Planet of Japan invent ice cream does not melt

Researchers at the Development Research Center in Kanazawa, Japan, have found a natural solution to the problem of melting old ice cream. Using polyphenols found in strawberries, they can keep the lollipop from melting for hours, on a hot summer day.

Believe it or not, the secret element of the "unmotable" ice cream was discovered by mistake. Kanazawa Research Center had asked the local pastry chef to create new desserts using strawberry polyphenols, trying to find new uses for strawberries not good enough to be sold as fresh fruit. However, the chef later said that "milk cream was enhanced immediately when adding strawberry polyphenols." They made it redundant in desserts, but researchers at the center realized that polyphenols could be used to make ice cream melt much slower.

Photo: Kanazawa Ice/Facebook

"Polyphenols have properties that make it difficult to separate water and oil from water," said Tomihisa Ota, a professor at Kanazawa University who helped develop the innovative treatment. "So the lollipop will be able to retain the original form of cream for longer than usual, and be hard to melt"

Photo: Kanazawa Ice/Facebook

So how much slower does a strawberry polyphenol ice-cream melt? Well, according to  Takeshi Toyoda, president of the Biotherapy Development Research Center, it would retain its shape even when “exposed to the hot air from a dryer”. But Japanese reporters didn’t take his words for it, instead testing the unmelting ice-cream themselves. Last month, reporters from Asahi Shimbun wrote that the popsicle “retained its original shape” after 5 minutes being exposed to heat (around 28 degrees Celsius).

Photo: Kanazawa Ice/Facebook

The guys at Sora News also put the new ice-cream to the test, leaving it out for a whole tree hours. Even though it pretty much became a creamy goo at the end of the test, it took a while for it to reach that state, and even then, it still mostly retained its shape.

The Biomedical Research Research Center began selling ice cream paste at Kanazawa Snow Shop in Kanazawa before expanding to Tokyo and Osaka. It is still only available in Japan.