I have a 9 to 5 job and lunch time is my happiest time, but also a huge struggle because I always have to plan ahead and bring my meals with me to work, or I have to spend money on eating out.
I heard about Daily Harvest for the first time on a podcast and recently started seeing a ton of ads all over social media and even on TV. It sounded like a really cool and convenient option for a to-go breakfast or lunch, so last week I decided to give it a shot and review it for my YouTube Channel.
Check out the video below if you’d don’t feel like reading a long blog post:
WHAT’S DAILY HARVEST
Daily Harvest is a meal subscription service, but it involves minimal cooking. They have oats, smoothies, harvest bowls, soups, and more, and all these options take under five minutes to prepare.
They have a few different options for boxes with different number of cups and depending on how many cups you have in your box, the price gets lower. The lowest you can get is $7 per cup which I thought was rather expensive for a frozen meal.
I knew that Daily Harvest will not be as cheap as if you make a salad, a harvest bowl, or a smoothie at home, but I honestly did not expect them to cost $7 per cup. Maybe I’m crazy…
Anyway, I ordered the bestseller box with nine cups and I used a coupon that I found online which saved me $30.
MY DAILY HARVEST EXPERIENCE
I got the box within a few days and everything was really well packaged with dry ice. The cups were still very cold even though they were in my lobby for more than four hours.
I tried my first Daily Harvest smoothie (Chocolate + Hazelnut) the following morning, on Saturday, because I was way too curious and excited. It tasted like a high-quality smoothie, but also not that different from the smoothies that I usually make at home. The good thing about that particular one was that it was also very filling – it had about 500 calories, had added pea protein, and lots of healthy fats like avocado and hazelnuts.
I had my first Harvest Bowl (the sweet potato + wild rice hash) on Tuesday and I made it in the microwave at work. It only had 200 calories which I don’t think is enough for a main dish, so I had to supplement with a Baby Bell cheese and some nuts. The bowl tasted pretty good, I didn’t expect to like it very much because I wasn’t excited about the tomatoes in it. But, it tasted like a good quality frozen meal, maybe like a frozen meal from Trader Joe’s. Would I pay $7 for a frozen meal from Trader Joe’s? Probably not.
The next day I had another Harvest Bowl (broccoli + cheeze) and this one was not bad either. Again, it was only 200 calories, so I had to supplement with snacks because it didn’t really keep me full for the entire afternoon.
The whole time I was thinking that these Daily Harvest bowls would actually be a perfect side to a protein, but not a meal on their own.
I had my next Harvest Bowl (brussel sprouts + tahini) for dinner the next day and this one also tasted pretty nice. It had better nutritional value – meaning it had 340 calories which was a bit more substantial, but I ended up adding protein again because it just didn’t look like a full meal to me.
On Friday, I had two Daily Harvest cups: an oatmeal cup for breakfast and my last harvest bowl for lunch.
The oatmeal bowl (mulberry + dragon fruit) was very filling, I couldn’t even finish the whole thing. But, one thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of was the cooked fruit (you just had to dump the contents of the cup in a saucepan and cook everything together). I usually have my oatmeal with fresh fruit and that’s the only way I like it. I also absolutely could not taste the dragon fruit in it, so it ended up tasting pretty basic.
For lunch, I had the cauliflower rice and pesto harvest bowl with added protein to make it a full meal. This was probably my favorite harvest bowl that I tried – it had lots of flavor and I was super excited about all the ingredients. It was pretty filling, as well.
I had my last smoothie on Saturday to end the week and it was the strawberry and peach flavor.
It was very delicious, but extremely low calorie because it didn’t have any added protein or healthy fats. It had a total of 3 grams of protein. Really, Daily Harvest??
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall to answer the question “Is Daily Harvest good?”, I would say yes, taste-wise it is pretty good. The ingredients are fresh and healthy. But am I blown away by it? Nope.
Is Daily Harvest worth it? It really depends on your lifestyle and what you usually spend on food, but for my lifestyle and the type of money that I spend on lunch, it’s definitely not worth it. I thought it was too expensive for what it was and the portion sizes you’re getting. If you go on Pinterest you’ll find a bunch of copy-cat Daily Harvest recipes and the home versions usually end up costing about $3.
During that week, I really enjoyed not having to worry about my lunches or meal prep, or plan anything in advance. I could go to my freezer, grab a cup and just be done with lunch, but I have a big issue with the price because I usually don’t eat out for lunch on regular workdays. It really adds up and most of the things that you can buy at a grab-and-go place, you can easily make at home and bring to work
But, if you’re someone that regularly spends $10+ on salads and smoothies for lunch, I can see how Daily Harvest can actually save you money.
Besides the high price there is another thing that I really disliked about Daily Harvest and it’s the fact that the calorie counts varied way too much. I had a smoothie with almost 500 calories, an oat bowl with 340 calories that had two servings, and most of the harvest bowls were around 200 calories which I don’t consider a full meal. Some of their cups are full meals, but a lot of them are just sides or snacks and I really cannot justify spending seven dollars on a snack.
So in conclusion, I’d say they’re nice to have as a treat from time to time on days and nights when you have too much going on and don’t want to cook, but still want to eat something healthy. However, I don’t see myself using them as part of my routine.
Have you tried Daily Harvest? What are your thoughts?
Avocado on Everything 