Baskin-Robbins offers a free scoop of new "healthy" ice cream to gym members

Baskin-Robbins new line of ice creams that it is unveiling in January, called BRight Choices, don't necessarily qualify as health foods, but rather that new category of foods that aren't as bad for you as they were before, if you eat the quantity suggested as a serving. This is the ice cream shop version of 100-calorie packs, probably designed with the audiences in New York and other places that now require chains to list calories on all their products.

When faced with a display case full of options that are listed at over 250+ calories per serving, the 90-calorie scoop of vanilla yogurt with 0 grams of fat seems like a pretty rational choice for a 2.5 ounce scoop, as does the 80 calorie strawberry sorbet. The 140-calorie raspberry chip and 130-calorie chocoloate are a little more dicey, but still something a lot of people could justify for an evening treat (be sure to ask if the cone count in the calories, because the BR press release is unclear).

On January 15, the chain will offer a free scoop as a taste test to anyone who can show a gym membership card. That's the part that irked me a little as a working mom. Can I present my two kids in their double stroller, which I push a mile to pick them up? Could I just present my post-partum belly and insist that I need a treat, but really can't afford too many calories?