The actual origin of ice cream is shrouded in myth. All we know is that treats made with snow and ice have always been popular in warm countries. Perhaps, first, snow and ice were mixed with fruit juices and later with milk or yogurt and this resulted in a gradual evolution of these products as we know them. Until the 19th century, harvesting ice and storing it for use during summer was a labor-intensive process and therefore, ice cream was a food for the rich only. With the invention of the hand-cranked freezer, the availability of ice cream moved down the social ladder and, toward the end of the 19th century, it was sold on the streets of metropolitan areas.

Ice cream and frozen desserts are popular throughout the world. In the United States it is estimated that 48 pints per capita were consumed in 1996, the U.S. being the largest consumer. Ice cream is a popular frozen dessert in all parts of the world, but a lack of appropriate ingredients, lack of refrigerated distribution chains, economics, or other cultural factors may deter the manufacture (and therefore consumption) of ice cream, which has several different names around the world. In Norwegian it is iskrem, in Portuguese sorvettes, in Spanish healdos, in French glace’, in Italian gelato, in Hebrew glidah, in German eis, in Finnish jatelo, in Greek pagoto and in Chinese bing qi lin or sou go.

Legal definitions for ice cream vary from country to country. In the United States ice cream is a standardized food, which means that it has a legal standard of identity. Only products conforming to this legal standard definition can be labeled as ice cream. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, ice cream is a food produced by freezing, while stirring, a pasteurized mix consisting of one or more of the dairy ingredients and other safe and suitable ingredients. Ice cream contains not less than 1.6 pounds of food solids to the gallon and weighs not less than 4.5 pounds to the gallon. Ice cream contains not less than 10 percent milk fat, nor less than 20 percent total milk solids.

In the United States a product can be called ice cream only when it contains milk fat. In other parts of the world such a stringent requirement for milk fat does not exist and vegetable fats are often used. In other parts of the world, the minimum amount of fat required for a product to be called ice cream can be below the 10 percent minimum required in the U.S.

The Nutrition Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) fully implemented in 1995 allowed for some modifying terminology. According to this act, ice cream can be modified to be called reduced-fat ice cream, light ice cream, low-fat ice cream and no-fat ice cream. In order to understand these modified terms, it is necessary to realize that NLEA was promulgated to aid food processors to make foods that would result in lowering the fat intake of the U.S. population and still allow manufactures to use food names that consumers like. Reduced-fat ice cream should achieve a 25 percent reduction in fat over the full-fat counterpart. This means ice cream with 7.5 percent fat can be labeled as reduced-fat. Light ice cream should result in a 50 percent reduction in total fat and a 33 percent reduction in calories. According to this definition a five percent fat ice cream with a 33 percent reduction in calories can be labeled as light ice cream. Low-fat ice cream should provide less than three grams of fat per serving of ice cream. One serving of ice cream is considered to be one-half cup (a volumetric measure). Finally, no-fat ice cream contains less than half a gram of fat per serving. These modified ice creams can also weigh not less than 4.0 pounds per gallon rather than the 4.5 pounds per gallon stipulated for regular ice cream.

There are other frozen desserts that also have a standard of identity. These are sherbet, mellorine, and water ice. Sherbet should contain not less than one percent milk fat and no more than two percent milk fat, milk solids (not fat) content should be not less than two percent and no more than five percent. The minimum weight requirement is 6 pounds per gallon. A fruit-flavored sherbet should have a minimum acidity of 0.35 percent. Mellorine is a product made with fats other than milk fat. These fats can be animal or vegetable derived. Mellorine should contain a minimum of 1.6 pounds of food solids per gallon, a fat content of not less than 6 percent, a minimum protein content of 2.7 percent (the protein has to be of equal nutritional value to milk protein) and a gallon of mellorine should weigh not less than 4.5 pounds per gallon. Water ices have the same standards as sherbet except no milk or egg ingredient is allowed (except egg white). The terms sorbet and frozen yogurt are also used and these have no federal standards of identity.

This information is from the Penn State University Ice Cream Educational Bulletin.