Did you know Popsicle® is a registered trademark of the Unilever company? It can’t legally be used to describe any frozen treat on a stick, except those made by Unilever. I’ll admit, I didn’t know that. The first company name I picked had the word Popsicle® in the company name. I thought “popsicle” was just a generic term, like coffee, or cereal. Nope. Registered trademark. So that wasn’t going to work.
So our product shouldn’t really be called a “Popsicle®”. It’s an “Ice Pop” please and thank you. I’m also happy to hear the word “Paleta”. If you say popsicle, I don’t mind, I even say it from time to time, but we are different.
My first thought was “this is stupid. Everyone is going to call it a popsicle anyway. It’s become a generic term. Dumb…”
But as I thought more, I was more and more OK with it. I’m not making frozen sugar water. Check out the ingredients on one Popsicle product:
water, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, sugar, contains 1 percent or less of each of the following: malic acid, citric acid, guar gum, red raspberry juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, grape juice concentrate, natural and artificial flavor, cherry juice concentrate, vegetable juice (for color), locust bean gum, blue 1, red 40, yellow 5, red 3, yellow 6.
They call sugar three different things. Probably so they don’t have to list it ahead of water. It’s water, sugar, sugar, sugar, and less than 1%
anything else. That’s junk. If that’s what makes a Popsicle®, then I don’t want to be in the popsicle business.
I use whole fruits, sometimes vegetables, even herbs, and blend them with water, milk, or coconut. I do sometimes add a very small amount of organic cane sugar, but not much. I try to pick fruit at its peak of ripeness, and allow the natural sweetness and flavor to shine. Never any preservatives. Nor dyes or stabilizers. You could look at any ingredient in our kitchen and know what it is. That’s the way I like to feed my little girls, so that’s the way I want to treat your family.
