Ben & Jerry’s has added four new flavors to the Moo-phoria! line! The flavors are: Cherry Garcia with a Twist, Chocolate Cookie EnlightenMint, P.B. Marshmallow Swirl, and Mocha Fudge Brownie. Please find our updated review below to include all seven flavors:

Ben & Jerry’s officially has a product to protect us from themselves.

The company blew its load in the first month of the year and released EIGHT new products, and boy were they fattening: three brand-new cookie-covered truffle flavors, two more nondairy flavors with gobs and brownies and dough, and three more chocolate-covered entire pints of ice cream. You couldn’t even walk through the freezer aisle without gaining five pounds.

Enter Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria!, a low-calorie, light ice cream that ensures we only gain two and a half.

The new Moo-phoria! line debuted in three flavors in early 2018: P.B. Dough, Caramel Cookie Fix, and Chocolate Milk & Cookies. By the end of the year, they added Cherry Garcia with a Twist, Chocolate Cookie EnlightenMint, P.B. Marshmallow Swirl, and Mocha Fudge Brownie.

The pints contain 60-70% less fat and at least 35% less calories than what’s in their traditional ice cream pints, and does this with no artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols. A serving ranges between 140-160 calories with about 15g of sugar.

Let’s get right to it, because I’m certainly not getting any skinnier over here.

P.B. Dough

Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria P.B. Dough features chocolate light ice cream with gobs of chocolate chip peanut butter cookie dough.

Ben & Jerry’s regular full-fat chocolate ice cream isn’t amongst my favorites. But believe it or not, I’m way more impressed with their light version. Where you save over 35% of the calories and 65% of the fat, you don’t give up those amounts in flavor. This is a richer, darker chocolate than its best comps like Edy’s/Dreyer’s Slow Churned, and it sure beats the living hell out of Ben & Jerry’s non-dairy chocolate.

Texture wise, it’s no doubt less creamy than full fat (there’s less cream in it after all), but I like that it’s not as stretchy/gummy as many other light creams or non-premium brands – even the likes of Blue Bunny.

The gobs of peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough are great – full of peanut buttery, brown sugary goodness with no compromise to texture. A nice little bonus: this is the only pint in the entire Ben & Jerry’s lineup that has chocolate chip peanut butter cookie dough. I’ll “Moo” to that, but the absence of any “wet” components does make it fall a little flat.

I’ll “Moo” to that description too.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Nutrition for 1/2 cup: 160 cals, 5g fat, 25g carbs, 16g sugar, 4g protein. 

Caramel Cookie Fix

Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria Caramel Cookie Fix features vanilla light ice cream with shortbread cookies and a salted caramel swirl.

In a frozen fist fight, give me Ben & Jerry’s vanilla over chocolate. Nobody will go nuts for it but I’m impressed again with how much the flavor isn’t compromised by the tradeoff in calories.

My pint was truly loaded with shortbread cookies. Huge pieces too. They’re incredibly soft and extremely shortbready; you really get a ton of flavor from them against the light vanilla ice cream, which is something I think got lost in Keep Caramel & Cookie On. The flavors complement each other well. Even if I don’t think shortbread cookies are the sexiest cookies, there are a lot of cookies in here.

This is the only Moo-phoria launch pint with a true swirl. However, the salted caramel doesn’t impact the flavor as much as you’d hope. It’s kind of weird – I see plenty of caramel as I work through the pint, but my taste buds only registered it when I found comparatively larger pools. Thankfully this did occur multiple times.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Nutrition for 1/2 cup: 150 cals, 4.5g fat, 25g carbs, 15g sugar, 3g protein. 

Chocolate Milk & Cookies

Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria Chocolate Milk & Cookies features chocolate and vanilla light ice creams swirled with chocolate chip cookies.

With both the chocolate and vanilla light ice creams established as “solid,” I value the variety when both are in the same container. Regular Ben & Jerry’s Milk & Cookies is my favorite year-round pint they produce, and this one is of the same bloodline. It only has one type of cookie, but the addition of a chocolate base is fun.

The chocolate chip cookies aren’t so much chunks as they are mashed-up cookie puddles. They taste better than Chips Ahoy!, but not as good, firm, or chewy as traditional chocolate chip cookie dough. But again, it’s better than the mix-ins found in most light ice cream brands competing in this calorie/fat range.

This is probably my favorite Moo-phoria pint from the initial launch, though the margin is razor thin over Caramel Cookie Fix. Another plus: it contains the fewest calories.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Nutrition for 1/2 cup: 140 cals, 4.5g fat, 22g carbs, 15g sugar, 3g protein. 

Cherry Garcia with a Twist

Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria Cherry Garcia with a Twist features cherry and chocolate light ice creams swirled with cherries & fudge flakes.

Whether you love Cherry Garcia or hate it, you have to applaud Ben & Jerry’s for taking one of its top-sellers (it’s their 2nd-highest selling pint!) and not only making it friendlier on the waistline, but giving it a subtle remake. Instead of just cherry ice cream, it’s a mix of cherry and chocolate.

And though Cherry Garcia isn’t one of MY personal favorites, it translates so well to light ice cream that I prefer this over the full-fat original. The fruity and refreshing cherry ice cream proves a fitting choice for cutting calories, and thankfully the chewy cherry chunks are already as diet-friendly as you can get. The chocolate chunks are smaller but are so flavorful that you don’t require more, and the chocolate ice cream swirl sufficiently breaks up any monotony you might find in the original.

Maybe I should diet more often… (I won’t.)

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Nutrition for 1/2 cup: 140 cals, 4.5g fat, 24g carbs, 17g sugar, 3g protein. 

Chocolate Cookie EnlightenMint

Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Cookie EnlightenMint features mint light ice cream with fudge truffles & chocolate cookies.

A picture is worth 1,000 words, or in this case cookies. The Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria line is proving so effective because of mix-in density and this pint might be the best showcase for it. The chocolate cookies are extremely soft and provide great contrast against the mint ice cream to produce something of a mint cookies & cream. And the mint ice cream is a smooth & soothing yet still vibrant mint that doesn’t suffer at all from the switch to skim milk.

Though there are no fudge truffles visible in the above picture, I encountered a couple of HUGE ones immediately under this layer. They are excellent; they have a darker chocolate flavor with a crisp chocolate shell protecting a soft, fudgier interior. I do wish I encountered these more often, but there’s so many freaking cookies in the way that I’m not mad.

I had a really hard time putting this one down, effectively negating any caloric savings.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Nutrition for 1/2 cup: 160 cals, 7g fat, 22g carbs, 15g sugar, 3g protein. 

P.B. Marshmallow Swirl

Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria P.B. Marshmallow Swirl features peanut butter light ice cream with marshmallow swirls & peanut butter cookies.

I was entered the most excited for this pint and exited with the most amount of disappointment. It sounds like a slam dunk but the flavors all land very mild with minimal contrast between components.

The peanut butter light ice cream is timid and I craved more saltiness. The peanut butter cookies are plentiful but taste more like shortbread cookies; I wish they went back to the peanut butter dough here.

The best part of this one by far is the fluffy marshmallow pools. One of mine went almost from the top of the pint right down to the bottom, nearly mimicking Ben & Jerry’s Core line. But with this small sample size, I can’t say all will be this fortunate.

The marshmallow salvages the point from total letdown status.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Nutrition for 1/2 cup: 160 cals, 5g fat, 25g carbs, 16g sugar, 4g protein. 

Mocha Fudge Brownie

Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria Mocha Fudge Brownie features cold brew mocha light ice cream with fudge brownies & toasted marshmallow swirl.

I unintentionally saved the best one for last. The cold brew mocha light ice cream is bursting with sweet coffee flavor that is easily the best base in the entire lineup. The brownies I don’t even need to sell you on, but let me do so anyway: they’re awesome. Like, really awesome, and one of mine was legit bigger than I’ve ever had in any Ben & Jerry’s pint.

How about a toasted marshmallow swirl for good measure? I don’t know why they decided to torch it, and quite frankly I don’t care. It’s just as abundant as in any other Ben & Jerry’s offering with marshmallow, and there’s a slight burnt component to add something both interesting and new. It sounds like a lot going on, but it’s surprisingly cohesive.

I truly and honestly forgot that I was eating light ice cream.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Nutrition for 1/2 cup: 150 cals, 3.5g fat, 27g carbs, 20g sugar, 3g protein. 

Summary

Ben & Jerry’s Moo-phoria is a strong launch for fans of the brand who frequently avoid it for its high fat and calorie count. Most pints are in the same tier, all are loaded with mix-ins, and each excels in at least one area; sometime’s it’s the base, sometimes it’s a unique mix-in, and sometimes it’s the combination.

I have to say it now: please don’t compare this to Halo Top & Enlightened. Both of those are fine products, but they’re competing in much different categories. Not everyone wants protein, dietary fiber, sugar alcohols, and other science added to their ice cream, nor do they feel the need to eat a full pint in one sitting. Moo-phoria is real ice cream made with real ice cream ingredients, and it definitely tastes better than Halo/Enlightened. You’ll have to accept more calories to make that possible.

At the same time, don’t mistake Moo-phoria for health food. The number you’ll want to pay most attention to is sugar, with each 1/2 cup serving rocking a good 15-20g of sugar. They don’t market it as health food either – it’s just a lighter version of their pints, full of mix-ins synonymous with the brand.

Thank you, Ben & Jerry’s, for letting us moo a little more softly.

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