Mail-order meal kits aren’t exactly new, but Daily Harvest puts a fresh spin on packaged convenience foods. The company’s products emphasize sustainable fruits and vegetables without meat, gluten or dairy. In this Daily Harvest review, we’ll give you the detailed info you need to determine if these smoothies, soups and other choices deserve a place in your kitchen.
Product Selection
Daily Harvest’s plant-based offerings currently include flatbreads, pasta and rice dishes, soups and smoothies, and more. Within those broad categories, you’ll find a ton of variety, with more than two dozen different mix-and-match flavor combinations for smoothies alone and at least 100 total options on the menu. You can even opt for sweet treats like dairy-free ice cream and lattes.
The Daily Harvest website makes it easy to narrow down the meal selection that works for you. Some of the filters you can apply include low salt, low calories, high protein, high fiber, no sugar, heart-healthy, paleo, Mediterranean, and more. A lightning bolt icon shows off the best-selling options if you want to start with tried-and-true customer favorites.
Quality and Sustainability
In addition to containing approximately 95% organic ingredients, Daily Harvest products don’t include preservatives or artificial ingredients. However, some items may contain soy and trace allergens, such as nuts, since they’re prepared in the same facility as these ingredients. All Daily Harvest meals are frozen at peak ripeness to optimize nutrition and flavor.
Meals come in packaging you can either recycle or compost, reducing your carbon footprint. The company also helps small farms adopt regenerative methods of organic agriculture and engages in other community service endeavors.
Serving sizes may seem a bit small, especially if you’re new to plant-based eating or select low-calorie items. You may want to supplement your Daily Harvest items with sides or extras to create a more complete meal.
Cost
Daily Harvest doesn’t require a subscription, so you don’t have to worry about getting locked into a service you don’t use. It’s also quite easy to cancel or pause your subscription if you need to take a break. Depending on your exact order, the cost ranges from about $7 to $12 per meal, with available options that cost less than $5 for a serving.
When you sign up, you pick a plan that includes 9, 14 or 24 items per shipment, then select meals and snacks to build a box. The cost for each box varies depending on the items you choose. You get $5 off your order on the smallest box, 10 off your order when you choose a 14-item box and $25 off when you select the largest box. You can also purchase a la carte items at these approximate price points:
- Forager bowls: $6.79
- Bites snacks and Mylk: $7.99
- Smoothies and soups: $8.49
- Harvest bowls, flatbreads, grains, and pastas: $9.79 each
Check the serving sizes when you buy since some products are single-serve, and some have enough for multiple people. Shipping costs $9.99 per box, and the meals come frozen and packed in dry ice. If you want to stock up, Daily Harvest products will last in your freezer for about three months.
Convenience
Daily Harvest makes sense if you want to eat fewer animal products and more healthy foods. It’s also an excellent option for people with limited time to create and eat nutritious meals. Since you can pick your own items, you can try a variety of products to find your favorites.
The ingredients are pre-portioned, and many selections take fewer than 5 minutes to prep. For smoothies, you simply add your milk or juice of choice and blend. Depending on your blender and your liquid selection, it may take some trial and error to get the desired consistency. For hot meals, you can warm them up in the skillet, microwave, or oven before serving.
Daily Harvest Review: The Bottom Line
You should give Daily Harvest a try if you want to eat more fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains and other healthy ingredients without the prep time, food waste and guesswork. Although the cost may be a bit high for the serving size, it evens out for many customers when you account for the high convenience factor of these products. Since the company makes it so easy to try out the boxes without a long-term commitment, we recommended testing out a few items to see if Daily Harvest earns a spot in your regular rotation.
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