I think as Mormons, we have often prided ourselves our ice cream consumption. It’s like our alcohol. We have it at almost every party, and I am convinced it genuinely alters people’s mental states. In fact, I would describe my personal reaction as “euphoric.” And honestly, if our Mormon BYU is going to be rated the number one “Stone Cold Sober” school in the nation year after year, then by golly, it better be the number one Cold Stone Lover as well.

Although, for a people that professes to love ice cream as much as we do, we actually have an embarrassingly small number of genuine ice cream parlors in the state of Utah. Every time I’ve found one, it has gone out of business shorty thereafter. People, what’s with all this yogurt nonsense? Where’s my hand-scooped banana split served in a glass dish with fudge drizzling over the sides? Where is it?!

I have often pondered on this. And as pondering often does, it lead me to a bit of study. Let’s see how good you are with quizzes.

True or false: Utah consumes more ice cream per capita than any other state.

Drum roll please…

False. Actually, according to my trusty wiki research, that would be Alaska. Of course! The only place where you could keep ice cream in your hand all day and never have it melt! It makes so much sense, really. I’ll probably move there.

But don’t lose your testimony over this. After all, there is always that other fun statistic that pops up once in a while, which is (once again, according to my wiki research) actually true: Salt Lake City, according to Forbes, is the most vain city in the nation with the highest percentage of plastic surgeons per capita in the world. (I’d love to get into a discussion on that, but I’ll save it for next week’s post).

I guess that explains the lack of ice cream, and the overabundance of her insecure little sister, Fat Free Yogurt, who could never be as tantalizing, no matter how many toppings she wears.

I call for a return to the glory days. The days in which you could find an old fashioned ice cream shop on any main street in town. The days in which we weren’t fooled by counterfeits like Yogurt (grrr) and all her fancy disguise…which really negate the “health” aspect of frozen yogurt anyway. In the words of Mormon.org: “Isn’t it about time?”