Here are the top rated vegan and dairy-free ice creams
Ice cream is synonymous with summer and for fans of the frozen treat seeking plant-based or dairy-free options, there's a delicious lineup of options to taste-test.
Consumer Reports this week revealed to "Good Morning America" its ranking of 14 such non-dairy ice cream products, taking both nutrition and taste into account.
Importantly, "there's no one formulation" for non-dairy ice cream, registered dietitian and food tester for Consumer Reports Amy Keating told "GMA."
"The base can be a variety of different plant milk -- almond, cashew, coconut, oat -- or not even a plant milk and just a coconut oil," Keating said. "One was made with avocado oil."
The different compositions, then, mean "healthiness" can vary significantly from product to product.
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"The nondairy desserts that scored the highest for taste -- Häagen-Dazs and Van Leeuwen -- got low ratings for nutrition, but both are very rich," Keating said in the report. "A little goes a long way, so have one-third of a cup and cut your calorie, fat, and sugar intake in half."
NadaMoo Dairy-Free Organic Chocolate, meanwhile, which is made with a coconut milk base, got the top nutrition rating and a "good" rating for flavor.
The other brands that rounded out the top three spots include Oatly, made with oat-based milk, and Cado, the aptly named non-dairy option made with avocado.
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Registered dietition and nutritionist Maya Feller warned similarly that, just because the products are plant- and nut-based, it didn't mean they were automatically healthy, telling "GMA" that "you want to take a look at the added sugars, you also want to take a look at the added salts and the added fats."
Two-thirds of a cup of Breyers milk-based chocolate ice cream has 180 calories -- but 11 of the 14 brands of non-dairy ice cream that Consumer Reports reviewed had more calories than that.
"If you are going to have ice cream, sit down, have a bowl, enjoy it mindfully," Feller said. "I would say the exact same for [non-dairy or plant-based options]."
When it comes to flavor, ABC News' Becky Worley, who tasted all of the products, said each non-dairy base was undoubtedly impacted by the various base products.
"In my opinion, all of the non-dairy options I tried had a slightly different base flavor than ice cream made with cow's milk that subtly affected the expression of the chocolate taste," she said.
As for price, consumers should expect to pay a bit more for some non-dairy options, though it varies from brand to brand.
Both Breyers' non-dairy and regular milk ice cream are priced the same at $3 per quart and a half. Many of the other vegan brands are priced similar to gourmet ice creams and cost more. NadaMoo and Oatly cost $5.99 per pint and Cado costs $5.29.