What your favourite ice cream flavour says about you

Ice cream is a necessary indulgence during the kind of heat wave most of us are suffering through at the moment. Like public pools and AC-cooled mall food courts, it’s so essential to the maintenance of public health and morale that I hope you’ll join me in petitioning the federal government to immediately issue every Canadian citizen a free ice cream voucher, one to be redeemed at their local convenience store.

The frozen dessert treat possesses the power to bring pleasure to all — both kids and adults, even dogs lap it up greedily — but some argue that a person’s preferred ice cream flavour may also offer an insight into their personality.

To celebrate what they're calling National Ice Cream month (or what you might call 'July'), popular chain Baskin Robbins (via The Daily Mail) released a study that associates flavour preference with specific characteristics or tendencies.

Skeptics may take the study with a grain of salt — or smattering of colourful sprinkles — I'm of the mind that if tea leaves can be read for profound meaning I don’t see why we can’t discern some pattern in two scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream in a sugar cone.

According to study author, Dr. Alan Hirsch, founder of Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, fans of vanilla are getting a bum rap in the culture. While “vanilla” is often used as a synonym for boring, in fact those who prefer the flavour fall into the impulsive/idealist category.

No big surprise when it comes to chocolate lovers, however. It seems fans of the cocoa bean, in all its infinite depth and variety, are dramatic flirts. Other notable flavour combinations include mint chocolate chip/argumentative, strawberry/introvert, rocky road/good listeners.

The study is cute, sure. But for an enthusiastic (read, indiscriminate) ice cream fan it can be a shade worrying too. How do you define the personality traits of a person who will happily gobble chocolate, vanilla, mint chocolate chip — basically any flavour but tiger tail?

Maybe Dr. Alan Hirsch will have to look beyond human psychology to explain my personality and instead look to the barnyard.

Oink, oink. That sounds about right.

(Click here for our old-fashioned vanilla recipe -- pictured above)

Tell us what your favourite flavour of ice cream is in the comment section below.