Several years ago, I heard nutrition consultant Jim Painter speak at a teacher conference. I don’t remember a lot from that talk, except that he was a fun speaker, his business card said he worked for Sun-Maid Growers of California, and he gave us some advice about eating ice cream. He said he eats ice cream, but he doesn’t keep it in the house. Whenever he wants some ice cream, he must go out for it. He only buys what he’s going to eat at that time, and it’s a special thing, not something to consume on a regular basis.
Jim Painter is a registered dietitian with a Ph.D. in food science and human nutrition. He is a motivational speaker and author of a long list of publications. His employment history includes work with many food industry giants and teaching at the university level.
I’ve been trying to incorporate Dr. Painter’s advice this summer. We visited my mom last month. She happens to live about four blocks away from an amazing ice cream shop. I must admit I had a couple of their Mexican chocolate ice cream cones when the weather heated up, but we never brought home a container of it and we always walked to the shop. I can’t say that I lost any weight doing this, but we did significantly reduce our ice cream consumption by going out for it rather than eating in. And we had some nice family walks in the evenings with our ice cream cones.