The truth is out: Ice cream is good for you

May brought lots of good news for President Biden.

First things first: He delivered on his promise of making government work again. After months of hand wringing and foot stomping with demands from both sides, the House passed a compromise bill by a whopping 314 to 117 to raise the debt limit. The Senate passed the same bill, unamended, 63 to 36. Who said bipartisanship was dead?

The bill gave the Republicans some of what they wanted – and the extreme right none of what they demanded. The president and Democrats made few concessions and avoided cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and retained clean-energy tax credits.

The country avoided the plunge into financial catastrophe, President Joe Biden used his experience to drive negotiations with firm patience, Speaker Kevin McCarthy kept his word and both parties bargained in good faith. Joe celebrated!

The second piece of good news is that the May job creation numbers exceeded expectations; 339,000 jobs were created. This is up from 294,000 in April and far exceeded experts’ predictions that the number would be closer to 190,000 new jobs. A bonus was that almost half of these jobs were in the business services, health, and education fields.

This brings the total number or jobs Biden has created in 2.5 years to 13 million. Joe is smiling!

But here's the best news of all for the president, unrelated to governing, politics, or the economy. During the campaign and now in the presidency, we hear reports of Biden's fondness for ice cream. He makes frequent stops at local ice cream establishments, to the proprietors’ and customers’ delight.

Just to celebrate Biden's inaugural in 2017, Jeni's Ice cream created White House Chocolate Chip using all the ingredients of his favorite order of chocolate chip ice cream in a waffle cone.

So imagine his delight when the May issue of The Atlantic published an article titled "Nutrition Science's Most Preposterous Result,"revealing there might be a health benefit to ice cream. That's right. In 2018 a Harvard student, Andres Ardisson Korat, concluded that ice cream might be good for you.

As he did more research, Korat also learned such findings were not new. There were studies as far back as 1985 and 2005. It's just that no one wanted to talk about it. "Elite nutritionists," as they are called in the article, kept digging because it didn't seem to make sense. For years we’ve been told, don't eat too much ice cream! Too much fat, too much sugar!

Yogurt became the darling of the Harvard nutrition crowd and started to be known as the healthy dessert. Ice cream got short shrift even as one scientist suggested ice cream was similar or greater in positive effects.

But the 2005 study said that higher dairy intake (including ice cream) was associated with lower risk of diabetes. Korat's 2018 thesis concluded that "among diabetics half a cup of ice cream a day was associated with lower risk of heart problems." Think of that! A half a cup a day.

The Atlantic article also explores why nutritionists and scientists have been reluctant to give ice cream and dairy credit for their beneficial effects. The data in these studies have been repeatedly verified over time despite data deniers. But who cares?

The good news is out.

Bipartisanship and good faith bargaining are still possible. People are going back to work. And the all-American dessert. ice cream, not only tastes delicious but can have positive effects. Good news for Joe and for all Americans. Have an ice cream cone and enjoy it.

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