Daily Harvest, Reviewed: This Health Food Subscription Service Has Great Smoothies, But…
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Daily Harvest launched in 2014 and has been delivering fresh, nutritious produce in the form of flash-frozen smoothies, bowls, desserts and bake-able meals ever since. I signed up for the service of my own volition in early 2020 because I’m a big morning smoothie person and wanted to make the blending process more convenient. The premise of getting my smoothies delivered to me on a weekly basis, pulling one out of the freezer in the morning, blending it with my milk of choice and proceeding with the day was a dazzling idea. And since SPY has consistently rated Daily Harvest as the top smoothie delivery service, I was eager to try it for myself.
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My experience with Daily Harvest was mixed, and I ended up canceling my subscription after a few months, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t recommend it to someone else, especially if you hate food prep.
For my Daily Harvest review, I’m going to rate the company and its product according to five criteria:
Delivery
Quality of Ingredients
Ease of Use
Taste
Price
Despite its shortcomings, Daily Harvest delivers on its promise of making healthy food easier to acquire, prepare and eat — and it has some tasty recipes. If you’ve got some cash to spend, and want delicious smoothies ready to go, it’s an excellent option.
Buy: Sign Up for Daily Harvest From $69.75/month
What Is Daily Harvest?
Daily Harvest is a health and wellness brand dedicated to making whole fruits and vegetables more accessible and more convenient to prepare on a daily basis. Mixing up a balanced smoothie or preparing a hearty flatbread takes a lot of work, and not everyone has time for all that chopping, measuring, seasoning, baking and blending. Daily Harvest does all of that for you, with whole ingredients that have been flash-frozen at their peak freshness and shipped right to you in packages that are easy to store in the freezer.
Pros:
Enjoy healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert without all the messy food prep
Smoothies taste delicious
High-quality, organic produce
Easy-to-prepare flash-frozen food items and smoothies
Ships in low-waste packaging
Ingredients are clearly spelled out and recipes contain all whole foods
Cons:
Can get expensive
For meal delivery, the packaging doesn’t hold every meal in place (I had meals arrive broken open more than once)
Frozen food is never going to taste exactly like never-frozen food
Meals and smoothie cups take up a lot of space in your freezer
What Is on The Daily Harvest Menu?
Daily Harvest has a wide selection of food items to choose between, and a wider selection than when I first tried out the service back in 2020. I’ve been lucky to sample their additional food items, like their Scoops ice cream, Mylk coffee mixers, Forager Bowls and Harvest Bakes collection in the years since, and all of it has tasted delicious and healthy.
Here’s a brief description of a few of my favorite items you can get from Daily Harvest.
Smoothies: delicious, blendable frozen smoothie mixes with flavors like Chocolate + Blueberry, Strawberry + Peach and Acai + Cherry
Harvest Bowls: fuel-packed bowls you easily heat up on the stove, with flavors like Cauliflower Rice + Pesto, Cremini + Asparagus Pot Pie and Brussel Sprouts and Tahini
Harvest Bakes: This collection launched later in 2021 and features veggie-packed meal dishes for larger groups or servings, with flavors like Cremini + Paprika Ropa Vieja, a Squash and Wild Rice Gratin and a Chickpea and Coconut Curry.
Flatbreads: These are perfect if you love pizza, but aren’t crazy about how you feel after polishing off a pie. They contain whole ingredients on top and in the crust and heat up in the oven in 30-45 minutes.
They also have soups, Forager Bowls, oat bowls, chia bowls, their Scoops ice cream, power bites you can snack on, lattes you can defrost and plant-based mylk that’s frozen into cubes you can put in your coffee.
Daily Harvest Delivery: A Very Mixed Bag
I don’t want to start this review off on a negative note, but I have to. In my first Daily Harvest box, half of the items inside were broken open, and therefore more than half the items I ordered were inedible. The pull-off plastic seals they have on their food items are flimsy, and the adhesive frequently comes undone even when I get one-off deliveries now.
The cardboard packaging everything comes in is definitely better for the environment, but I often don’t consume at least 1-2 items in a shipment because they’re slightly open and the seal has broken. This is definitely one of the most disappointing aspects of Daily Harvest’s user experience, and something I hope the company improves in the future.
Quality of Ingredients: Superb
Thankfully, Daily Harvest does way better in this arena. Their ingredients are super healthy, and they definitely preserve them well in their flash-freezing process. The Harvest Bowls taste fresh after they’ve thawed and cooked on the stove, and the smoothies taste like the ones I made fresh with organic frozen fruit from the store.
Also, nearly every smoothie, bowl and other goodie has at least one ingredient I’ve never used before — in a good way! It’s always something nutritious like maca, chlorella or goji berries, and this furthers your trust that they’ve formulated their healthy food with great care.
I will say that I added something to each Daily Harvest item as I was preparing it — whether it was parmesan on top of one of their flatbreads or greek yogurt and almond butter in the smoothies. Their food is fine on its own, but some of the recipes could use a bit more flavor. Fortunately, because these meals and smoothies are so easy to prep (more on that in a second), it’s easy to add in flavors.
Ease of Use: It Couldn’t Be Simpler
Daily Harvest is very easy to use. All of the food comes already assembled, ready to heat up or mix up in a blender, or dive right in in the case of their smoothies. Their soups only need a few minutes on the stove, as well as their Harvest Bowls, and their Harvest Bakes collection is very easy to heat up in the oven. Nothing needs extra prep but it’s also easy to add in extra sauce, seasonings, fresh avocado, a fried egg or some hot sauce as you prefer.
If you’re looking for convenience, Daily Harvest definitely delivers. You won’t be disappointed in how much work you have to do. All it takes is rinsing a dish after you use it to enjoy a Daily Harvest meal, which means time saved you can spend working out, taking vitamins or doing something else good for your health.
Taste: Delicious Smoothies, Decent Frozen Food
For the most part, I enjoy the taste of Daily Harvest’s concoctions. Overall, I’d give their food items a B+ for taste. (Daily Harvest’s smoothies taste great, full stop.) Their flatbreads are hearty and healthy, and the Harvest Bowls are fine. Some of them have a sun-dried tomato-y taste I didn’t care for, but overall the tastes aren’t disenchanting.
I will also add that, because of the from-frozen technique Daily Harvest employs, the Harvest Bowls, Harvest Bakes and flatbreads can have a bit of a mushy texture depending on preparation, and so they aren’t always as crisp as something you could make from scratch at home. It’s not off-putting, but notable for sure.
Overall, I would rate Daily Harvest’s smoothies and bowls the highest, but it’s all worth trying.
Price: How Much Does It Cost?
Daily Harvest can be expensive. The quality of the produce and ingredients calls for a hiked-up price tag, and you’re going to pay a premium for the convenience as well. Is it worth the price? For me, it wasn’t, because I’d rather make organic food myself and put time into my own food prep. However, like I said earlier, if you’re a person who won’t prep healthy food on your own and for whom convenience trumps all else, it’s worth trying out this smoothie and healthy food delivery service for yourself.
Daily Harvest has a few different subscription plans, and you can mix and match the smoothies, bowls and snacks that best suit your diet. Individual items range from $5.99 to $11.99. When you sign up for a subscription, you can save money on your total order cost. So, for instance, if you choose the 9-item plan, you’ll save $5 on your order. If you opt for the 24-item monthly plan, you’ll save $20.
Smoothies are priced at $7.99 per item
Oat Bowls and Chia Bowls are priced at $5.99 per item
Harvest Bowls are priced at $8.99 per item
Harvest Bakes are priced at $11.99 per item
Flatbreads are priced at $8.99 per item
Soups are priced at $7.99 per item
Forager bowls are priced at $5.99 per item
Ice cream Scoops are priced at $7.99 per item
Daily Harvest Review Verdict: Should You Buy It?
If you’re looking to eat healthy but don’t want to put in all the effort, because let’s be honest, it requires quite a lift after all the shopping, washing, prepping, cooking and cleaning, then Daily Harvest is a great option. If you already make delicious healthy food at home, then you probably don’t need it and are better off shopping for yourself and preparing exactly what you want.
The Bottom Line: When you think about the health food delivery market as a whole, Daily Harvest is the very best. They’re by far the top smoothie delivery service available online. But if you’re a motivated organic chef anyways, it might be hard to justify the cost. For everyone else, Daily Harvest is a convenient subscription, albeit one that takes up quite a bit of freezer space. We should also note that some of the items we ordered broke open during delivery, which is disappointing.
Buy: Sign Up for Daily Harvest From $69.75/month
How Do I Sign Up For Daily Harvest?
Signing up for Daily Harvest is easy, and can be done on their website. They have a large menu of food options you can choose from — including smoothies, Harvest Bowls, Harvest Bakes, flatbreads, soups, oat bowls, chia bowls and their healthy ice cream line: Scoops!
Step 1: Choose the size of your plan
Step 2: Choose the food you’d like in each shipment
Step 3: Select the date of your first shipment, and you’re off to the races!
You can choose between their small, medium and large plans with 9 items, 14 items and 24 items, respectively, and choose the cadence as well. I found that a weekly plan was far too frequent for me and my schedule, and I ended up having too many items left over and needed to push almost every shipment a week or two later. However, if you’re a person who hates to cook and wants to embrace a healthier diet this year, then it could be worth choosing a plan with a more frequent cadence and more food per shipment. Likewise, it might be helpful to divide up the cost of each shipment with a roommate or partner.
About the Author: Taylor Galla
Taylor Galla is the Senior E-Commerce Editor at SPY.com, and she frequently tests and reviews health and fitness products. She’s also a certified yoga instructor who loves a good asana session in her downtime. Taylor has tested some of the latest fitness equipment, from the entire line of Theragun massage guns to smart home gym machines like Peloton, MIRROR, FightCamp and Tempo Move. In addition, Taylor has reviewed smoothie delivery services, food subscription boxes, and protein powder for SPY readers.
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