While banting does call for obscene amounts of butter, bacon and avo, the diet doesn’t quite let you get away with eating everything delicious, outlawing sugar, most fruit and carbs. You’d think this would put a dampener on desserts, but the no-sweets rule can also be bent… a bit. Try these five great banting ice creams that use everything from nut milk to date skins and xylitol to get that special-treat taste.

Caralishious (Johannesburg)

The result of a collaboration between Cara-Lisa Sham, a health blogger, wellness consultant and owner of Caralishious, and Paul’s Homemade Ice Cream, this 100% coconut milk ice cream is vegan as well as being suitable for those on the banting or paleo diets. Made with fresh organic coconut milk, non-GMO xylitol, arrowroot and cinnamon, it comes in flavours like toasted coconut, peanut butter, and cocoa nib crunch. Buy it in 125 ml tubs for R32 or 500 ml tubs for R90 from Jackson’s Real Food Market, Organic Emporium, Wellness Warehouse in Bedfordview, Fresh Earth Food Store, Naked Coffee, Timothy & Clover, Thrupps, Oaklands Farm Supply, the Shell Garage in Sandhurst, Tyrone Fruiterers and Casalotti’s.

Caralishious’ Peanut Butter Bliss ice cream. Photo courtesy of the supplier.

Cold Gold (Stellenbosch)

Janine van Zyl, champion of those with food allergies, makes both a standard banting ice cream and a dairy-free version. The standard banting version is made with cream, egg yolks or whites and xylitol, and come in some spectacular flavours like Valrhona cacao, Tahitian vanilla, English toffee, crème caramel, salted caramel, coffee, cookies and cream, milktart, and lemon meringue. The dairy-free version, made with homemade macadamia or almond nut milk and sweetened with date skins, comes in flavours like vanilla, chocolate, chocochino, cookie crunch and coffee.

Cold Gold’s vanilla ice cream. Photo courtesy of the supplier.

Era Ice Cream (Durban)

Get your guilt-free fix of icy sweetness at MasterChef SA star Penny Fitchet’s new café. Made with a full-cream base, her banting ice cream is sweetened with xylitol and is usually available in classic vanilla and chocolate flavour. The team has also been known to make coffee, strawberry and apple cinnamon versions, and they intend on experimenting further. Penny adjusts the quantity of xylitol used depending on the flavour. (The strawberry ice cream, for example, already contains a lot of natural sweetness in the fruit.)

ERA Ice Cream flavours. Photo courtesy of the supplier.

Paul’s Homemade Ice Cream (Johannesburg)

The hero of artisanal, handmade tubs of goodness, Paul’s Homemade Ice Cream makes two glorious banting flavours, labelled Health Cocoa and Health Madagascan Vanilla. The recipe uses the standard creamy base in all of Paul’s ice creams, but replaces the sugar with xylitol. Find it at Casalotti’s, Oaklands Farm Supply, Tyrone Fruiterers, the Shell Garage in Sandhurst, Cheese Gourmet, Thrupps Centre, Motherland Coffee and Meat Etc. from R27 to R30 for R125ml.

Paul’s Homemade Ice Cream. Photo by Curtis Gallon

Whiskaway (Pretoria)

Owner Karien van Emmenes is a banter herself, so the task of creating a delicious, low-carb ice cream was close to her heart. Karien makes her version with full-cream milk, egg yolks and a mixture of xylitol and stevia, and the treat contains just 35g of carbs per litre. Her flavours are made with all-natural ingredients, as per the Real Meal Revolution mantra. Try it in chocolate (made with cocoa powder), vanilla bean, ginger, fresh mint, rooibos, lemon cheesecake, coffee, blackberry or strawberry flavour for R88 per litre.

Whiskaway’s ginger ice cream. Photo courtesy of the supplier.

We’re not particularly big on diets here at Eat Out, and we’re not (all) qualified health professionals, so please don’t take this as serious nutritional advice. We just want to put ice cream in your belly and make you happy.