My son Jackson picked up the book Eat This, Not That! by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding. As I drive, he sits in the backseat recounting alarming nutritional information about the various food stuffs we consume.

“Did you know that P.F. Chang’s Pork Lo Mein is considered the worst Chinese entree? It has more than 1,800 calories and 127 grams of fat. Or, Chipotle’s chicken burrito? It has 1,107 calories, 113 carb grams and 2,656 milligrams of sodium,” says Jackson with a mixture of awe, disgust and worry in his voice.

“Hmmm,” I think. “Better come up with a different plan for dinner.” (Yes, we eat out WAY too much at our house.)

While I applaud Jackson’s burgeoning interest in healthy eating, tonight he crossed the line: He started to recite the nutritional facts about ice cream. At the next stop light, I turned around in the driver’s seat and glared.

“Jackson, there are certain things I DO NOT want to know. Like how bad ice cream is. Especially at the start of summer.”

Of course, my pronouncement was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. He immediately began to rattle off the depressing stats:

Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Money (in a waffle cone) has 659 calories and 24 grams of fat (19 grams saturated)

A strawberry shake at Baskin-Robbins weighs in at 650 calories and 98 grams of sugar

Dairy Queen’s chocolate chip cookie dough Blizzard (the SMALL size, for goodness sakes!) contains 720 calories and 28 grams of fat

Not surprisingly, sorbet and frozen yogurt generally got good marks from Zinczenko and Goulding. But, somehow, the cry of “I scream. You scream. We all scream for … sorbet!” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

My favorite indulgence is a Friendly’s black raspberry ice cream cone with chocolate jimmies (aka sprinkles, for those of you who grew up outside of New England). What kind of ice cream do you crave during the summer?