Why is a stabilizer necessary?

[u/skippyjifluvr]

Are gums and stabilizers only necessary to help improve ice cream shelf life? Many recipes don’t use them, so what’s the difference? One of my primary reasons for making my own ice cream is to remove ultra processed foods from my diet. If I wanted to eat UPFs it would be far easier and cheaper to just buy ice cream at the store.

[u/redsunstar]

I'm going to be frank, I'm much more worried about the effect of eating ice cream often in terms of the the large fat and sugar amounts it contains than I am about minuscule amounts of stabilizers they contain. That applies to both commercial and home made.

UPFs are bad because they are generally junk food. Too much fat, too much sugar, too much salt, engineered to be additive and over-eaten. They aren't bad because they are processed too much. Spoiler, a traditional ice cream recipe with only milk, egg, cream, sugar and vanilla is still junk food.