Overall Verdict
Overall 5/5
Packaging 4/5
Ease of ordering 4/5
Personal benefits 5/5
Value for money 5/5
So Exactly What is NatureBox?
NatureBox is a snack company offering a wide range of snacks suitable for your home or office. These snacks are designed with nutritionists to be healthier and free from monosodium glutamate (MSG), high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), hydrogenated oils and any artificial colors, sweeteners and preservatives.
Unlike other subscription snack box services that tend to source their products from various suppliers, NatureBox develop and manufacture their own snacks.
Just some of the snacks available are lentil chips, plantain chips, cashews, almonds, nuts, protein bars, granola bars, cookies, pretzels, popcorns, dried fruits, trail mixes and jerky. You can also order coffee and breakfast options such as oatmeal and granolas. Flavors range from sweet to savory and everything in between.
The company also offer a range of wellness snacks such as turmeric and black pepper popcorn and nuts and fruit chews with hemp (CBD snacks) and many of their snacks also include adaptogens. These adaptogens are natural non-toxic ingredients or substances such as fruits, herbs, fungi and more that can help the body against stress. Although these substances have been used in Ayurvedic and Chinese traditional medicines for a long time, they were eventually given the name of adaptogens in 1947.
Although there is limited research on how well these adaptogens work in humans , it appears they can interact with hormone responses to stress which can help relieve the symptoms of stress, improve energy levels, immunity, stamina and more. Two key adaptogens are holy basil and ginseng.
Where Can You Buy NatureBox Snacks?
NatureBox is a membership rather than subscription mail shopping service in which you pay a small amount to order snacks at a discounted/member price only from the NatureBox.com website. The snack discount price varies from between 25% to 40% off. When you then order your snacks, you earn $5 in credit which you can then spend on snacks the next month. Price wise, the snacks probably work out around the same as what you would pay in a whole food store or market.
There is often an introductory offer available which offers free membership for a limited time and free snacks. I did find the subscription information a little confusing on the NatureBox website and found myself having to read around various pages until I was clear on just how the membership works.
You can choose the individual snacks you want each month, or you can select a set box. As there are over 100 snacks available which are changed regularly, it should be easy to pick out your favorites. Unlike some other subscription services though, unless you choose a set box, you need to manually go into your account each month to select what snacks you would like on your next delivery.
There are options to pause or change your subscription with notice, but you do need to call customer services direct if you want to stop your subscription at any point.
There are some smaller sample size snack packs however most are sold as regular size packs. Some snacks are also available as bulk packs. However, NatureBox do offer a ‘Don’t Like It, Don’t Eat It’ guarantee that if you do not like a snack, if you contact them, they will add the credit for the unwanted snack to your next order.
Dietary Options
There are snacks for many dietary needs such as gluten free, vegan, Paleo, Keto, lower/no sugar, low fat, lower carb, lower sodium, higher fiber and more. When you visit the NatureBox.com website, you have the choice to filter snack options depending on your dietary needs.
Although a selection of snacks are made with organic ingredients, they are not currently certified as organic. To check if a snack is organic, you have to click on each snack to checks its description and ingredients. For the future, I would like to see the option to select organic under the Nutrition filter so you can choose organic if you wish.
How Are NatureBox Snacks Shipped?
Once you have signed up, you can choose to have your NatureBox snack box delivered to your home or office by carrier and you can also gift a NatureBox to someone in the US, territories, Canada and APO/FPO military addresses. To get free delivery each month you will need to spend a minimum of $25.
When my first NatureBox snack box arrived, it was in a cardboard box which was slightly damaged but there was no obvious damage to any of the snack packs inside, which had been well packed.
The outer card box is fully recyclable however the snack pouches are currently not recyclable. Some of the packs such as dried fruits, mixes and cookies can be resealed after opening however other snacks such as chips cannot be, so you will need to fasten the pack up with a clip or tip them into an airtight container to keep them fresh once open.
The back of the packs are printed with the ingredients, if they contain allergens or are processed in factories that also process allergens such as nuts, the expiration and simple labels to show whether the snack is non-GMO, gluten free, Paleo, low calorie, low sodium etc. The nutrition facts are also easy to read and I liked that the calorie content is printed larger so you can see straight away how many calories per serving.
The Snacks Themselves
As you can see from the picture below, I had a mix of snacks. These included three varieties of lentil loops – including the popular Aged Cheddar Lentil Loops, Sriracha Cashew Crunch, Dark Chocolate Berry Trail Mix, Peanut Butter Maca Cookies, Lemon Turmeric Cookies, Banana Maca Energy Bites and Big Island Pineapple (sulfite-free dried pineapple).
Although I usually prefer savory to sweet snacks, I did give them all a try and enjoyed them, in fact I ended up adding some of the lovely and sweet pineapple to a batch of oatmeal cookies! I thought they were all tasty and seemed to have been made with good quality ingredients without any added junk. The only issue I had personally was I found it difficult to keep to serving sizes on the chips as they were tasty, so I ended up weighing them out into a bowl rather than eating them straight from the pack.
Final Comments
NatureBox definitely make it easier to source snacks that are not only healthier but meet dietary needs such keto, low sodium or vegan, which for many can be difficult unless you have whole food or specialty store nearby.
The information around how the membership/subscription works did seem a little confusing and I had to spend quite a while on the NatureBox.com website until I made sense of it. I was pleased with the quality of the snacks when I received my first snack box though, so I will be continuing my membership for the time being.
I also enjoyed the selection of healthier snacks on offer, many of which I would struggle to find locally. If you try to avoid snacking at all costs, then NatureBox may not be for you, but if you are trying to snack healthily, then it is certainly worth trying the membership out. Unlike other snack box subscriptions, the regular sized and bulk packs offered by NatureBox also make it easier for the whole family to enjoy healthier snack choices.
