Scream all you want, but this ain’t ice cream.
Dairy Queen is known for their soft serve, which also serves as the foundation for their famous Blizzards — but that soft serve can’t be defined as ice cream.
Regulations from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) require a product to contain at least 10% milk fat, which is the fatty portion of milk, in order to be qualified as “ice cream.”
Dairy Queen’s soft serve only contains 5% milk fat, meaning it doesn’t meet the fat requirement and therefore doesn’t fit the government’s definition of ice cream.
If you read the Dairy Queen menu, you’ll notice that the words “ice cream” are nowhere to be found — rather, the sweet treat is simply referred to as “soft serve.”
The FDA used to classify the DQ soft serve as “ice milk,” which included frozen desserts with a milk fat content between 2.5 and 10%, Chowhound previously reported.
But in 1995, regulations shifted and products that were classified as ice milk were reclassified as reduced-fat, light, or low-fat ice cream, depending on the fat content.
Though the regulations and labeling changed, Dairy Queen’s recipe never did.
Now Dairy Queen’s soft serve qualifies as “reduced-fat ice cream” — but that’s still not ice cream in the FDA’s eyes.
However, it should be noted that just because DQ’s soft serve has just 5% milk fat, that doesn’t mean it’s 95% fat-free.
The most significant difference is the milk fat content, but to the consumer, the biggest distinction they can tell between soft serve and other frozen desserts is the texture.
Soft serve is between 40% and 45% air, giving it that lightweight, fluffy texture. The air content enhances the creaminess and puts soft serve somewhere between ice cream and whipped cream.
Soft serve is also stored at a different temperature than ice cream and contains emulsifiers to keep all the ingredients together.
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