The University of Wisconsin-Madison student government has proposed “taking action” against a company which uses — gasp! — gelatin in its ice cream.
The Badger Herald reports that in its first meeting of the new school year, the Associated Students of Madison discussed how Babcock ice cream “marginalizes” religious and vegetarian students via its use of a beef-based gelling ingredient.
“There’s a real push to try to include everyone in the Wisconsin community in the ability to eat the Babcock ice cream, which is a part of the Wisconsin experience,” Representative Jared Lang said.
If the ASM legislation passes, Babcock Dairy would be “formally acknowledged” as marginalizing UW-Madison religious students. This means the ASM would recommend that the school administration, dining halls, and unions all follow suit, as well as formally “condemn[ing] UW sponsored events with Babcock ice cream.”
Lang also said many students are not even aware that Babcock ice cream contains gelatin which unknowingly violates their principles. Babcock locations do carry a sign meant to alert customers of the inclusion of animal by-products, but Rep. Beth Alleman, who is a vegetarian, said she was not aware that there was gelatin in Babcock ice cream.
“I’ve been a vegetarian for ten years, and I’ve eaten Babcock ice cream,” Alleman said. “So that’s a little frustrating.”
In a statement sent to The Badger Herald, Scott Rankin, chair of the food science department defended Babcock Dairy’s inclusion of gelatin in some flavors of the ice cream.
Rankin said Babcock Dairy offers a variety of frozen dairy desserts outside of ice cream that do not feature gelatin and that they also produce an array of “super premium” ice creams, which are gelatin free. Babcock Dairy tested out variations of their ice cream products, but that the result simply did not live up to their original recipe.
“In spite of having all of our campus heads of state as evaluators as well as many companies’ stabilizers, we were not able to replicate traditional gelatin-based Babcock Ice Cream,” Rankin said. “The vegetable stabilizer products were good, but just different from our traditional product that so many alumni know, love and expect.”
But Rep. Yogev Ben-Yitschak begs to differ: He says a rival company produces gelatin-free ice cream that “couldn’t taste too different.” Besides, he adds, “a small change in taste was well worth being more inclusive to all students.”
MORE: Ben & Jerry’s caves to PC wrath over pun-based ice cream flavor
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