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Summertime thoughts often drift toward a scoop (or two) of ice cream. On a hot day it's hard to resist the cool temptation of Breyers Classic Vanilla, Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey or Haagen-Dazs Strawberry Cheesecake.

Of course, if you're watching your weight or controlling your cholesterol, splurging on high-fat ice cream isn't recommended on a regular basis. And when you consider that a single half-cup (125-millilitre) serving of most Haagen-Dazs ice cream flavours delivers more saturated fat than a McDonald's Big Mac, ice cream can be a major splurge.

Depending on the brand of frozen dessert you buy, you might be licking more calories, saturated fat and sugar from your cone than you realize. Fortunately, there are more moderate indulgences available in your grocer's freezer case.

You need to read labels to find a refreshing summer treat that won't break your diet.

Ice cream is made with cream, milk, sugar, flavourings, stabilizers and emulsifiers and ranges in fat content from 10 to 18 per cent.

Top-quality ice creams are made with natural dairy ingredients such as cream and milk, rather than formulated milk products and milk components.

A half-cup of standard full-fat ice cream like Breyers Classic or Nestlé Parlour contains roughly 140 calories, six grams of fat and 16g (four teaspoons) of sugar.

Add-ins such as chocolate chips, fudge, cookie pieces and candy boost the numbers.

For example, a half-cup of President's Choice Pecan Butter Tart has 180 calories, 8 g of fat (6 of them saturated) and 21 g of sugar.

The same serving of premium brands such as Haagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's often hits 300 calories, not to mention as many as 25 g of fat (at least half of them saturated) and 28 g (seven teaspoons) of sugar.

Why such a difference between brands? Because there's one ingredient that you won't find listed on ice cream labels: air.

Premium brands of ice cream (and frozen yogurt) that are dense and harder to scoop contain less air than inexpensive brands. Less air means more ice cream per serving.

In other words, you get more of everything: calories, protein, fat, sugar, vitamins and minerals. (Nutritional information for ice cream is listed by volume rather than weight.)

On the plus side, premium brands contain fewer ingredients and usually don't include synthetic additives, emulsifiers, gums and syrups.

Low-fat, or light, ice creams deliver roughly one-half to two-thirds less fat than their premium counterparts, but the calorie savings aren't always as big as you might think, thanks to an extra hit of sugar.

President's Choice Chocolate ice cream has 190 calories, 11 g of fat (4.5 g as saturated fat) and 11 g of sugar.

A similar serving of President's Choice Blue Menu Light Chocolate has 140 calories, 5 g of fat (3.5 g as saturated) and 15 g of sugar - an extra teaspoon.

Breyers Fat Free ice creams supply 100 calories, 0.5 g fat and 16 g of sugar per serving.

Ice creams with no sugar added are sweetened with artificial ingredients such as sucralose, sugar alcohols and aspartame, and contain anywhere from 2 to 7 g of sugar per serving.

Keep in mind sugar-free does not mean calorie-free. Most brands pack in 130 calories per 125 ml.

Chapman's makes lactose-free, gluten-free and nut-free ice creams for people with food intolerances and allergies. You can even buy organic ice cream from Mapleton's and Organic Meadow.

Unless you intend to eat a super-sized portion of ice cream, you won't get a milk serving's worth of calcium. Most standard brands of ice cream deliver 4 per cent of the daily value (DV) for calcium (44 milligrams) per 125-ml serving.

It takes almost seven cups of ice cream to match the 300 mg of calcium you'll get in 250 ml of milk. Many premium and natural brands of ice cream provide 10-per-cent DV for calcium (110 mg per 125 ml).

Frozen yogurt is made with lower-fat milk, usually 1- to 2-per-cent milk fat. But it's not a health food.

Depending on the brand, sugar content ranges from 12 to 27 g per 125-ml serving. And although frozen yogurt contains active bacterial cultures, you're getting a smaller dose than what's in plain yogurt.

If you want the lowest amount of fat, opt for sherbet (made with skim milk) or sorbet (fat-free). Per serving, most brands contain 100 to 130 calories, mainly from added sugars.

If you're a vegetarian, you can choose a non-dairy frozen dessert made from soy, rice or hemp. While these products certainly slash saturated fat (because they don't contain milk or cream), not all are low in fat.

Tofutti Vanilla, which is made with soy protein and tofu, derives 52 per cent of its calories from fat, mainly corn oil.

Cool Hemp derives its unsaturated fat from hemp seeds, a good source of a heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid (ALA).

A 125-ml serving of Cool Hemp Natural supplies 1.3 g of ALA. (Adult women need 1.1 g of ALA per day and men require 1.6 g.)

Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based

dietitian at the Medcan Clinic,

is on CTV's Canada AM every Wednesday.

Visit her website at lesliebeck.com.

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Sweet temptations

A comparison of the amount of calories and saturated fat in various brands of ice cream

and other frozen treats (based on a 125-ml serving size).

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Product	Calories	Saturated fat
Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream Triple Chocolate	360	14 g
Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream	300	10 g
President's Choice Chocolate Fudge Crackle Chocolate	200	7 g
Breyers Double Churned Triple Chocolate	130	4.5 g
Chapman's Original Dutch Chocolate	120	3.5 g
Compliments Frozen Yogurt Dutch Chocolate	100	2 g
Chapman's Frozen Yogurt Dutch Chocolate	90	1.5 g
Soy Dream Chocolate Fudge Brownie	130	1.5 g
Cool Hemp Chocolate	155	1.5 g
President's Choice Blue Menu Fat Free Chocolate Gelato	150	0 g

SOURCE: MANUFACTURERS