And Then Your Stomach Says…

And then your stomach says, “what the hell did you do to me?”

Over the weekend I heard that Cold Stone Creamery opted to recall all of their cake batter ice cream… something about salmonella poisoning – after all, there is raw egg in cake batter. I don’t blame Cold Stone for this – call it a typo or a mishap – but I can certainly blame them for what they’ve done to me today with their “red pan” flavor of the month…

They’ve been doing this “flavor of the month” thing since January. They pop a new flavor in the red pan and come out with a bunch of new mixing options. This month – did you know that July is national ice cream month? Oi! – they have a bunch of new flavors. Tangerine. Black Licorice. Wasabi Ginger. Fruity Cereal. Oatmeal Cookie.

I’ve been keeping up with my work out schedule so I thought I’d boost some ice cream for dinner. Wasn’t expecting all the new choices! Sorta threw me for a loop… Wasabi Ginger sounded interesting – after all green tea ice cream is popular enough. So I had a sample. It was actually pretty good! Had the tell-tale horseradish up yer nose burn that is trademark wasabi but with the ginger it actually tastes sorta like the green tea ice cream. “Wasabi Chiller” took this ice cream and mixed it with raspberry, pineapple, and coconut.

Hey Jon, I swear that I did this all for you and your blog.

I got a cone with the stuff. Tasted good for a while. A long while. It was only after I was completely done and stood up that my body reacted to it. Lactose intolerant? Maybe, but I doubt it. Ice cream headache? Shouldn’t have been since it wasn’t that hot out and I didn’t eat it fast. Gas? Possibly, sure! Inverse reaction to a having a year’s worth of wasabi in one condensed cone of dessert in ten minute? More than likely. The damned thing should come with a warning label.

I have a pretty tolerant system. I drink all types of milk and cream without worry. I eat hot stuff whenever I want. It’s not uncommon for me to eat a burger at 7 in the morning. Never had a burp from southern BBQ. Never a hiccup from Italian, Mexican, Thai, or Chinese. On my last trip to Vegas when I proclaimed that I wanted a drink before noon, I went with a piña colada, in true goomba fashion, without a care for the rum – I did think that the fruit would make a proper for breakfast. In the rare event I get a bit of heartburn from anything – more often than not, it’s from alcohol rather than food – a Tums or two and I’m fine.

My body is currently staging a revolution… it’s pissed off at me and it’s telling me so. In fact, my lower intestines have told me that it would have been happier with tainted cake batter than deal with what I’ve given it today. One poor choice and your body turns on you for hours! I see eighteen billion warning labels every day – you’d think they should habe been required to put one here, or something…

Red pan, my ass; I’m sticking to spumoni [and Brioschi] for a while.


16 thoughts on “And Then Your Stomach Says…”

  1. I’m disappointed with all the “red pan” flavors. The point of the ice cream at Coldstone Creamery is to serve as a decent neutral base in which all the candy and mixings go in. Making wild — and powerful — flavors in the ice cream makes it hard to pick reasonable mix-ins.

    Doesn’t Coldstone want to encourage customers to add things? Isn’t that more profit? And if it isn’t, then there’s probably something wrong with their business model.

    The lack of the cake batter ice cream sent me onto the Web looking for recipes to make it myself. I’ve found one that looks promising (it uses a store-bought dry cake mix to provide the flavor) and there are no raw eggs. I’m going to mix up the batter tonight after the Eastside blog meetup and stick it in the refrigerator to “cure.” I’ll freeze it when I get home from work tomorrow.

  2. Oh they still encourage the add-in… in fact the oatmeal cookie was used as the base for a apple pie mix-in thingy… the blue ice cream thing had a suggestion of Fruit Loops, believe it or not. I think it was the “freak-out” reaction to horseradishness… go figure.

    Tis a shame that the get togethers are always on Tuesday… I made it to the first one on the Eastside [Crossroads is pretty darned convenient] but Tuesday night is reserved for Poker :)

  3. I am employee at cold stone cremery in colorado and cake batter is the best ice creme in my oppinion. But on the other hand all the new flavors are fun and with every new flavor there is a new creation. Hopefully cake batter will be back soon but thats my imput

  4. I work at coldstone in South Florida, and the cake batter ice cream is in fact made with a dry cake mix. In fact, the problem with Salmonella actually stemmed from the company, Gold Medal, which provides Coldstone with the mix. Once the creamery finds a new supplier of cake mix, cake batter will once again be in stores.

  5. i am an ice cream guy from waaaay back. My dad made ice cream for Safeway and Vons while i was growing up. So, when my siste introduced me to Coldstone in Medford, OR back in October it was like going to dessert heaven!

    Now, that said, i gotta say this: It will be,

    to quote some absent friends, a cold day in July before you convince me that it is a good idea to have ice cream taste like ANY kind of food…let alone horseradish for goodness sake! I don’t want my ice cream tasting like food or candy or anything else. If I want candy with my ice cream, Coldstone makes it very convenient. Make ice cream taste like ice cream and leave the food tastes to the restaurants.

    thankx

  6. I was the one in WA that was in the hospital for a week with Salmonella from the Cake Batter ice cream. The thing is that it was the BEST one that they had and honestly I would still eat it. Being sick made that week hell for me, but I got better, and its over. I just went back to Cold Stone last week for the first time since I was sick and it was really weird. I wanted to eat the cake batter one though because it was my favorite and they don’t have it back yet. Some people think I am crazy for eating there again let alone wanting the cake batter, but who cares, it’s good. I just wish that they would bring it back because all the new flavors aren’t as good.

  7. I am one of the few who did get sick from the cake batter ice cream. the salmonella poisioning was insane. I had no idea your body could react like that. however, just the smell of the cones coming from the store make me feel sick now. I loved the cake batter ice cream and like many things in life the things you love most will hurt you the most. I really dont even get the cravings I used to get for ice cream anymore. Its really too bad that coldstones is getting all the bad rap for buying a product that already had it in it. Coldstone should sue goldmedal to make up for the profit loss of not only the claims they have to pay but for the loss of the customers. I have not been back to eat anymore of it.

  8. I don’t blame you there: I’ve gotten food poisoning from other stuff… the worse was a BMT from Subway. I haven’t had one since 1997-ish. Once bitten by bad food, it will usually take years to try it again – if ever… sucks tho that ya got tagged by it.

  9. Last night I went to Cold Stone in Montana and I got banana ice cream, like I always do. As I was eating the ice cream at home, I noticed that it did not taste right. I have had banana flavor at least 6 times in the past month, and this time it tasted more like a rotten banana than anything else. I called cold stone and told them that it doesn’t taste normal. They thanked me for letting them know, but that was all. Well at about 4 in the morning I got diarrhea really bad. I called them up just now and told them their banana ice cream made me sick. They said thank you for letting us know, but that was all. No offers for free ice cream (a different flavor) or anything. Guess I won’t be going there anymore.

  10. The banana that the stupid employee put in your ice cream is what made you sick, if it was the banana ice cream at all. There’s no reason to dismiss a place beacuse of some banana (thats one choice out of how many for flavors of what goes in to the ice cream??). Besides…you got sick off of ice cream..you claim. What are they going to do for you anyway??? LMFAO. Lady…sheesh.

  11. We are investigating a case of salmonella poisoning from Coldstone, based on their cake batter ice cream. July 2005. If you are not a current employee, could you share your information with me? My client got sick, had renal failure and nearly died. She is still having problems with joint pain and memory loss. We are in Kansas. Coldstone has alleged the salmonella only occurred in 4 states: Mn, Wa, Or,and Oh. 785-825-1505 or toll free 1-888-575-2946 or email me. pn

  12. Sorry – I didn’t have any issues with the cake batter ice cream… I wouldn’t even say I got sick from the ice cream I *did* have, aside for the flavor selection :)


Leave a Reply to Jerry Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.