You can cut your ice cream calories

I scream, you scream. We all scream for ice cream.

Okay, summer season has officially arrived. Even here in Chicago where we have experienced the coldest spring in my memory. So, let’s talk about ice cream.

Ice cream was one of the highlights of my childhood summers and I can’t deny still feeling attracted to it at this time of year.

A waffle cone can double the calories in your ice cream treat.

For the most part, ice cream is empty calories, but with a little foresight, you can still enjoy some without getting into trouble. Just don’t overdo it.

For starters, a serving of ice cream is a half cup. To visualize that picture a baseball. That’s about it. That small amount of vanilla ice cream has 145 calories, 7.9 grams of fat, 4.9 grams of saturated fat, 15.3 grams of sugar and 2.5 grams of protein. You can look at a serving of ice cream in my write up of the portion plate.

Clearly, it doesn’t take much ice cream to mount up the calories. If you want to enjoy it anyway, I suggest keeping serving size in mind and skipping the accoutrements, like chocolate syrup, whipped cream and cones.

WebMD has a nice quiz on ice cream that I recommend taking. Among other things, it gives an excellent explanation of the impact of ice cream cones. “A sugar cone can have been 60 and 130 calories; a waffle cone can range from 120 to 160 calories.

If you get fancier and opt for say, a chocolate-dipped waffle cone at Ben and Jerry’s, the waffle cone alone will cost you 320 calories and 12 grams of saturated fat.

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The best bet? Save your calories for the ice cream itself and order your dessert in a cup. That’s calorie- and fat-free.”

So, skipping the cone can save you some big time calories.

For the record, I will probably have ice cream once or twice this season. I have found over the past year that when I get a hankering for something cold and sweet, I go to my fridge and get out a couple of slices of pineapple. Only 42 calories each and they really hit the spot for me.

Tony