Dole Smoothie Shakers Review

 On a recent trip to the grocery store, I noticed a new product that I’d never seen before – Dole Smoothie Shakers.

I really prefer to make my own smoothies at home, but since it’s smoothie season and I am always usually interested to try new things, I picked up two different Shakers flavors: Strawberry Banana and Mixed Berry.

This review is for the Strawberry Banana version of the Dole Smoothie Shakers.

As of right now, it appears that Dole is offering seven different smoothie shaker flavor combinations:

• Strawberry Banana
• Mixed Berry
• Pineapple Mango
• Strawberry Raspberry
• Blueberry Banana
• Peach Mango
• Strawberry

I think the idea for the smoothie shaker is a good one because it’s really the ultimate in convenience.

There’s really only two steps involved and they are perfectly displayed on the bottle (in case you were wondering what to do next :)):

Smoothie Shaker Mixing Instructions:

1. Shake to loosen contents before opening. If large pieces remain, thaw for 5 minutes and then break apart with a spoon.
2. Pour chilled juice within fill zone, replace cap tightly, and shake for 30-45 seconds. Enjoy!

I decided to make my Smoothie Shaker with unsweetened almond milk since that’s one of my favorite liquids for creating smoothies.

After shaking the container and unscrewing the lid, this is what the contents look like:

It’s obviously small pieces of strawberry, but the other pieces look a little mysterious. It supposed to also contain yogurt, so that’s what the white pieces must be. Well, that and the banana I guess.

The ingredients as listed on the container:

• Fruit (strawberries, bananas)
• Grade A milk
• Sugar
• Nonfat dry milk
• Chicory root fiber
• Cream
• Natural flavor
• Water
• Tapioca starch
• Xanthan gum
• Guar gum
• Ascorbic acid (Vitamin C)
• Citrus fiber
• Yogurt cultures
• Stevia extract (sweetener)
• Locust bean gum

Wow, labels are pretty scary sometimes.

There’s a little see-through window (named the “fill zone”) on the side of the bottle with two indicator lines. One shows how much liquid to add for an “extra thick” smoothie and the other is for making a “thick” smoothie.

I poured in enough almond milk for a thick smoothie and it was pretty thick:

Overall, I thought the taste was rather bland and a waste of perfectly good calories I could have used on something more enjoyable and flavorful. It certainly doesn’t compare to a fresh homemade smoothie where you control the ingredients and amounts.

Based on the label’s nutritional values, if you made this strawberry banana smoothie shaker with 6.5 ounces of orange juice, you’d end up with a 190 calorie smoothie at about 5 WW PointsPlus.

I also calculated the smoothie I made (with about 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk instead of the orange juice), and it came out to 3 WW PointsPlus. This is because of the considerably fewer number of calories and carbohydrates in the unsweetened almond milk as compared to the orange (as suggested on the product label).

At a cost of about $1.99, I can’t imagine the smoothie shaker is worth it.

Yes it’s ultra-convenient, but making smoothies at home is so simple and the taste is so much better. Plus you can always quickly blend up your favorite smoothie ingredients at home and put it in thermos (affiliate link) or other container that will keep your smoothie chilled as you enjoy it during the day.