Louisa Pearson: 'The ice-cream cone is packaging you can eat. Tremendous'

BORN under a bad sign. That's what bluesman Albert King sang in the late 1960s and it's what I'm singing now. If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all. This is what happens when you try to do the right thing.

If I'd anticipated embarking on a home-made damson ice cream extravaganza would result in such a bout of melancholy I'd have steered clear.

I have a damson tree in my garden. Every year it is weighed down by hundreds of juicy purple fruit. It'd be such a shame to waste them, so I end up spending hours cooking then forcing the darn things through a colander to get rid of the stones and skins.

This brow-furrowing, messy activity formed stage one in the ice cream fiasco. Next came the sugar syrup. It solidified in the pan. Next the custard came close to scrambling.

Then the piece de resistance. Mr Green knocked the brand new ice cream maker off the worktop, smashing the lid and reducing the two mixing arms to one.

Admit defeat? Never. I watched as the lone arm limped round the bowl, creating an icy damson delight. It was a bittersweet reminder that the green way is not always the easy way.

The average Brit gets through nine litres of ice cream every year. There are more than 1,000 manufacturers in the UK and vanilla is the ice cream equivalent of magnolia paint, being chosen nine times out of ten.

The environmental impact? I was delighted to stumble across a report published earlier this year titled Scottish Dairy Supply Chain Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

It reveals that milk is the most significant source of emissions in the life cycle of ice cream at 48 per cent (think of everything that goes on at a dairy farm), followed by distribution (including transport and time spent in the supermarket freezer) at 27 per cent, processing at 13 per cent and packaging at 8 per cent.

The ice cream that was studied was described as "plain, coneless". I think we should pause to consider the cone, quite possibly the world's most eco-friendly packaging.

Forget the plastic wrapper of an ice lolly or the foil and paper that goes round a chocolate bar. The ice cream cone is packaging you can eat. Tremendous.

Jumping back to ice cream that comes in tubs, there are loads of feel-good organic options to choose from, from brands like Yeo Valley and Green & Black's.

In Scotland we are spoiled for choice with two stand-out producers. Mackies is made on a farm in Aberdeenshire where they grow the crops that feed the cows that produce the milk and where three wind turbines provide all of their energy.

At Cream O'Galloway, the farm is organic, a community-owned wind turbine provides a quarter of electricity requirements and tens of thousands of native trees have been planted on site. The company also produces a Made Fair range, which uses Fairtrade ingredients.

The home-made scenario does get lots of brownie points, assuming you can face the trials in the kitchen. As for refrigeration, you'd have the freezer switched on anyway.

I am currently trying to track down a replacement mixer and lid for my ice cream machine, which is providing tricky as the model has seemingly become obsolete. Born under a bad sign and no mistake.

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This article was first published in Scotland On Sunday, 10 July, 2011