Friendly’s Vanilla Ice Cream Saved My Life – Well, Sorta

We’ve all played the game. You’re on a desert island with no food and no water, but by some magic you are presented with one choice that could make all the difference: if you could have one food to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be? There’s only ever been one clear choice for me, and that’s ice cream. No question. Bar none.

Ice cream is clearly the best choice, I mean come on. First of all, ice cream is delicious. Silky smooth and just the right amount of cold, ice cream can take the sting out of any stressful situation you might be dealing with (like being stuck on a desert island). I always envision excruciating heat and dehydration on this island, so having a nice cold treat that has a little bit of water in it, fits the bill quite nicely. And unless you happen to be carrying a desalination kit for all of that ocean water surrounding you, you’re going to need something to keep you hydrated. Sorry pizza pickers, you’re not gonna make it.

Also, ice cream is nutritious! Well, ok, maybe not really nutritious, but it’s packed with protein, carbs, and fat, all of which you need to survive. Maybe not good carbs. Or good fat. But still, in theory, you can survive on ice cream alone. Due to an extraordinary set of circumstances that made it impossible to eat or drink anything without pain, I had the opportunity to actually test this theory out, and for a period of 6 months, I essentially lived on ice cream alone. I wish I was exaggerating.

Before resorting to ice cream, I consulted a million health nutritionists and doctors to fix my problem, but nothing worked. The whole 30 diet? Tried it. The low FODMAP approach? Didn’t move the needle. I tried their enzymes and herbs, supplements and medications, but everything made my condition worse. There wasn’t a single vegetable or fruit on earth that didn’t feel like razor blades sliding down my esophagus. Finally, after months of weight loss and worry, I turned to the only food that the nutritionists categorically told me to avoid eating: ice cream. And wouldn’t you know, it was the only thing I could swallow without wanting to scream bloody murder.

But it couldn’t be just any ice cream, no. At first, trying to appease the doctors, I avoided dairy and chose some “healthier” alternatives. But the fiber in these made my insides feel like they were being twisted into tie-dyed shirts. So it was back to dairy. First I started with the Premium brands, but they were no good. They had too much calcium, which was a big problem for me. “Healthier” low fat brands? Uh-uh. Specialty flavors were certainly a no-go too, as was chocolate or coffee. Sadly my favorite kind, Black Raspberry, couldn’t be thrown down the hatch without a fair amount of stinging.

I tried heaps and heaps of ice cream, but nothing really felt great. Until, that is, I found the cheapest, most artificial ice cream one can find. The kind of ice cream health nuts will shame you for eating, because they say it’s essentially like eating anti-freeze and will give you cancer: Friendly’s Vanilla Ice Cream, which can be found at your local grocery store for the bargain basement price of $2.99 per half gallon! Yum. Sweet, sweet Friendly’s Vanilla. Mmm, anti-freeze. The only thing in the entire world I could eat without pain. Queue the choir, I was saved!

Thus began the king of all groundhog days. Hey Matt, what’s for breakfast? Ice cream. How about lunch? Ice Cream. Dinner? Ice Cream. Late night snack when you can’t sleep? Ice cream. For 3 months I roughly ate four and a half quarts of Friendly’s a day. I’m not joking. It was gross. In about a month, I gained twenty pounds back and people started telling me how good I looked: “Have you been working out? What have you been doing?” Nothing much, just eating about $9 worth of ice cream a day. Then another couple months passed and I gained more weight. The compliments stopped coming.

Vanity be damned, I kept eating the ice cream, figuring I can worry about my long-term health when the pain finally stops. Meanwhile I was setting a hell of an example at home for the kids too, let me tell ya. Every time I suggested they needed to eat healthier, the inevitable reply came back: “Why? You don’t.” And how fatherly and kind I sounded when the kids asked if they could eat some of my ice cream. No way, that’s MINE! But the fear of reprisals didn’t stop them and soon I’d be running back to the grocery store for more supplies.

With the entire family living at the house twenty-four seven because of covid, it was getting pretty hard not to feel like my eating habits were constantly under surveillance. To avoid judgment of my expanding waistline, and escape my unscrupulous offspring who were constantly plundering my goods, I eventually began eating entire half gallons of ice cream in the grocery store parking lot. Things were getting pretty weird. Is there anything sadder than scarfing down a truckload of ice cream in an empty parking lot at odd hours of the night? I was beginning to feel a little like an addict, getting my fix in before having to go home and face the family. Clearly, things needed to change. I needed to find a secret place to eat at home.

So I started hiding in the basement. Ah, the basement. That last refuge for the bedraggled father who hasn’t been allowed to have any other single room in the house. The place nobody else wants to go to. The place everyone sends Dad to when they need something from “down there.” And down there, for two glorious weeks, I enjoyed my ice cream in peace as the children paced the floorboards above, calling out: “Mom, have you seen Dad?” But eventually they found me, and my sad plight had a light shined on it once more.

For the next few months I was able to introduce a few more things, mostly out of shame, but eventually they got easier to eat. And it’s a good thing too. The other day I was at Dick’s Sporting Goods and I caught a glimpse of my profile in the mirror – it looked like I was trying to steal a basketball under my coat. Holy crap, I gotta stop eating ice cream.

It’s been a couple weeks now since I’ve been off the Friendly’s and I’ve started to shrink back down a little. I miss eating pain free, but I’m so sick of ice cream at this point, I’m glad to give it a rest. Really, I’d be happy to never eat it again. But it did get me through a really tough stretch, against all doctors’ advice. And at the end of the day, it is good to know that if I’m ever stranded on a desert island with a lifetime supply of ice cream again, I’m going to be fine. Huge. But fine.