By now, you've probably heard all about Nightfood, the company that is not only competing in the low-cal ice cream department, but also claims to have ingredients that won't mess with your sleep—aka, you can chow down before bed and not feel like you're too weighed down with sugar and food to fall asleep.
What is Nightfood exactly?
Nightfood came on the scene a few months ago. Similar to low-cal ice cream brands like Halo Top, Arctic Zero and Enlightened, it promises a low-cal option to your favorite sweet treat. Although the protein count is a bit lower, it has a perk the others don't boast.
They add ingredients like certain amino acids and minerals that are known to help with sleep. They also leave out sleep-disrupting ingredients like excess sugar, excess fat, excess calories, and caffeine in certain flavors.
Why ice cream?
First, do you even have to ask?! Ice cream is a known late-night treat enjoyed around the world. It is a guilty pleasure, but let's face it, who among us hasn't grabbed that pint of Ben & Jerry's before bed when we have a craving for a little sweet late-night snack?
Let's get to the important part. What flavors do they have and are they good?
Nightfood already has a wide array of flavors option, including Cookies N' Dreams, Milk & Cookie Dough, Cherry Eclipse, Bed & Breakfast, Cold Brew Decaf, After Dinner Mint Chip and your basic Chocolate and Vanilla.
I'm a Chocolate girl all the way. I have to say that after a quick 25 seconds dip in the microwave (as most low-cal ice creams require), this was probably one of my favorite pints in terms of both depth of flavor—think rich chocolate—and creaminess of texture.
The vanilla was better than my experience with most other vanillas which usually taste bland to me. The Cookies N' Dream tasted pretty similar to the Halo Top version, which I liked, but was more vanilla-tasting than it was cookies and cream filled. Not bad, but not my favorite rendition. As for Milk & Cookies, if you're a fan of cookie dough ice cream, you'll be pretty pleasantly content with the flavor and generous amount of cookie dough.
Putting their claim to the test
I reached out to Nightfood to get the scoop (pun intended) and they offered to send me some to try. In the interest of science, to test their claims, I decided to go through a week of eating a full pint of Nightfood before bed. And while it was incredibly hard to convince myself to eat ice cream every, single night, I somehow pulled through it.
*Disclaimer: Those who know me will feel the sarcasm oozing out of that last statement. Eating ice cream before bed is a tradition I am sadly not unfamiliar with, so it wasn't much of a break in my routine.Day 1 was incredibly promising. I fell asleep basically the second my head hit the pillow, which almost never happens for me, and only woke up because I really had to use the bathroom.
On days 2-5, I had pretty similar results, falling asleep quickly when I got to bed, but not necessarily sleeping soundly until my alarm rang.
So my verdict is, if you're a late-night snacker who has trouble falling asleep, Nightfood may be a good option for you. That's especially true if you think your current snacks might be the culprit. While it won't exactly keep you asleep through the night (which they don't claim to do exactly), it will definitely hinder your sleep schedule much less than your typical late-night snack, ice cream or otherwise.
Flavorwise, this is definitely a great addition to the low-cal ice cream market and if, like me, you're a connoisseur of late-night eating, grab a pint and try it for yourself.