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Daily Harvest
- Daily Harvest is a startup that sends pre-portioned, superfood-based meals and smoothies to your home either weekly or monthly.
- They're made by a team of chefs and nutritionists and can be prepared in as little as 30 seconds, usually only requiring heating.
- The startup has added healthy breakfast bowls to its lineup. They're inspired by favorite breakfasts like cheesy grits or a burrito bowl. We tried them to see how they stacked up.
- Daily Harvest isn't the cheapest healthy-eating option ($7 - $8 per meal), but we think it has an unrivaled combination of taste and convenience.
Daily Harvest, if you haven't heard of it, is a startup that sends you frozen cups of pre-portioned meals that a team of nutritionists and chefs co-design for equal taste and nutrition. Each cup typically runs from $7-$8, and you can order everything from healthy lattes to harvest bowls to smoothies that can be made in under a minute at home - typically by pouring the contents into a blender, pan, or microwave-safe bowl. They're always plant-based, gluten-free, and organic, and they'll come in shipments either weekly or monthly, depending on your preference.
In other words, Daily Harvest is the loophole you should mention the next time you're watching a red carpet show and someone says "No wonder they all look so amazing - I'd look like that too if I had a chef making delicious and healthy foods for me every night." That's probably why it counts so many big names as its investors: Serena Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow, and celebrity chef Bobby Flay, to name a few.
Daily Harvest has already made healthy lunches, dinners, and complex smoothies easier. Now, the company has addressed breakfast with "breakfast bowls" (starting at $6.99) inspired by its customers' beloved breakfast foods - like an open-faced burrito or cheesy grits. This way, you can enjoy "slow foods" even if you're running out the door or already at the office, quietly chewing while on a conference call.
Rachel Drori, Founder and CEO of Daily Harvest, told Business Insider "The idea for breakfast bowls came directly from our devotees ... it became clear they wanted some vegetable-packed savory options made especially for this time of day. Our in-house chef and nutritionist co-create all of our delicious recipes directly with our customers, so we were able to create not just any savory breakfast items, but the very flavors they were craving."
The collaboration doesn't stop there. After the in-house chefs and nutritionists, who work hand-in-hand at the startup's headquarter kitchen, take customer ideas and then create recipes from scratch, they invite the same people to try the dishes ahead of their launch. Based on customer feedback, the team creates more and more iterations until they're finally ready to launch. Even then, Drori says "The process is never complete. Even after we launch something new, we refine our recipes for months afterward based on how our community responds."
For the breakfast line, the team took into account what the body needs to begin the day effectively.
"When it comes to breakfast in particular, we really focused on whole nutrition with all of the macro and micronutrients you need to kick-start your day and maintain energy and focus until lunch," Drori explained.
Here are the breakfast bowls that are currently available:
- Sweet Potato + Wild Rice Hash (tastes like a breakfast burrito bowl)
- Spinach + Shiitake Grits (tastes like creamy grits with greens)
- Broccoli Rice + Dill Pilaf (taste like a lemon dill grain bowl)
- Butternut Squash + Kale Shakshuka (tastes like veggie-packed shakshuka)
All of them are organic, plant-based, and gluten-free, and preparation is as simple as dumping the farm-frozen contents into a microwavable bowl. Find more on how each one tastes in our personal reviews further down.
Daily Harvest
The cost and other concerns
If $7 on breakfast isn't so bad to you, and you're after convenient, healthy foods that require zero prep, this could be a great option. They're tasty, healthy, and as easy to make as dumping farm-frozen foods into a microwavable bowl (you can also use the stove if you prefer).
If you're on a budget, the price can be hard to justify at $6.99 per cup. But, if you like the sound of them, it may be a good compromise to get a small monthly box and have them on hand for busy mornings where convenience is the top priority. It's also worth considering what it would be like to recreate these recipes at home. As a single person buying groceries for one, it can be less expensive to buy diverse, healthy meals this way. Even if I trusted myself to go buy the organic cauliflower, tomato, butternut squash, kale, flax seeds, and za'atar to make the Butternut Squash Kale Shakshuka, I would likely see a portion of those ingredients go to waste or grow tired of eating it every day in order to see a financial benefit from home shopping. And, being honest with myself, I probably wouldn't reliably make this for myself - mornings are the busiest part of my day, and breakfast is almost always on the chopping block. If I do eat, it's not healthy - it's fast.
It's also worth noting that some cups are more filling than others. You may find yourself having to supplement one or two of them with more food to fill you up. We didn't run into that most days, but it depends on you, and what you'd be happy to get for $6.99 per meal.
My last concern was its ecological impact. According to Drori, the company's packaging is now 100% recyclable, and shipping packaging is made from post-consumer materials. For instance, if you cut open the liners, you'll find recycled denim - "possibly your jeans from high school, which is biodegradable."
All in all, Daily Harvest delivers on its claims of fast, tasty, healthy food. If that's worth the cost to you, you should give it a try to see if it's a good fit for your lifestyle.
We tried the Daily Harvest Breakfast Bowls. Find our thoughts on each below.
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Disclosure: This post is brought to you by the Insider Picks team. We highlight products and services you might find interesting. If you buy them, we get a small share of the revenue from the sale from our commerce partners. We frequently receive products free of charge from manufacturers to test. This does not drive our decision as to whether or not a product is featured or recommended. We operate independently from our advertising sales team. We welcome your feedback. Email us at insiderpicks@businessinsider.com.