Foodie Fridays Review: Graze Boxes

One night, as I skimmed through an issue of Real Simple, I saw an ad for Graze boxes. Graze is a snack subscription box that you can opt to get every week or every two weeks. The boxes, which cost $6.00 each, come with four small trays of snacks, and you can choose to get a Nibble box, where you can get any of the 90+ snacks they offer, or a Calorie Counter box, which features snacks ranging from 50 - 150 calories each.Given my love of subscription boxes (my Birchbox subscription is still going strong, and I've dabbled with trying boxes from Pop Sugar, Ipsy, and Beauty Bar), I decided to broaden my horizons and give Graze a try. I figured that, at the very least, this could give me a healthy and portion -controlled alternative when I was feeling a little peckish.

My latest Graze box, with (going clockwise from the upper left-hand corner) lightly salted popcorn, raspberry coconut muffin mix, cherries and berries dried fruit mix, and booster seeds.

Signing up for Graze is easy. After you create an account, you select the type of box you want as well as the delivery frequency you would like. You can also opt to rate the available snacks using the following categories:

• Trash - Never send this to me. If you hate something in your box (or if you've read the description and realize that something is not for you), you can select this option and they will never make it one of your snacks.
• Try - You are happy to try it.
• Like - Send occasionally.
• Love - Send regularly.

The nice thing about this rating system is that you can rate foods before you try them. Consequently, if you hate raisins (like I do), you can opt to "Trash" snacks with raisins. Also,you can change your preferences as you go, so you are never locked into your choices.

Graze also has a good variety of snacks. There are decadent British-style flapjacks (my favorite thing - I seriously want a box that just has four trays of flapjacks), popcorn, seeds, dried fruit, and more. Also, since the snacks are in small trays, the portions are controlled for you so you don't have to worry about figuring out how much a single serving is.

Additionally, Graze seems very committed to being socially aware and environmentally friendly. They have a school of farming in Uganda that teaches students how to farm and supports their efforts. In terms of packaging, the boxes and trays are recyclable (and the trays are made with recycled plastic).

As much as I like Graze, there are a few limitations to the service. The first is that the snack sizes are a trifle small. While portion control is a good thing, these might be too tiny (and unsatisfying) for some people. I'd also love to have the option to order some of the snacks in bigger sizes.

However, I do enjoy Graze, and I'm looking forward to receiving more boxes during the school year. If you are interested in trying out Graze (and getting your first and fifth boxes free with no obligations), visit Graze.com. That link should take you straight to my referral page, but if it doesn't, you can also enter the code MLPVQK2MP. I'm donating any referral rewards I get to the Graze School of Farming, so it's a win-win.

Happy snacking, and please leave a comment below if you have any questions!