Dole Fruit Bites are a recipe for failure

Dole Real Fruit Bites. Mango Chunks, Pineapple Chunks, and Apple Chunks. $3.99 for a 4.5-ounce bag containing six pouches.

Bonnie: Fruit is the favorite healthy snack option of American women, according to a survey Dole commissioned last fall. Yogurt was the second-most popular choice of the thousand women surveyed. Anything with whole grains came in third, with 31 percent. No wonder, then, that Dole's latest snack is yogurt- and oat-covered dried fruit.

A three-quarter-ounce snack pack contains only 80 calories, up to 2 grams fat (of which 1 to 1.5 grams are saturated), about 12 grams sugar, and is a good source of vitamin C. These dried fruits alone contain similar calories, but no fat; oatmeal, similar calories and fat, but no vitamin C; and yogurt, no vitamin C, but a lot of calcium.

Too bad combining these three good ingredients masks the flavors of each, resulting in something I found inedible. Dole Fruit Bites only goes to prove that trying to satisfy too many wants can be a recipe for failure.

Carolyn: It's not always easy to make oatmeal at work. It's dangerous to eat yogurt in the car. Plain fruit alone is boring, and dried fruit is high-calorie. Are these new yogurt- and oat-covered dried Fruit Bites from Dole the answer to all these problems?

I say no: They look ugly (like stones) and are too sweet. Take away the oats, and you've got yogurt — or chocolate-covered raisins (i.e. the also-too-sweet Raisinets). The oats mitigate the sweetness some, but not enough. I agree with Bonnie that the flavors of the individual ingredients here dissolve into undifferentiated sugar.

There is also the matter of how "healthy" this snack really is. I'm guessing there is about as much of the goodness of "yogurt" in here as the goodness of "milk" is in milk chocolate. Logic also suggests an oat-and-apple snack with zero fiber couldn't contain a heck of a lot of either ingredient.

Marie Callender's Bakes. Creamy Chicken Alfredo; Vermont White Cheddar Mac & Cheese; Chicken, Spinach and Mushroom Lasagna; Three Meat and Four Cheese Lasagna; Southwestern Style Chipotle Chicken Bake; and Scalloped Potatoes & Ham. $5.69 to $5.99 per 24- to 31-ounce box.