5 Interesting Tidbits About Ice Cream: America's Favorite Dessert

 As summer draws nearer and nearer, ice cream-loving Americans are pulling their ice cream cups and spoons out and getting ready for a summer of creamy, dreamy fun. Indeed, the average American will consume ice cream as many as 28.5 times in one year, with June being the most popular month for both ice cream production and consumption. And it's no wonder! With ice cream's versatility in flavor, style, and texture, there are plenty of ways to keep cool and satisfy your sweet tooth during the summer.

But ice cream isn't just delicious; its long-standing history has helped it to garner quite the reputation, with an ever-increasing rap sheet of mouth-watering and downright fascinating facts. Here are five interesting facts about ice cream you probably didn't know:

• While 1.9 billion gallons of ice cream and similar frozen desserts produced in the U.S. each year, 3.3 billion gallons of ice cream are consumed worldwide a year! This amount is enough ice cream to fill 5,000 Olympic swimming pools, and an unimaginable amount of ice cream cups! 
  
  
• If you asked the NASA astronauts which foods they miss the most while on space missions, they would apparently tell you that ice cream is among the top three items, along with pizza and soda. 
  
  
• Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are the infamous duo responsible for Ben and Jerry ice cream. But if it weren't for the inexpensive cost of equipment, the pair would have become expert bagel-makers! Let's be thankful that ice cream is efficient to churn and delicious to eat. 
  
  
• Elvis Presley was a fan of ice cream. So much, in fact, that it was the last thing he ate before he died! Before making his last mortal bow, Presley ate four scoops of ice cream and six chocolate chip cookies. That's certainly not the worst way to die! 
  
  
• How much ice cream can you eat? According to Cosmopolitan, the world record for ice cream-eating is 1.75 gallons in eight minutes! Now that's impressive.