India, June 20 -- It's either a tribute to the power of social media or an example of how limited social media's reachreally is. Last week, most newspapers carried the news that the Kwality Wall's brands that we are all familiar with will stop being made with vegetable fat, and will be made with milk instead. This is a welcome step. Almost since I started writing this column I have complained about the synthetic nature of what we regard as ice-cream in India. Nearly every ingredient is artificial. But the most galling thing about the so called ice-cream is that it is not made with cream at all. It is not even made with very much milk. Basically it is congealed vegetable fat. This surprised most people, but did nothing to shame the purveyors of frozen vegetable fat. The only concession anyone made to the criticism was that the manufacturers were made to stop calling their disgusting products ice-cream. They were forced to use the term frozen dessert. Amul, which is actually in the milk business, sensed that there was a hole in the ice-cream market and entered it. Amul used the obvious advantage it had and said it was making real ice-cream, not a product derived from vegetable oil. Over the last few years, the internet, and Instagram in particular, has been full of posts about the dubious nature of so much Indian ice-cream. All of this (and, I would like to think, a sense of shame) may have led to the announcement that palm oil would no longer be used. So, a victory for social media? Well, yes and no. The posts may have precipitated the shift to milk, but when the announcement was made, I was startled by how many people were surprised to discover that they had been eating cold, congealed vegetable oil these years. They had simply missed the entire controversy. So, the media (and social media) influence counts for little compared to the power of decades of advertising. Why did they throw out vegetable oil and turn to milk? Hard to say, but it probably has something to do with Unilever's decision to spin off its ice-cream division last year. So the so-called ice-creams are now part of a new company called Magnum. And I imagine that Magnum does not want to be perceived by the market as being associated with a legacy of congealed palm oil. The more interesting question is: Why was Unilever flogging frozen vegetable oil to us anyway? The answer may have to do with British history. Britain began rationing milk during the Second World War, and rationing continued into the 1950s. During this period, British manufacturers of ice cream had no choice but to look for milk substitutes, and vegetable fat started out as a replacement for milk out of necessity. But as time went on and milk became freely available, the manufacturers saw no reason to go back to making the real thing because a) the British, who had one of the worst cuisines in the world, simply could not tell the difference between real ice-cream and the vegetable oil rubbish. And b) milk can be more expensive than vegetable oil, so this bogus ice-cream could be sold cheaply. British companies brought this vegetable oil method to India and hoodwinked Indians into believing that this was what real ice-cream tasted like. Apparently, the UK is still a frozen vegetable-oil market. To be called ice-cream in Britain, the product must contain 2.5% milk protein and 5% fat, which can be sourced from any animal or vegetable. If this 5% does come from milk, then the product falls into a category called 'dairy ice-cream.' If the milk fat exceeds 10%, then the ice-cream is considered 'premium.' These standards are lower than in many other Western countries. In the US, you cannot sell any product with less than 10% milk fat and at least 20% milk solids as ice-cream. As palates have got more sophisticated around the world (even in the UK) premium ice-creams have become popular. In Britain 'Cornish ice cream' has always had a higher milk-fat content, and the emergence of such brands as Haagen-Dazs (established in the Bronx in New York in 1960 by Jews who chose a foreign-sounding name and then sold the brand to multinationals) and Ben & Jerry's (established in Vermont and sold to Unilever, with whom the original founders have often fought; and now also spun-off to Magnum) created a new category of quality ice-cream. The Magnum spin-off may have been prompted by changing consumer preferences. Amul ice-cream is now much bigger than Unilever's frozen desserts. One view is that the Indian consumer can now actually tell the difference between milk and oil. This view has historically been challenged by old-style Indian market experts. I have been told by industry veterans that it is impossible to tell the difference ('Let me give you a blind test and prove it' etc). And at one stage, Unilever executives were actually claiming that their product had health and taste advantages: "Palm oil or derivatives like mid-fractions are healthier. Palm oil is very versatile, and helps give frozen dessert its smooth and creamy texture at -15 degrees," one was quoted as telling the media. None of this nonsense has helped them retain market share, and for years the only one of their products I would touch was the Magnum, which was made with milk and real chocolate. (They imported it from Thailand.) Can it be a coincidence that the spin-off company is called Magnum? Possibly, but the dismal fate and welcome death of the congealed-vegetable-oil market tells us that the multinationals are finally taking the Indian palate seriously....