FREEZINda Review – Protein Powder To Ice Cream
If you have looked around at the recipes on this site you know that I love ice cream smoothies. When gaining weight, I’m a huge proponent of using high calorie smoothies that resemble ice cream in taste and texture. These smoothies taste great, contain a lot of healthy calories and are high in protein.
Ice cream style smoothies are great when gaining weight and bulking up. But they suck when you are trying to cut or lose weight. You really shouldn’t be drinking a high calorie smoothie when you need to shed some pounds.
It’s hard to be on a diet when you are craving sugar and it’s hot outside and all you want is ice cream.
This is the problem that FREEZINda tries to solve.
What Is FREEZINda?
FREEZINda is a mixture that you combine with your favorite protein powder. You mix up FREEZINda, some protein powder and water (or milk), put the whole thing into the freezer and you end up with a high protein frozen dessert similar to ice cream.
FREEZINda is not protein powder. You have to add your own protein powder, which is actually a really good thing as it lets you choose a protein powder which is idea for your fitness goals.
FREEZINda is also really easy to use. It’s literally mixing three things together (FREEZINda + protein powder + water) and putting that into your freezer overnight.
The result is a frozen protein “ice cream”.
FREEZINda helps you create a frozen food that is very high in protein and is similar to a frozen dessert such as sorbet. It’s a great idea for those who love and want ice cream, but are trying to stay healthy and keep their calorie count low.
I can see FREEZINda being the preferred way of consuming protein powder for some people.
What’s In FREEZINda?
FREEZINda contains two packets, a liquid packet and a powder packet. You mix both of them into the protein dessert you are making.
The main ingredients in FREEZINda are:
- Vegetable Glycerin
- Erythritol
- Baking Powder
- Sugar
- Guar Gum
- Xantham Gum
All of these are totally common food ingredients and you probably consume all of them in one form or another on a regular basis. The main purpose of all these ingredients is to make the final mixture scoopable and soft and to make the final mixture sweeter.
Vegetable Glycerin and Erythritol are both sugar alcohols. Sugar alcohols occur naturally in certain vegetables. They are sweet, but have a much lower glycemic index than cane sugar and will not spike your blood sugar levels in the same way that cane sugar does. Also, unlike sugar they do not contribute to tooth decay. They are also easier to digest than cane sugar.
Glycerin is especially popular and is used in a ton of food products and cosmetic products. It’s totally safe to consume and is usually made from palm oil, soy oil or coconut oil. It is odorless, colorless and sweeter than cane sugar.
Erythritol is usually used in chewing gum and beverages. It’s sweet, but not as sweet as cane sugar. It occurs naturally is pears, watermelons and grapes.
Both of these sugar alcohols contribute to sweetening FREEZINda and to making the final mixture soft and scoopable.
You probably know what baking powder and sugar are, so I will not go into detail about those.
Guar gum and xantham gum are two popular binding agents. They are used in a variety of foods, including commercial ice cream. They are often used as an alternative to gluten.
Nutrition
FREEZINda contains 150 calories per dessert, but you are unlikely to eat a whole dessert. The 150 calories are spread across 3/4ths cup of protein powder. This ends up being 50 calories or FREEZINda per serving. That’s not bad. It’s certainly a lot less calories than you would find in heavy cream or other traditional ice cream ingredients.
Most of the nutrition of the final dessert will depend on the protein powder that you use.
Softer and Sweeter
As I mentioned, the ingredients in FREEZINda are there to make the final frozen dessert softer and sweeter. That is exactly what you want when making an ice cream product. You need the frozen mixture to be soft enough to scoop out with a spoon, and sweet enough to taste.
There is a huge difference in texture between ice cream and ice. An ice cube is hard and cannot be eaten with a spoon. If you attempt to freeze protein powder and water, you will get something that resembles a hard ice cube. FREEZINda softens this mixture, allowing you to easily eat the end result with a spoon, the same way you would a sorbet.
FREEZINda also sweetens the protein powder. A lot of people do not realize this, but it’s more difficult to taste frozen food than non frozen food. That is why ice cream needs to be extra sweet. Our taste buds do not taste the sweetness as easily when eating a frozen dessert.
If you attempted to make a protein powder ice cream without adding any more sweetener to it, you would find the frozen result to seem a lot less sweet than the protein powder originally was. This is not because the flavor diminishes when frozen. It is because out mouth is unable to sense sweetness as well when eating frozen food.
When using FREEZINda, you also add water (or milk) to the mixture, which would otherwise dilute the flavor, so adding some additional sweetness helps ensure that the final dessert is pleasant.
My Experience With FREEZINda
Now that you know what FREEZINda is, and what it does, let me tell you about what I noticed when I used FREEZINda for the first couple of times.
Taste
As expected, FREEZINda’s dessert will taste like the protein powder you use. I used Reserveage’s Chocolate Protein which is a really good tasting whey protein powder. I recently wrote a review of that protein powder here. It’s a rich tasting protein powder that uses real cocoa.
The FREEZINda dessert tasted just as rich and sweet as the protein powder did. Even though FREEZINda adds sweeteners to the mix, I did not find the end result to be too sweet.
Texture
Here is where FREEZINda falls short. The texture of the dessert was similar to a sorbet, not to ice cream. I made my first batch using water, and thought that maybe if I use milk the texture will be more creamy. It wasn’t. For my second batch I used whole milk, and the result still ended up being similar to sorbet rather than ice cream. I even made certain of this by eating a scoop of real ice cream (for science).
Yes FREEZINda makes the end result scoopable and soft enough to eat with a spoon, but you will not fool anyone into thinking this is ice cream.
Next time I am buying some protein powder, I might try to find a fruit flavored protein powder, like orange or mango. Using that, along with fruit juice, might make the result a lot better. Since the texture is like sorbet, if I use a fruit flavor, the result might be a lot better. I have never ordered chocolate flavored sorbet, so maybe it was a mistake to use chocolate flavored whey protein.
FREEZINda has some additional tips for making the dessert taste more like ice cream. These include using a bit less milk, blending in a blender (I hand mixed mine) and adding more protein powder. Next time I am making a batch I will try out these suggestions.
Who Should Try FREEZINda
Obviously FREEZINda is targeting those of us who love ice cream and frozen desserts.
Those Looking To Loose Weight
FREEZINda is best for those who want a frozen dessert that is healthy and low in calories. It adds 50 calories per serving of protein powder, which isn’t too much. It’s a nice way to treat yourself and indulge in something that is similar to ice cream, without all the calories and sugar found in real ice cream.
If you find yourself breaking your diet to eat ice cream, FREEZINda might be able to help you deal with your urges.
Those Who Use A Specific Protein Powder
There are pre-made high protein ice cream companies out there. They make low calorie, high protein ice creams that taste good. However, they are not customizable. If you eat a specific type of protein powder that you know meets your fitness goals, then you can use FREEZINda to make a dessert with exactly that same nutritional makeup. A pre-made ice cream is unlikely to have exactly the same nutritional value as the protein powder that you use.
Who Is FREEZINda Not For
If you don’t like ice cream and don’t crave frozen desserts, then there is no need to add FREEZINda to your diet. FREEZINda does not add any real nutritional value to your diet.
Those Looking To Gain Weight
If you are trying to gain weight, a high calorie ice cream like smoothie using ingredients such as heavy cream will serve your nutritional needs more, and will have a texture that is more similar to real ice cream. There is no need to use FREEZINda when you can just make a higher calorie ice cream.
You can read more reviews and buy FREEZINda on Amazon.
