers plan to look into how different types of fat, including those in coconut oil and milk, impact the CNFs in frozen treats.

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