Graze.com Snack Boxes 1 & 2

I've mentioned a couple of times that I have an online shopping addition. Here is my first post about something that I bought online. Graze.com is a website that ships a weekly or bi-weekly snack box directly to your home. The snacks are what I would consider earthy-crunchy. They are primarily nuts, seeds and dried fruit. They have interesting names like Jelly Doughnut, Hot Cross Yum and Scandanavian Forest. They have 94 different snacks available. However, you can't order specific snacks. You can mark off Trash, Try, Like and Love. If you trash it, they aren't supposed to send you that product again.

You get to pick between a low calorie box and a regular box. For my first box I chose the low calorie, but I then discovered that you can't get the flapjacks with the low calorie box, so I switched to the regular box. I had read a review of the flapjacks and really wanted to try them. The box with the pictures below is the regular box, but the descriptions at the bottom without pictures is for the low calorie box that I got first.

The pictures below are from my second box. I didn't take any pictures of the first box, but I will give a review of the snacks that came in it anyway. The first picture is the box that it comes in. It's made of a very thin cardboard. It's all recycleable. There is a note on the backside that says to flip it over before you open it or you'll make a mess. It's amusing packaging with very little plastic. There are two plastic strips that hold the box closed. The individual snacks are wrapped in plastic though.

The next picture is the inside of the box. The inside picture is not always the same.

It comes with a nutritional sheet with all of the snacks in your box. The other side of the nutritional sheet has your invite code so you can convince your friends to get a box. 

The Trail Mix contained hazelnuts, peanuts (with the skins), cranberries and jumbo raisins. I'm not sure what was jumbo about the raisins though. I like the raisins and cranberries. I even liked the hazelnuts, but I'm not a fan of peanuts with skins. There was an odd earthy taste to this mix. It was a good size for a snack, but I did Trash this one on my list. I just didn't like the earthy taste, and I'm not sure what it came from. 

The Fruit & Seed Flapjack was like a granola bar. It has rolled oats, mixed seeds and dried fruit. I really liked this one. It was a good snack size. It's smaller than your average granola bar, but it was filling. It had a buttery flavor to the outside. The texture was good. It had a sweetness to it, but it wasn't over powering. I don't understand why it's called a flapjack though since I thought those were pancakes, but whatever, it tasted good. I marked this as Love.  

I gave the Jalapeno Fiesta to my husband since I don't like spicy. This contained jalapeno peanuts, salsa almonds and roasted seeds. He liked it. He's a man of few words, so I couldn't get more out of him than that. I marked this as Trash only because I don't like spicy, and my husband isn't a big snacker. 

I also gave the Fruity Mango Chutney to my husband since I don't like dip type stuff. This one has the mango dip and black pepper dippers. I actually went through and marked all of the dips as Trash, but I might have missed the change deadline since I still got this. He did not like this one. He's again, a man of few words, so I wasn't able to get the reason. I asked what he thought of the chutney and the dippers separately, but he didn't like either one. I marked this as Trash.

My first box contained:

Hot Cross Yum: It contained sponge pieces, cinnamon honey almonds and orange infused raisins. I really liked this snack. It was a good size for a snack. I discovered that I don't hate almonds. I thought I hated almonds, but I don't! The raisins were very yummy as well. I also discovered sponge pieces. I don't know what the heck a sponge piece is, but it was yummy! I marked this as Love. 

The British Barbecue: It contained rosemary crostini, mini basil breadsticks, fiery seeds and smoked almonds. I almost gave this one to my husband because it just didn't look like something I would eat. However, he didn't eat it right away so I snagged it. Once again, I actually liked the almonds. The breadsticks and crostini were okay as well. Once I finished with all of that, I was left with the fiery seeds. I missed the word fiery while reading the description. They really were fiery. I bit into one and tossed the rest. Way too hot for me. If you like hot, these will be great for you. However, I thought that there was an over abundance of seeds compared to the rest of the ingredients. I marked this as Trash.

Scandanavian Forest: It contained blueberries, lignonberries, cherry infused raisins and dried apples. I am not a fan of dried apples, but as long as I had some of the other berries in the mix, it was good. I really liked the blueberries, lignonberries and cherry infused raisins. I don't think I've ever eaten a lignonberry. I don't even think I have ever heard of them. I like them though! I marked this as Trash only because I'm not a fan of the apple and I wanted to try different things. It was a good snack size. Once I've tried more things, I'll change this to like since I really did like the rest of the berries.

Black Pepper Pistachios: It contained pistachios and black pepper. I gave this one to my husband for two reasons. I didn't think I would like it because of the black pepper and because popping pistachios out of their shells is just too much effort for me to put into a snack. He liked them, but gave no other information. It was a good snack size for him. He actually took more than one sitting to finish it. I marked it as Trash since I don't like spicy. 

I love that there is so much variety in each box. I also love the names of the snacks. The boxes are $6.00 each and that includes shipping. So it's $1.25 per snack, which sounds expensive, but it's really not that bad considering what you get out of them. They're healthy snacks that give you a chance to try something new. It also gives you a little present in the mail once a week! I love presents in the mail. I'm not sure how long I will continue to get these boxes. I'm hoping to eventually experience enough new things in order to figure out what I like. Once I get a good handle on what I like, I'll go to a place like Trader Joe's and buy some of my own ingredients to make similar snacks. I just don't have the time for that right now. This little adventure was one of my babysteps towards healthier eating. My snacks used to be sugary things like poptarts, but then I babystepped to thinks like Belvita Breakfast Cookies and FiberOne bars. Now I'm babystepping to less processed foods and trying nuts and berries.

I found this place through Facebook, but they are invitation only. It's not hard to find an invite though. If you need one, go to www.graze.com and use.JAIMIE49P. You'll get the first and fifth boxes free, and I'll get $1.00 off of a box. My third box review will be up shortly. I took so long to do the first Graze.com review because I was waiting on my husband to try the Mango Chutney.