Fake News Hoax: Vanilla Ice Cream Was Not Originally Black Ice Cream Dyed White [Debunked]


Black ice cream is back in the news, but this time, black ice cream is at the center of a hoax report. The hoax report began on Facebook, with a claim that black ice cream is the original color of vanilla ice cream.

According to Snopes, there are claims on Facebook that black ice cream was dyed white by white folks who couldn’t stand to see such delicious black ice cream remain the color black. As seen archive of the post from the Facebook page called Awakened Melanated Supremeness, the Facebook post about black ice cream being dyed white seemingly has been deleted from their Facebook page as of this writing. However, the original claims about black ice cream being dyed white received Facebook comments ridiculing the notion even when it was alive and published on Facebook.

“My grandma lived to be 102. She told us in her days, the early 1900’s [sic] they ate vanilla ice cream in it’s [sic] Original Color but when she reached a teen, 1912, it changed to White. She said White people couldn’t tolerate eating something that tasted Soooooo delicious being black, so started your ‘added preservatives.'”

The hoax of vanilla ice cream originally being black was so outlandish, along with its description — “Talk bout self hate lol. Vanilla is Black.” — that folks immediately commented on the fake hoax.

Fiddy P Mc: “You know when stupid stories like this are put up it makes people question the truth of all your posts. Admin do yourself a favour, everyone that cooks knows ice cream isn’t black, it’s cream coloured with black specs from the vanilla. Remove the post.”

As noted by Snopes, the Facebook page called Black Male Image also shared the hoax about black ice cream being dyed into white ice cream, a Facebook post that had been shared more than 3,100 times on Facebook. As of this writing, the photo has also been removed from that Facebook page. The publication turned to a plethora of photos from the 1800s, showing folks eating vanilla ice cream, which didn’t appear black in color, but off-white in its natural state. As noted by some Facebook users, anyone who makes vanilla ice cream from scratch knows that it isn’t black in color.

What is true is that black ice cream, as seen in the above photo from 2007, has been created for years — with the black coloring sometimes coming from black licorice, popularized in the 1930s and 1940s. There has been a newer version of black ice cream that has gained buzz, with that black ice cream getting its black coloring from charcoal and ash ingredients. This black ice cream hails from New York, with people loading Oreo cookies, chocolate sauce, and other delights onto the black ice cream.

The black ice cream can be expensive, but that hasn’t stopped folks from lining up to buy the black ice cream at Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream, where the hoax photo was taken. Likely whomever created the hoax meme about vanilla ice cream originally being black was a person who just “borrowed” a photo from the famous ice cream shop — who confirmed that it is a photo of their black ice cream in the meme — and the hoaxster just added the fake text about the black ice cream being dyed white.

However, the “coconut ash ice cream” that is famously black in color is not an originally black ice cream that has somehow been dyed white or cream, as the fake meme claims. Instead, it is a popular black ice cream that borrows its coloring from black ingredients — and has been described as delicious from folks fortunate enough to try the black ice cream.

[Featured Image by Larry Crowe/AP Images]

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