Jonathan Valdez, RDN, CDE, CPT is a New York City-based telehealth registered dietitian nutritionist and nutrition communications expert.
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Verywell Fit / Abbey Littlejohn
Daily Harvest is a good choice for quick meals that are loaded with nourishing foods. It is ideal for singles or couples who desire a ready-to-go platter.
Emphasizes plant-based organic produce
Minimal packaging
Free shipping
Lot’s of options
No add-ons or customization
Everything is frozen
Daily Harvest is a meal delivery service that focuses on nourishment through organic frozen fruits and vegetables. The company was created in 2016 by founder and CEO Rachel Drori, who sought to make eating fruits and vegetables more accessible in order to empower healthier habits.
The meal service offers smoothies, oat bowls, soups, and flatbreads that can be consumed for any meal with minimal effort. The options are entirely vegan and without the use of artificial flavors, fillers, gums, refined sugars, and stabilizers. We ordered and tested some of the company's meals and outlined our thoughts on the service below.
Daily Harvest does not indicate pricing until you reach the checkout screen, after you've built your box with meals. Plans start at $5.99 per option for forager bowls and up to $8.99 per for flatbreads. The plan you choose will determine how many items you need to build your box and the price of each item is listed below. For an added bonus, all orders include free shipping.
Daily Harvest focuses on plant-based meals that are nutrient-rich, simple to prepare, and ready to consume in minutes. This service has a variety of meals to heat, smoothies to blend, and some ready-to-eat choices. Subscription plans are weekly and monthly, and there are three plans to choose from: small (9 options), medium (14 options), and large (24 options). You can load up your cart using the various filters to add up to the total number of meals to match your plan.
The meals are built on the idea of supplying nourishing fruits and vegetables that are delicious and crafted by the company's in-house chefs and nutritionists.
The number of items can be customized in the managed plans section of the menu, and you can also customize your weekly delivery dates. The seamless process requires your zip code and email address in order to select your plan.
Daily Harvest has 11 categories of meal options and around 100 options available that make plant-based meals more accessible. The meals are built on the idea of supplying nourishing fruits and vegetables that are delicious and crafted by the company's in-house chefs and nutritionists. Each meal features raw flavors with real ingredients that aim for functional and nutritional benefits.
At the time we tested Daily Harvest, there were 27 smoothies, 2 mylk options, 21 harvest bowls, 8 flatbreads, 11 soups, 3 forager bowls, 7 oat bowls, 3 chia bowls, 7 scoops (ice cream), 4 bite snacks, and 4 latte flavors.
To cater to your personal dietary preferences, the menu has a filter at the top of the page to manage which foods you like and dislike, along with dietary needs such as gluten-free, keto, low carb, high protein, low calorie, low sugar, Paleo, and vegan.
There aren't any add-ons or customization of meals outside of their menu. Deliveries are adjustable as long as you edit or skip before the cutoff, which is the Sunday before your order arrives at 6 p.m. ET.
We focused on forager bowls, harvest bowls, flatbreads, and one soup to get a sense of how well Daily Harvest executed its meals. We ordered the following:
Daily Harvest meals arrive frozen with the help of dry ice and a well-insulated liner. We liked the simplicity and the minimal use of materials in the packaging. The soups, forager bowls, and harvest bowls all arrived in molded pulp containers with a plastic seal covered around a paper sleeve with the meal’s ingredients, cooking instructions, and nutrition facts. The flatbreads come in cardboard boxes with a tightly wrapped flatbread on a bed of a piece of cardboard for a total of three packaging pieces per meal. In total, there were 17 packaging pieces including the delivery box. Everything was kept frozen even though it wasn’t opened immediately after arriving. All of the packaging materials are recyclable, from the box itself to the trays and paper sleeves.
Daily Harvest delivers your meals as is with no additional recipe cards or bits of information. They also have an app that can be used to manage your account. The website layout is mostly easy to navigate and offers searchable FAQs for customers to find answers to their questions. Customer support can be reached every day from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET via email, chat box, text, and phone.
We asked customer service via email about the use of dietitians or other experts in nutrient analysis and menu building. The response came on the same day and included details about the combination of in-house chefs and nutritionists who design the company's meals. We also opened a chat box with a care team associate who was very helpful and offered an almost immediate response to an inquiry about what dietary guidelines were used to determine diets such as keto on the menu.
As previously mentioned, Daily Harvest is built entirely on veganism and omits any additives, preservatives, or fillers. The meals feature frozen fruits and vegetables and therefore are said to have more bioavailable nutrients and offer greater health benefits. All Daily Harvest products are free of gluten and dairy, and most items are soy-free as well.
Although the menu allows you to filter based on dietary needs such as keto and Paleo, the company does not mention any guidance pertaining to the dietary eating patterns offered. Similarly, you can filter to single out ingredients that you like or dislike, though Daily Harvest cannot modify items to accommodate allergies such as nuts. There is, however, a filtering system to set your food preferences.
Daily Harvest says all of its food is gluten-free, but note that the meals are made in a facility that processes nuts, soy, dairy, and gluten.
The cooking process was pretty intuitive being that the meals were frozen; they were essentially heat-and-eat, per the instructions on the packaging which involves simply reheating in the oven, microwave, or skillet. The flatbreads require 20 or so minutes in the oven at 350 degrees. For the forager bowls, 1/3 cup of milk was needed and the bowls are microwave safe and ready within 2-3 minutes. The forager bowl also could be enjoyed cold if desired by adding milk and soaking overnight. The soups and harvest bowls are similarly microwave safe and can be warmed on a stovetop for 4-5 minutes.
The foods we received were consistently fresh and of excellent quality. The flatbreads featured some interesting ingredient pairings, though it's worth mentioning that some meals, including the lentil + cremini soup, lacked the comforting savory and robust flavors that you would expect from a soup. We paired the harvest bowls and soups with other meals to compensate for what we noticed was a lack of flavor.
Daily Harvest says it sources produce at peak ripeness and then freezes items within hours to lock in the nutrients and flavors. In addition, Daily Harvest commits to featuring 95% organic ingredients, and all products listed under the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen are always organic.
Daily harvest is suited for vegetarians/vegan singles or couples who focus on plant-based nutrition. It is also a convenient way to eat more fruits and vegetables for someone looking to start healthy eating habits. There is little cooking required and food can be ready to eat in no time for families who want accessible meals. However, this may not be the best choice for individuals seeking omnivore menu options and traditional flavors. It may also be challenging for someone on a high-protein diet.
Daily Harvest is built entirely on veganism and omits any additives, preservatives, or fillers.
Daily Harvest and Splendid Spoon share some key similarities in that both deliver an extensive selection of frozen, plant-based meals on a subscription basis that require little time to prepare. They also both use minimal packaging and recyclable materials.
Daily Harvest will require you to blend your smoothies with a liquid and to bake your flatbreads in the oven for 25 minutes or so. Conversely, Splendid Spoon is a bit more convenient as the smoothies are pre-blended and all other meals can be reheated in the microwave or saucepan. In addition, Daily Harvest features over 80 a la carte menu options with selections such as ice cream and lattes; the lowest price is $5.99. On the other hand, Splendid Spoons offers over 50 selections for building your plan with the lowest price point of $9.
Overall, Daily Harvest has more options to choose from at a lower cost and Splendid Spoon offers more convenient, ready on-the-go meals that have a better taste.
Daily Harvest does the job of bringing nutritious meals and unique ingredient pairings straight to your freezer that are easily prepared. While some of our meals lacked flavor, Daily Harvest is a worthy choice if your diet is already plant-based or if you are seeking ways to revitalize fruits and vegetables into your next meal.
We ordered, cooked, and evaluated meals from 27 meal delivery services to get a sense of each one’s offerings, nutrition profiles, prices, and, of course, flavors. We contacted the customer service teams at each of the companies, collected data, and wrote detailed reviews about each one.
Our writers are all registered dietitians and relied on their research and its resulting data to inform their reviews.
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