Bonnie: I’ve always been a Häagen-Dazs ice cream fan, with chocolate chocolate chip and mint chip my two favorite flavors. But with 300 calories and about 20 grams of total fat (of which 12 is saturated) in a 1/2-cup serving, I just don’t indulge very often. READ: less than once a year.

Seriously, that’s what happens as you age. You can’t afford to savor a bowl of premium ice cream as often as you’d like since your activity often lessens because of bad joints, and your metabolism continues to slow down.

That’s also why, a few years ago, I found a new love: A lower calorie, still good tasting Häagen-Dazs — the Light Mint Chip — which we also featured as a Bite. That ice cream contained yummy real chocolate chips, 230 calories and 8 grams total fat (of which 5 grams are saturated) in a 1/2-cup serving and has unfortunately been discontinued along with the rest of the Light line.

So I now have a new love; HD’s Five Mint. It’s a low-fat premium ice cream with a clean mint taste and only five ingredients. I must admit, it has a smidgen more fat (4 grams total) than Light Mint Chip did, but a slightly cleaner ingredient list.

Do take note, these seven HD Five flavors are not the only Häagen-Dazs ice creams with five ingredients: Its regular Vanilla, Strawberry, Coffee, Chocolate and Green Tea also fit that description, but have the higher fat and calorie count.

What I like best is that I can enjoy this new ice cream offering a bit more often than I would the full-fat versions.

Bryan: Bonnie called a little while back to let me know about a new line from Häagen-Dazs called “Five.” It is a strange occurrence that I would come across a new food product first, but I let her know that I had actually seen the line and had even tried one of the flavors to great reception. The fact is, I’m an ice cream lover, and there is rarely a trip to the grocery store that does not involve at least a stroll down the frozen-dessert aisle, if not a purchase of one flavor or another. I had picked up a pint of Häagen-Dazs Five Ginger ice cream just a few days before Bonnie’s call, so I immediately agreed with her idea to feature the line on Bite of the Best, even though she noted her love for the mint, a flavor I usually don’t enjoy.

Häagen-Dazs Five really gets back to basics, producing a natural ice cream with only five key ingredients (milk, cream, sugar, eggs & flavor). Aside from the mint, there are six other varieties available; milk chocolate, vanilla bean, ginger, coffee, passion fruit & brown sugar. Though I really thought that Häagen-Dazs should have limited the selection to five total flavors (I mean, that marketing writes itself), I was pleasantly surprised by their tastes, and at the end of the day, wouldn’t really remove any of them.

This is really good ice cream; smooth, rich and delicious. The mint is subtle and creamy, refreshing and invigorating — a great palate cleanser that could be served as a tiny scoop between savory courses or be enjoyed atop a warm brownie for a luscious dessert. Chocolate and vanilla both impress as pure representations of their flavors, though I might have opted for a darker chocolate flavor if given the reins of decision making. Brown sugar and ginger both proved surprising and tasty; the former’s caramelized/molasses tones hanging on the tongue long after each bite, while the latter’s subtle Asian spice added a warmth, balanced well against the creamy backdrop. Great tastes and a refreshing return to basics… I mean, why mess up ice cream with anything that doesn’t need to be there?

Eric: It’s amazing to me to think that all ice cream isn’t made with just five ingredients – after tasting all the varieties in the new line of Häagen-Dazs Five, I started to wonder why it is that ice cream manufacturers consult their lab technicians for ingredients rather than their local farmers. It later dawned on me—profit margins.

Like most people with a sweet tooth, I’m also an ice cream junkie and, unlike my brother, I do share my mother’s mint gene. While growing up, and until only a few years ago, my favorite ice cream was that of Ben & Jerry’s. Although the hippie-inspired company produced some of the craziest flavors, the upside was that they were all made from local Vermont, all-natural ingredients – and you could easily tell. Fast forward to present day and the company, now under the influence of Unilever, is mass-produced worldwide and about the quality of the soft serve at Dairy Queen.

Even though Ben & Jerry’s sold-out, there are still ice cream companies out there that realize the benefits of using basic, all-natural ingredients to produce better-tasting ice cream, and it wasn’t until recently that I realized Häagen-Dazs (an American company with a European sounding name) was one of them. Its new line of “Five” ice creams is amazingly simple, made full of flavor and taste – and the kicker, is lower in fat by nearly 20 percent than Häagen-Dazs regular ice creams.