As a busy grad student who barely even has time to wash a load of laundry, I’m always looking for ways to make my life both easier and healthier. My best work does not happen when I’ve had pizza four times in a week.
This post may contain affiliate links.
I’ve always been a fan of meal prep delivery services. But I was curious about Daily Harvest because of its plant-based unique everything-comes-in-a-cup approach. I love that you can take it on the go and that the ingredients are simple.
I, like many twenty-somethings, am pretty busy on a regular basis – I have a lot going on and I need something that keeps up with that.
Enter Daily Harvest.
Up to $65 Off Your First Order with Code: GENTWENTY
What Is Daily Harvest?
Daily Harvest is a vegan meal delivery service like Hello Fresh and Blue Apron, except they offer smoothies, harvest bowls, soups, bites, oat bowls, chia bowls, and lattes. Everything arrives frozen in a cup about the size of a pint of ice cream with directions printed on the side.
Preparation is always simple. You pour in your own liquid (broth for soup, milk for sundaes, etc) and blend, microwave, or let it sit overnight depending on what you’re making. It never gets more complicated than that. A healthy breakfast, light lunch, dinner, or dessert takes only a couple of minutes to prepare.
Save up to $65 off your first box of any size with code GENTWENTY
Daily Harvest smoothies are amazing. Their healthy meals arrive on dry ice and they have pretty much all recyclable packaging. It’s so nice that they are delivered to your door instead of having to go to the grocery store. You can see if they ship to you by putting in you zip code.
Daily Harvest meals are delicious too. Below, we share more of our favorites.
You can save up to $65 off your first box with code GENTWENTY on your first order.
Honest Daily Harvest Review
Natalee’s Experience and Review of Daily Harvest
To be frank, Daily Harvest is the kind of meal kit subscription service whose ads I’d usually scroll right past. Their prices are more than I would typically be willing to pay for an already prepared smoothie with the liquid included, let alone a smoothie I have to supply the almond milk and dirty my blender for.
But in the name of science and respect for my body, I finally decided to give it a try.
I chose the option to get six cups per week at eight dollars each. I don’t really have room in my budget for a $50 dollar/week smoothie habit every single week, but I’m powerless in the presence of punchy photography and pretty fonts.
The subscription allowed me to change my order each week, so I tried a wide variety of their products.
The Best of Daily Harvest
Their smoothies, sundaes (no longer offered), and chia parfaits are fantastic.
They use ingredients I either wouldn’t think to use at home (like chai or carrots) or haven’t even heard of. For example, blue majik sounds like an R&B artist, but it’s algae that contains an anti-inflammatory protein, C-phycocyanin. It’s gorgeous to look at and it’s always fun to try new things, right?
My favorite smoothies are easily the Watermelon + Cucumber, the Cold Brew + Almond, and Pineapple + Matcha. These are flavor combos I would have never come up with myself, but I guess that’s why I’m not the CEO of my own smoothie delivery business. That said, I can’t wait to order them again.
Save up to $65 off your first box with code GENTWENTY
My favorite part of subscribing to Daily Harvest is getting ideas for smoothies I can make myself.
Sure, I can Google “healthy unique smoothies” and find a thousand recipes. But I’m way more likely to actually buy the ingredients for a pineapple and matcha smoothie and make it in the morning if I’ve already had one and know it’s to die for.
Maybe I’m late to the party on this one, but the most novel concept to me is that dates can make a smoothie taste like a caramel milkshake. Add just a few dates to any smoothie and it’ll taste as good as any sugary concoction peddled by Jamba Juice. That is not an exaggeration. And the best part is that you won’t get a sugar rush since dates have a lower glycemic index than fruit juices.
Another novel finding: did you know that you can add just a teaspoon of coconut oil to a mostly vegetable smoothie and the whole thing will taste like a piña colada? It’s delicious; plus, the little bit of oil makes the smoothie more satiating than a smoothie with only fruits and vegetables.
The So-So of Daily Harvest
Daily Harvest also ships soups, but I’ll admit they aren’t my favorite. I’ve tried most of the flavors they offer and I’ve found them to be a bit bland with a strange mix of textures.
The directions are to pour broth into the cup of frozen ingredients and then microwave them. That means the leafy vegetables end up overcooked while the more hearty vegetables are undercooked. I don’t hate the soups, but I probably won’t order them again at 8 dollars a pop.
The New-New
Harvest Bowls and Lattes were recently added to their repertoire, but I haven’t tried either of them yet (but more on this in a minute!).
I’m especially excited to try the Tumeric + Ginger latte and the Chaga + Chocolate latte. Chaga is one of those functional mushrooms that is supposed to reduce stress — sounds good to me! Kind of like blue majik, though, it’s hard to know if having this “superfood” a few times per month will actually yield any positive effect. We’re willing to risk it though since the flavor combos are so great and the service is so convenient.
While I’m skeptical of the term “superfoods” and the claims that each of the unique ingredients is actually beneficial, I do subscribe to Michael Pollan’s philosophy for eating: “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
Daily Harvest is entirely plant-based, so it fits my definition of “healthy” whether a blue majik parfait will reduce inflammation or not.
Nicole’s Experience and Review of Daily Harvest
I was excited to try Daily Harvest because I’ve heard so many people raving about it — including Natalee above!
I personally love smoothies but when I’m left to my own devices I almost always wait so long that my spinach has wilted and my frozen fruit is freezer burnt. It’s never an enjoyable experience and I’m left with a tasteless chunky mess almost every time.
The Best of Daily Harvest
When I tried Daily Harvest, I had smoothies, oat bowls, harvest bowls and bites.
By far the winners and items that made it most worth it to me were the smoothies and the harvest bowls.
The harvest bowls were so hearty and filling and I was thrilled to know how many nutrients and vegetables I was getting in in one meal. I loved having healthy food on hand in the freezer which means I wasn’t rushing to finish them because there were all in the fridge.
I also loved the smoothies. This is what Daily Harvest started on, and in my opinion, what they really excel at. The only smoothies I tried and didn’t like was Mint and Cacao. But Tart Cherry and Raspberry, Cherry and Almond, Strawberry and Peach, and Banana and Greens were amazing. These are the perfect healthy snacks in my book. I love making my smoothies with oat milk or almond milk.
As I’ll explain more below, I did like the oat bowls and think they’re worth trying if it’s your thing. Taste is all about personal preferences!
I have since tried many more of Daily Harvest options! The Daily Harvest flatbreads are also nice options for those of us having meals at home. I also loved the Forager bowls! The Cauliflower Rice and Pesto bowl is delicious.
I really like the use of organic ingredients as we are trying to be toxin-conscious in my house.
The “Just Ok” of Daily Harvest
I did like the overnight oats bowls, I just found it hard to get the right amount of liquid. And they also seemed like something not quite worth the money to me. The majority of them are just oats – which are a fairly inexpensive ingredient. They weren’t bad, there just wasn’t anything overly special about them to me.
I also tried two of the bites. I had Hazelnut and Chocolate and Cacao and Vanilla. They weren’t bad necessarily but they did taste like healthy versions of cookie dough and for the price, I’d rather go for the smoothies or harvest bowls. I think I would skip these in the future but they are a nice energy bite for every now and then!
Is Daily Harvest good for you?
In my opinion, Daily Harvest is jam-packed with fruits, veggies, and superfoods. It’s a great way to get additional servings of all of these things into your daily diet. They make eating healthy not only a breeze, but taste good too.
I love that they fit a lot of organic fruits and vegetables into their meals. Things like brussels sprouts, black sesame, red pepper, cacao nib, vanilla bean, and dragon fruit to name a few. It’s hard to beat the convenience factor of Daily Harvest. They offer weekly plans for many dietary needs and often introduce new items.
They offer so many different options that you can add a lot of nutritional value into at least one meal a day. It can depend on your particular diet and needs what “good for you” really means, but overall I think it’s a great addition to most meal plans!
What’s the best way to blend Daily Harvest smoothies?
I’ve always made my Daily Harvest smoothies with my Nutribullet. I find it to be the perfect size for the smoothies and the fill line is the perfect amount of liquid to blend the smoothie to the right consistency.
It makes it so easy to prepare my smoothies in under a minute. It’s really helpful to be able to get tons of nutrients into my diet easily.
I love the the Nutribullet is easy to clean too. After I finish with my smoothie, I simply rinse it, add a little soap and water, reattach the blade and blend for a few seconds or shake vigorously and it’s clean! Honestly the cleaning process makes me that much more likely to even have a smoothie in the first place so I’m a huge fan.
I have the matte black Nutribullet which is only available on their website. You can get one here!
So, Is Daily Harvest Worth It?
Our verdict on Daily Harvest is that it’s worth it if you are a smoothie lover, interested in eating healthy, and an easy way to make them!
Overall, we think Daily Harvest is worth the hype. If you want to eat nutritious meals and amp up your meals, you definitely need to try it out.
Not only will you get to try new flavor combinations, but you’ll have an arsenal of healthy food in your freezer to prevent you from ordering pizza for the third time this month.
It might not be worth adding to your budget every single week, but overall we think there are some incredible benefits to Daily Harvest, plus they’re delicious and convenient.
You can give it a try at the link below and save up to $65 off with our code GENTWENTY. Enjoy!