I need a smoothie to wash away the taste of the new Yoplait Chocolate Banana Smoothie. My mouth tastes like a chocolate fondue party is happening in my mouth, but instead of suburbanites, it’s being attended by hobos, hippies, and others who think deodorant is unnecessary.

Also, my mouth happens to be a room where hot yoga classes are held. Everything is creating a combination of chocolate and armpit sourness.

Just like the Boston Red Sox at the beginning of this baseball season, I had high hopes for Yoplait’s Chocolate Banana Smoothie. I thought merging a cup of skim milk with Yoplait’s chocolate-flavored frozen yogurt pieces and frozen banana slices would turn into a tasty, refreshing 16-ounce smoothie that would make me temporarily forget about the Boston Red Sox’s complete choke job, but it ended up being the salt rubbed into my wounds.

I like chocolate, I enjoy bananas, and I’m really fond of the original Yoplait Smoothie flavors, so I thought Yoplait’s Chocolate Banana Smoothie was going to be another home run. However, something went horribly wrong with this attempt to steal away profits from Jamba Juice.

There’s only two good things about Yoplait’s Chocolate Banana Smoothie. It blends easily and it has a wonderful smoothie consistency. It’s not too thick, but also not watery. Oh, there’s a third good thing about this smoothie. It’s cold. But it’s only a good thing if you pour the smoothie on top of your head to cool you down, because pouring it inside of your head via your mouth might not be enjoyable, because as I mentioned before, it’s kind of gross.

Everything about its flavor is unpleasant, from the chocolate-flavored frozen yogurt to the banana to the artificial sweeteners. There’s a repulsive sourness in each sip, which probably originates from the frozen yogurt. It even smells repugnant. On top of all of that, the smoothie has an annoying grittiness.

Overall, this Yoplait Chocolate Banana Smoothie is not bananas.

N-O-T-B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

What?

You thought I would end this review with a baseball reference.

Fine.

Overall, this Yoplait Chocolate Banana Smoothie is as horrible as the number of strikeouts Orioles third baseman Mark Reynolds racks up each year.

(Nutrition Facts – 8 ounces prepared w/skim milk. 130 calories, 10 calories from fat, 1 gram of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 80 milligrams of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 15 grams of sugar, and 6 grams of protein, 4% vitamin A, 6% vitamin C, 70% calcium, and 4% iron.)

Item: Yoplait Chocolate Banana Smoothie
Price: $3.49 (on sale)
Size: 7.6 ounces
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 2 out of 10
Pros: Blends easily. Nice smoothie consistency. Cold.
Cons: This shit is not bananas. N-O-T-B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Gritty. Its strong artificial sweetener taste. My excessive use of baseball references in this review. Unsure if it contains live and active cultures, since it doesn’t say on the packaging.

Yoplait’s Smoothies have been around since 2009 and I gave them a extremely positive review. Although it wasn’t my intent, I thought the high scores would’ve encourage Yoplait to send me yogurt for life or, at least, a beautiful woman in a French maid outfit armed with a Swiffer to clean my place, but that didn’t happen.

Anyhoo, Yoplait expanded their smoothie line with a Chocolate Banana flavor. Each package contains chocolate flavored frozen yogurt pieces and bananas. Just pour everything into a blender, pour some skim milk, blend, and in no time you’ll have a refreshing chocolatey smoothie filled with live and active cultures and 50% of your daily recommended amount of calcium.

Each package makes two 8-ounce servings and have a suggested price of $3.49. A serving using skim milk has 130 calories, 10 calories from fat, 1 gram of fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, less than 5 milligrams of sodium, 80 milligrams of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 15 grams of sugar, and 6 grams of protein.

I’m a woman, so I know how to eat indulgent foods. When I found out about the two new flavors of Yoplait Delights Parfaits (Chocolate Éclair and Cherry Cheesecake) I knew the occasion called for the Ultimate Feminine Eating Method (UFEM). For those of you unfamiliar with the Method, the first thing you should know is that it requires a lot of smiling. And dancing. And spoons.

With the Chocolate Éclair Delights in hand, I curled up, barefoot, on the window seat in my sunlit, carefully-arranged, shabby chic living room to sample its dense, chocolate-y goodness. The velvety texture of the vanilla custard yogurt layered on top of the rich, dark chocolate yogurt base was sufficiently happiness-inducing, though it wasn’t really what I define as a parfait due to its lack of layering with other foods (e.g. fruit, granola). When I read the label and saw that my delicious and life-affirming snack was only 100 calories, I leapt to my feet to change into some tight, faded denim jeans so that I could prance wildly in front of my full-length mirror and pull my waistband away from my mid-section with glee.

The fact that it is scoop-able was also a plus for me because the Ultimate Feminine Eating Method dictates that I only indulge upon things I can eat with a spoon; it simplifies the Method’s standard of luxuriating in a food’s low-fat flavor by allowing you to suck on the spoon for 10 seconds in ecstasy while your eyes roll back in your head. But 10 seconds is all you get. Any longer, and you’re a big, fat pig, and no one will love you.

Still strictly adhering to the UFEM, I took the Cherry Cheesecake Delights to the shore for some impromptu, self-important beach yoga. With the sun’s rays blessing my energetic Virabhadrasana/Warrior II pose, I helped myself to a single spoonful. It wasn’t terrible, but the artificial cherry flavored yogurt left a lot to be desired, and the creamy, cheesecake-flavored base didn’t really taste like cheesecake. Believe me, I know what cheesecake tastes like. I’ve eaten the low-cal, sugar-free, spoonable, mini cheesecake bites offered by other lady-friendly snack lines, and you, sir, are no cheesecake.

Despite the Cherry Cheesecake Delights’ shortcomings, it earned a Method-certified, spoon-cleaning lick, and I suddenly felt compelled to abandon my Garudasana and launch into a series of slow-motion cartwheels in the sand, overcome by the sugariness of it all. Then I got dizzy and face-planted in a little kid’s sand castle. Eating a spoonful of food per day leaves you pretty weak. But I sure look great in my yoga outfit.

Yoplait Delights are like deluxe pudding cups (another food item that makes me want to salsa dance with a sexy, faceless stranger in a fancy dress while laughing my head off), and their texture is not too far off from that. They come in four ounce cups, perfect for hiding in one’s purse for ultimate deniability. The Ultimate Feminine Eating Method dictates that a lady must never be seen eating things in public. She must only consume food in private… and partake in a side-splitting laugh or two while doing that.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 container/4.0 oz (113 grams) – Chocolate Éclair – 100 calories, 10 calories from fat, 1.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 90 milligrams of sodium, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 13 grams of sugar, 200 milligrams of potassium, and 9 grams of protein. Cherry Cheesecake – 100 calories, 10 calories from fat, 1.5 grams of fat, 1 gram of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 80 milligrams of sodium, 16 grams of carbohydrates, 12 grams of sugar, 180 milligrams of potassium, and 9 grams of protein.)

Item: Yoplait Delights Parfait (Chocolate Éclair and Cherry Cheesecake)
Price: $1.99 (on sale; regular price $3.79)
Size: 4 pack
Purchased at: Vons
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Chocolate Éclair)
Rating: 5 out of 10 (Cherry Cheesecake)
Pros: Sexy faceless strangers. Chocolate Eclair was sufficiently happiness-inducing. 100 calories per serving. Spoons. Mirror dancing. Laughing alone with food.
Cons: Big, fat un-loveable pigs. Lack of adequate parfait layering. Cheesecake-flavored base didn’t really taste like cheesecake. Artificial cherry flavored yogurt left a lot to be desired. Snacking with a utensil while maintaining a standing yoga pose. Cheesecake impostors. Sand in your face. Eating in public.

Activia Parfait Crunch is the company’s latest product to get us to consume more Bifidus Regularis, which is not a spell Harry Potter can cast upon you so that you can poop on a regular basis. It’s Activia’s unique probiotic culture that helps you poop on a regular basis when consumed daily for two weeks as parts of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.

Activia Parfait Crunch combines their lowfat yogurt with fruit pieces and lowfat granola. It’s available in four flavors: Strawberry, Mixed Berry, Vanilla, and Peach. Each six-ounce cup contains 220 calories, 3 grams of fat and retails for $1.29.

(NOTE: Please don’t do this. Thank you.)

Dear YouTubers,

You know what YouTube needs? No, not more cute cat/dog/turtle humping videos.

There needs to be videos of people attempting to eat dozens of containers of Activia consecutively. I’m not talking three or four cups of Activia, I’m talking Sam’s Club-sized cases of the stuff.

Why do we need these videos? Because, currently, there isn’t any video documentation of the effects of someone eating a shit-ton of Activia.

So which one of you daring amateur internet video producers will meet this challenge for a chance at viral video history? No matter how far you get or how many pieces of furniture you might soil, you’ll be internet famous, and could possibly be featured on Web Soup, tosh.0 or the offbeat news section of the USA Today.

Not willing to put your digestive system in harm’s way, you say?

C’mon. Several of you kings and queens of consumption have done it before by trying to either down a gallon of water, chug a gallon of milk, quaff an entire bottle of tequila, guzzle a bottle of pancake syrup or drink a two liter bottle of soda. There are many more but I don’t want to make you chug down YouTube videos of folks chugging down various liquids because I want you to chug a case of Activia.

If one of you attempts this digestive endeavor, might I suggest calling the video: The Activia 14 Minute Challenge. Might I also suggest that if you get tired of eating whatever Activia flavor you end up with from Sam’s Club, you should mix it up with the Activia Desserts Strawberry Cheesecake.

If you thought regular Activia made eating digestive bacteria taste good, then you’re going to really love cups of the Activia Desserts Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt…until you eat about a dozen of them in a row. But for the first couple of containers, you’d probably enjoy their sweet and tangy flavor, along with the smoothness of the yogurt. Although you might be disappointed that the yogurt tastes more like regular strawberry yogurt than strawberry cheesecake flavored yogurt, but it’s quite good for regular strawberry yogurt.

Why is it so good?

Because the yogurt doesn’t contain any artificial sweeteners, has real pieces of strawberries and has more sugar than a Frosted Ice Creme Sandwich Pop-Tart. So the Activia Desserts Strawberry Cheesecake yogurt is good for you because of the digestive bacteria, but it’s also bad for you because it’s like eating candy.

Activia is supposed to help with “slow intestinal transit.” But if one of you takes The Activia 14 Minute Challenge, Activia could help you reach a level of internet celebrity that’s equal or greater than the sneezing baby panda bear…and it could also help you achieve quick and violent intestinal transit.

I look forward to seeing the videos soon.

Love,
Marvo

(NOTE: Again, please don’t do this. Thank you.)

(Nutrition Facts – 1 container/4 ounces – 140 calories, 35 calories from fat, 4 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 100 milligrams of sodium, 240 milligrams of potassium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 17 grams of sugar, 6 grams of protein and 20% calcium.)

Item: Dannon Activia Dessert Strawberry Cheesecake
Price: $3.00 (on sale, $3.50 reg.)
Size: 4 pack
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Good if you like strawberry yogurt. Contains probiotic cultures. Contains pieces of fruit. Smooth yogurt. Good source of calcium. Sneezing baby panda bears.
Cons: Doesn’t really taste like strawberry cheesecake. Great source of sugar. Eating a case of Activia. Slow intestinal transit. Quick and violent intestinal transit.

Recently, my TIB boss expressed some concern regarding my arteries and the amount of insanely unhealthy food I eat and review. (I guess he thinks I actually eat healthy food when I’m not doing a review. Ha!)

Assuming he doesn’t want my untimely death on his conscience, I decided to pick up a pack of new Yoplait Splitz low fat yogurt. I chose Rainbow Sherbet, but there’s also Strawberry Sundae and Strawberry Banana Split to choose from. They’re obviously going for a nice “day at the ice cream store” theme, which I approve of wholeheartedly. I chose Rainbow Sherbet for two reasons:

1. I love sherbet, and I used to torture my family every birthday by demanding a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake with white cake and raspberry sherbet. I loved watching them all trying to pretend they enjoyed it, when I knew they were secretly cursing my birth and wishing I had just asked for a chocolate cake like a normal human being.

2. For the first, oh, 22 years of my life, I thought sherbet was spelled and pronounced “sherbert,” and I enjoy sharing embarrassing details like this about myself on the Internet.

I think Marvo will be pleased (and relieved) at my review product choice. It says right on the front of the package that it’s a good source of calcium and vitamin D, plus it has no artificial flavors or sweeteners AND no high fructose corn syrup! With only 90 calories and 1 gram of fat per cup, I don’t think I’ll be keeling over after eating this yogurt. As a matter of fact, it’s probably the healthiest thing I’ll eat all day.

You also may be tickled to know that Yoplait Splitz Rainbow Sherbet meets National Yogurt Association criteria for live and active culture yogurt. I like my yogurt’s culture live, active, and certified by an official-sounding organization. Nothing but the best for this reviewer.

It’s nice to know that there’s no artificial flavors, but I would like to know what the flavors in my Rainbow Sherbet yogurt actually are. If I remember correctly from my “sherbert”-eating days, rainbow sherbet usually contains raspberry and orange flavors, so that’s what I’m expecting here. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be strawberry, because hey, they’ve already got that flavor laying around from the other two flavors of Splitz. I will reserve my right to call Yoplait a bunch of lazy fucks until after I’ve tried it.

I find the idea of orange yogurt a little odd, but considering Yoplait already puts out flavors like Apple Turnover, Black Forest Cake and (oh!) Orange Crème, I shouldn’t be surprised. I remember as a kid having choices like “strawberry on the bottom” and “blueberry on the bottom” and, if I was lucky, “lemon.” Yogurt flavors, much like smart phone technology, have blown past me, leaving me shaking my cane at the diary section and yelling at Crème Caramel to get off my lawn.

Despite my geriatric yogurt palate, I actually liked the orange layer in Splitz Rainbow Sherbet. I attribute this to the fact that it actually tastes like orange sherbet. The orange flavor is strong but not overwhelming, and it’s sweet without being too sweet. You can definitely tell that it’s not loaded with artificial sweeteners because there’s no funky aftertaste. I think yogurt really lends itself to making sherbet-related flavors because both have that bit of tartness that cuts through the sweet, too.

Orange is okay, but, just like when I ate real rainbow sherbet, I was just plowing through it to get to the raspberry layer. As you can see by the picture, the raspberry on the bottom takes up more room than the orange on top, which is just fine by me. And yes, after careful consideration, I have decided that it is, indeed, raspberry, unless the natural tartness of the yogurt is being deceptive. Like the orange layer, the raspberry also brings the sherbet flavor in yogurt form. There’s a reason why yogurt used to be mostly berry-based flavors – they just seem to play well together, and this is no exception. I love me some raspberries, and while Splitz doesn’t exactly emulate the real thing, it comes close enough to satisfy.

All in all, the yogurt is smooth and creamy, and the flavors are robust without being overpowering. I usually prefer salty snacks over sweet, but the use of sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup or other artificial sweeteners gives Yoplait Splitz Rainbow Sherbet a clean sweetness, which was helped out by the tartness of the yogurt. I thought it really did capture the flavors of rainbow sherbet, but to be honest, yogurt has a lot of the same flavor profiles as sherbet, so it wasn’t that hard for Yoplait to skip from point A to point B.

I honestly had a hard time coming up with any complaints about this product, but I managed to find a few. First of all, the cup is a little undersized. At 3.25 ounces per cup, Splitz are almost half the size of a normal Yoplait container of yogurt, which weighs in at 6 ounces. There are more fingers on my hand than spoonfuls of yogurt in the cup.

Second, I decided to try it frozen. The front of the package commanded me to do so, and I always obey the demands of food packaging. After a good overnight freeze, I pulled it out and found it to be rock hard. I expected it to have the consistency of regular frozen yogurt, but it was trying to bend my spoon like it was Neo in The Matrix. Before my silverware became nothing more than a prop for my Strongest Woman Alive performance (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the National Comedy Theatre; no cover for the ladies after 10pm!), I let it thaw in the fridge, and by that I mean I put it in the fridge and forgot about it for six hours. Even after all that time, it was still pretty frozen, but I was able to pry out decent-sized spoonfuls.

My main problem with the frozen product was the texture. It did have a nice, ice crystal-like consistency similar to that of sherbet when it hit my tongue. However, unlike sherbet, which quickly melts into a flavorful liquid, the yogurt immediately went from sherbet mimic to regular, creamy yogurt. The transition was a bit unsettling. The flavors were still good, but I’m not used to food doing a phone booth texture change right inside my mouth. It was disappointing.

While it would be nice to have two great snack products in one cup, at least regular, refrigerated Yoplait Splitz Rainbow Sherbet is a small but tasty (and nutritious!) treat.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 container (3.25 ounces), 90 calories, 5 calories from fat, 1 gram of total fat, 0.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 60 milligrams of sodium, , 140 milligrams of potassium, 17 grams of total carbohydrates, 12 grams of sugars, 3 grams of protein, 10% vitamin A, 15% calcium, 10% vitamin D and 10% phosphorus.)

Item: Yoplait Splitz Rainbow Sherbet Low Fat Yogurt
Price: $1.99 (on sale; normally $3.49)
Size: 4 pack
Purchased at: Safeway
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Yogurt conveyed sherbet flavor. Use of real sugar instead of HFCS or artificial sweeteners. Actually reviewing something healthy. Torturing family members. Flavors were tasty and distinct without being overpowering. My Strongest Woman Alive show.
Cons: Frozen product was texturally uncomfortable. “Sherbert.” Serving size is very small. Being out-of-date with yogurt flavors. Both Matrix sequels.