18% Think This Is The Worst Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream Flavor

Mashed regularly conducts polls about popular menu items or flavors to find out what people like best — and what they hate the most. However, sometimes the most noteworthy result falls between two extremes, such as when we asked our readers what they thought the worst Häagen-Dazs flavor was.

The survey received 606 US-based responses, and 30.36% had no interest at all in Häagen-Dazs' pineapple coconut ice cream. On the extreme other end, the most popular flavor was rocky road. Only 5.61% deemed it to be worthy of their wrath. Slightly less popular but still generally well-liked were the cherry vanilla, butter pecan, and mint chip flavors, which earned 8.42%, 8.75%, and 11.39% of the ire respectively.

Between these ends, two flavors remain. One is mango, which a whole 17.16% of voters decided was more disgusting than anything else offered. More attention grabbing, however, was the fact that pistachio ice cream was in second place for the worst flavor made by Häagen-Dazs, netting 18% of votes. The number of people who dislike pistachio ice cream is interesting because in May, Newsweek found that even with a drop in popularity, it was the 11th most popular flavor in the country. So, it's trending downwards in two surveys. 

Now, obviously the higher percentage could be due to chance. However, it is still worth looking into why someone might not Häagen-Dazs's pistachio ice cream.

A glance at the negative reviews on Häagen-Dazs's website provides some insight. "The only pistachios in your ice cream are the tiny bits of nuts, that don't even taste of pistachio, as they are so small," one passionate reviewer wrote. "You misrepresent a wonderful product, and I am so surprised you get away with it." Another commented, "This isn't real pistachio ice cream, it's simply vanilla with some nuts."

The ingredient list bears these charges out. The ice cream is made with all the cream, milk, and sugar one expects in ice cream, plus roasted pistachios. One could attribute this pistachio minimalism to how expensive they are. Between long growing periods, small harvests, and the specific weather conditions they require, pistachios are one very expensive nut.

A second reason could be that real pistachios added to ice cream taste different than other versions of pistachio ice cream. On Instacart, you can see that Turkey Hill's pistachio ice cream has no pistachios at all, just almonds and food coloring. Brooklyn-based purvyeor Van Leeuwen's version has a similar green hue, thanks to Italian pistachios "ground into a fine paste." So, Häagen-Dazs's pistachio ice cream could simply be driving away people who are expecting something different.