Just What the Doctor Ordered

It sounds like an alternate reality: Ice cream so good for you it's prescribed by doctors.

According to Food Week Online, researchers at the University of Auckland are working on developing an ice cream that combats the side effects of chemotherapy. They're working in partnership with Fonterra, New Zealand's largest dairy.

The ice cream, called ReCharge, employs active ingredients from dairy products to relieve diarrhea, anemia and lack of appetite in people undergoing chemotherapy. Studies already have shown that milk fat and another milk component called lactoferrin can protect the lining of the intestine.

"Earlier trials in the laboratory found that weight loss and damage to the gut lining were significantly reduced by the active ingredients," said Geoff Krissansen, a University of Auckland professor, told Food Week. "There were also marked improvements to the immune system and blood markers."

Participants in a trial have been eating a 100g tub of the strawberry-flavored ice cream each day.

"It was a tremendous technical challenge to develop this ice cream," Fonterra's chief technology officer Jeremy Hill said in a statement -- not least of which is that it takes 14,000 tons of ice cream to get just one ton of lactoferrin.

Here's hoping it sticks!

Photo courtesy Pink Sherbert Photography via Flickr.