Jennifer Guerrero

My goals are high-flavor ice creams that are high-protein, high-produce where flavor-appropriate, and low-fat within flavor reason!

Jen's Protein Nice Creams. 30 flavors in each book – a whole ice cream shop in 40 pages! (I went a little past that in book 3…) It’s all stripped-down content with no fluff. Hard for a blogger to shut up, but I very intentionally did, so they’re sized like fat comic books rather than hefty texts. Hope you love them, too!

These recipes are for the Ninja Creami Deluxe. What if I have a different Ninja Creami model? No worries! The Deluxe makes 24 oz. All the rest make 16 oz. You can cut all the recipes to 2/3 -OR- Double the recipe and fill 3 containers.

A few friends messaged that a specific milk and cottage cheese don’t work for their bodies, so I give alternatives on page 6 of each book, how to swap in tofu to convert the recipes to to-fruities! The macros are really close, but I give the adjustments to the numbers there, too.

I include the macros by ingredient for each flavor so you can swap out for allergies / preferences / favorites… The nutrition facts (protein grams, fat grams, carb grams, and calories) come directly off the nutrition labels where available or MyFitnessPal for things without labels like fruit. I am a massive flavorist! No puddings and no gums! They taste like pudding and I want my ice creams to taste like delicious decadent ice cream!

FAQs!

I’m not a nutritionist or a dietician. I’m a foodie. A massive foodie. I have created amazing tasting ice creams that fit my own nutrition goals. High-flavor, high-protein, high-produce where flavor-appropriate, and low-fat within flavor reason.

Is it healthy? Yes! I’ve been a “healthy” food blogger for 10 years and won monthly prizes for a few years for being the top contributor on a healthy meal prep group. But if you ask 10 health-conscious people, making intentional food decisions what “healthy” means to them, you are likely to get 10 different answers. So I’d rather tell you what I mean by that word, so you can tell whether or not it works for you!

Let’s start with sugar. The quick answer is no, I don’t add any sugar. But there is naturally occurring sugar in so many real ingredients. Cottage cheese has sugar. Fruit and vegetables have sugar. Protein powder has a little sugar. I am using Swerve in almost every flavor. It tastes like sugar. It has no aftertaste. And it’s zero calories. Some people opt for honey or maple syrup, but those are calorically high and I don’t want to get my calories from sweeteners. You can absolutely sub in whatever sweetener you’d like!! The exceptions are a few flavors where honey is part of the flavor, so I’m using honey. And the topping on the crème brulee in book 3. That is the only flavor that gets actual sugar added.

Puddings/Gums. I don’t use any of those at all. They’re unnecessary. Pudding tastes like pudding, and I want my ice creams to taste like decadent ice cream!

Is it low carb? Like “healthy”, people mean different things by “low-carb”. If you mean things like bread and pasta, nope, the ice creams don’t have anything like that! But if you mean produce, about half of the flavors in each book contain a ton of produce. And my sweetener, Swerve, contains 12 grams of carbs per tablespoon. Zero calories, but it has carbs.

Fat. I try to keep the fat low within flavor reason. The fruit flavors are at the lower end of the spectrum (generally around 5 grams for half of a Ninja Deluxe container). The coconut, nut, and gelato flavors are at the higher end of the spectrum in my recipes (generally around 20 grams for half of a Deluxe container). If you enjoy higher fat in your diet, I’d recommend starting with book 3. That’s where you’ll find a few gelatos, a few coconut flavors, and some nuts. You can convert any of the flavors to gelatos if those numbers suit you better.

Protein. The range is about 35-50 grams for a half of a Deluxe container (about 12 ounces of nice cream). Consistently eating healthy and working out worked just fine for me until I hit perimenopause. I run and lift weights. An unwanted 25 pounds showed up, quite uninvited, mostly around my abdomen. My target is .8-1.0 grams of protein per pound of body weight every day. I’ve been consistent and have taken off 17 pounds of those perimenopausal pounds since Christmas from recipe development! I haven’t changed anything else except being consistent with those protein numbers and a slight calorie deficit. So happy about that! 8 more to go!

I list the protein, fat, carbs and calories by ingredient in all of my recipes. Everyone has food preferences. You can swap in by ingredient for preferences and allergies and modify the numbers for that ingredient. Some macro users don’t use the calories on nutrition labels, preferring to do calculations based on the protein, fat, and carbs. Everything is listed so you can ignore that calorie column and swap in your own calculations. Of potential interest – calories for Swerve are not adjusted with a carb calculation for many macro users. If that’s important to you, I encourage you to check with your preferred macro rules/coach/provider.

Substitutions! A few friends messaged that a specific milk and cottage cheese don’t work for their bodies, so I give alternatives on page 6 of each book, how to swap in tofu to convert the recipes to to-fruities! The macros are really close, but I give the adjustments to the numbers there, too. Absolutely sub in whatever milk and sweetener you’d like for your preferences/allergies!

-Jennifer Guerrero, the Not So Starving Artist