[seszett]

> Perfect for feeding 20 hungry four-year-olds who wouldn’t know the difference. But few adults were fooled

Setting aside the fact this was written by an LLM, I think this line of thought (which wasn't invented by the LLM, I mean it's something people actually think) is the very origin of this problem.

The 4 year olds don't know better, but it's because they are learning what ice cream (and everything) is. And if you're feeding them shit, that will set their base level for ice cream for the rest of their life.

IMO young kids should be given quality products as much as possible exactly because they don't know the difference. Unless you want them to grow into adults that still don't know the difference.

[userbinator]

because they are learning what ice cream (and everything) is

If you feed a 4-year-old "frozen dairy dessert" and call it "ice cream", then you're technically also legally wrong.

[safety1st]

Far be it from me to defend Big Food, but let's play devil's advocate for a moment, just facts with no LLM slop.

Hyperbole aside they created a new product category which has less milk fat, and adds more air and gum/gelatin.

It tastes similar to ice cream at half the calories, not so insignificant in a world where obesity is the #1 public health crisis.

Their labeling is technically compliant with regulations but converting classic ice cream brands into these "ice milk desserts" was unpleasantly sneaky of them.

Are we 100% sure all the consumers eating these desserts have been fooled? We're sure no one's choosing them because they're lower calorie, lower fat, lower price, tastes good enough etc.?

If it tasted good, a dessert that's 99% air and ice would be a public health win would it not? That's pretty much what bingsu is, I don't care for it, but many people love it.

Haagen-Dazs is still there on the shelves and still good ice cream.

I don't know, I think the outrage is a little overblown. "Tastes better but is twice the calories" is a very significant consumer choice. I bet many will say they want the "real" stuff, but when it comes to purchasing decisions, buy the "fake" stuff more often.

There may be better windmills to tilt at than lecturing people on which type of milk dessert is the right choice. The brand shenanigans aside maybe we are in a better position having both options on the shelves.

[lesostep]

>> at half the calories, not so insignificant in a world where obesity is the #1 public health crisis

It's not so simple. The problem is that fat calories and whole milk/cream make you feel fuller, leading to decrease in eating, leading to decrease in calories

While air with sugar – especially corn syrup – doesn't make you feel full as much, leading to overeating later. High blood sugar isn't good, so your body is mostly working to turn it into stored fat as fast as possible. After it's done converting, you will feel hungry again.

Fat inside your stomach on the other side is metabolizing slowly, and it's products are mostly spend on whatever you do.

People that count their calories could make an informed choice about their calories intake and just deal with additional hunger. People that rely on hunger and individual understanding of their bodies could misjudge easily when fat is switched to gum and syrup.

[alanwreath]

Problem isn’t with “tastes better and at half the calories”, no, it is actually for providing filler when the initial sell was using genuine simple ingredients.

The software analog is like a certain Italian company that buys SaaS companies and waters down the initial product, firing then very ingredients that made the product good in the first place in an effort to:

- extract maximum profit

- ride the coattails of trust a brand has garnered.

I won’t speak to the odd coincidence of their name and its relation to ice cream.

Some people aren’t buying icecream to lose weight. That’s not their purpose. It’s to indulge and enjoy artisanal foods where the purpose was high quality not high margins.

Of course I don’t buy that icecream much anymore - I just buy Andies custard by the quart.

[cyberax]

> Problem isn’t with “tastes better and at half the calories”, no, it is actually for providing filler when the initial sell was using genuine simple ingredients.

So "ice cream desserts" use fake gelatin?

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

I don't think that's sufficient. You need to be there and tell them why the other one is shit. I love pistachio gelato (artisanal), and it's my easy way to spot if the gelato being served is good or sucks.

I give it to my daughter, so she tried many different pistachios (good and bad), but she still can't properly distinguish between the two (sometimes the difference is very big).

Me and a bunch of my friends have a clear memory, around the first year of high school, where we switched to "kids eating" to "adult eating", so I thought maybe the senses are not refined enough to use all that extra flavor details

[esafak]

I do that with my daughter and my wife says I'm teaching her to hate everything, emanating bad energy. It is tough to have higher standards than people around you. They're happy, you're the downer.

[cyberax]

> You need to be there and tell them why the other one is shit.

Why? Are you sure that the kind that you're eating is not shit?

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

Because I ate a lot of pistachio gelato and the one she told me "I think it's good" tasted like coffee (reported by multiple family members), so I had to explain her what good pistachio is.

I can totally make mistakes in which one is the best, but identifying which ones are egregiously bad is way easier

[cyberax]

You might be surprised, but a lot of people actually like "bad" versions more.

I don't like regular ice-cream it's just too rich for me. I experimented with making aerated (well, nitrogenated) ice-cream myself 20 years ago when I had access to a lab.

[freak42]

Why was this written by a LLM?

[seszett]

It's a general feeling more than a precise diagnosis, and I guess it could also be a human that has internalised LLM style, or a human-written draft that was reworded by an LLM. But it just really feels like LLM writing.

[freak42]

But you wrote that it's a fact? That's not just a "general feeling"?

[seszett]

I wrote that because I wanted to avoid a sterile discussion on whether or not my comment was valid because the article was not written by a human.

As I said, the actual remark I made is independent on whether this article was written by an LLM or not.

It's still pretty obvious to me that it was, but I'm not sure what kind of "proof" you are looking for, you know as well as I do that it can't be proven one way or the other, so who cares?

[freak42]

I do care. Of course I know it can't be proven. But you could know the author,bwhat do I know. I just don't understand why people claim factual knowledge when they don't. It rubs me the wrong way and rightly so.

[razmatazzle]

I dunno. That's a "When did you stop beating your wife" question.

Unless you can show me some sort of "proof" this is LLM writing, it doesn't read that way to me. And I read a lot of obviously LLM-generated content. I'm 100% sure it was cleaned up by an LLM, because I don't see any glaring mistakes (grammar, spelling, article mistmatch, etc.). But it doesn't have that "prompt-> article" AI-slop feel to me. And some of the lines, like the ice cream frog being boiled, are things you'd never have an LLM suggest.

IF you can "prove" otehrwise, I'm all ears (eyes).

[mikestorrent]

That's the smoking gun -- he was absolutely right. It's not ice cream, it's slop!