Amazing Grazing (graze.com)

Member Name: londongirl

Product:	graze.com
Date:	22/04/09 (187 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Healthy delicious snacks delivered straight to you!

Disadvantages: bit pricey but worth it

I discovered Graze.com through the offer of my first Graze box being free and my second one being half price. (Please see the end of this review for a code for you to do the same) If it wasn't for that i doubt i would have given it a second look -however I am so glad I did!

Graze offers boxes of healthy snacks delivered to you by 1st class post for £2.99. The idea is supposedly for office workers to encourage people to eat more healthily rather than grab snacks that are not so healthy such as chocolate! You sign up and can choose to get a one off box or a box delivered on a specified day each week. You can cancel a box right up to 6am the day before it is due to be delivered which is good.
You could sign up to have one delivered every day if you wished but they are not particularly cheap!

For me personally I am trying to lose weight but have found it difficult because I also have Reactive Hypoglyceamia. This means that my blood sugar can often dip very low if I haven't eaten something even for just a few hours, or if I have eaten something with too much sugar or carbs. I have managed this by eating lots of things throughout the day as I panic at the thought of fainting or having a hypo and not having food with me. Sadly however this is meant I haven't managed it too well and have put on weight through the amount of food I am eating all day! I know what I am supposed to eat - Low GI , nuts , seeds, wholegrains, protein and less carbs and sugar but trying to make sure that happens every day is very tricky and dependent on what I am left with at home foodwise and what I can pick up at work if I have forgotten to take lunch with me.

Anyway - this is about Graze.com not my eating habits! Except my point is that Graze may well be the answer to my problem! So far I have had two boxes delivered. The idea is that you "Graze" at the food all day so that you don't get blood sugar slumps. This really really worked! The first day my box arrived at work and I had a large section of white grapes, a medium section of pistachio nuts and a small section of dried cranberries. Having had breakfast already this Graze box then actually lasted me all day - I didn't even have lunch! About 4.30pm the box was gone and I still felt like maybe I needed something else so just had a small weightwatchers yoghurt. But normally for me i'd have a snack in the morning, sandwich, crisps, low fat biscuit bar or fruit for lunch, then usually go mad in the afternoon with the post lunch slump and crave chocolate which i shouldn't have or some other rubbish.

THe items in the Graze box were so nice I didn't miss the fact I hadn't eaten bread all day or had a big lunch.

My second box arrived yesterday and I had seaweed peanut crackers, sliced apple and hot chilli almonds.
THe hot chilli almonds were amazing! They are good for GI diets.
I searched the net when I came home to see if I could just buy these on their own from somewhere else but no-one seems to sell them.

At £2.99 at their full price they are not the cheapest thing ever and if you were to actually weight out what you got in the box of course you could buy the individual items cheaper at Julian Graves or a supermarket etc. Except you would have to buy a big bag of each thing. What I like about Graze is they suprised you with what you are going to get and you aren't having the same thing each time so you don't get bored eating them. I know I should just go to Sainsburys and buy a bag of nuts and some dried cranberries but I also know I am not going to get bored of them after a while or worse still take the whole bag to work and scoff the lot!

Graze comes in measured portions and comes with a printed bit of card instead that tells you what is in your box, the ingredients and all the nutritional information. When i'm dieting as well this is good as I knew the seaweed peanut crackers I had yesterday had quite a lot of fat in them so I had some yetserday and some today rather than all on one day.

Although you can't choose exactly what is in each box you get you can choose different types of box - GrazeEnergy, GrazeWellbeing etc or you can design your own and say whether you want nuts or seeds etc in your small box or your big box etc. You can also rate all the products on the website so that they know what you do and don't like and can tailor what they send out to you.

I am allergic to fresh pineapple so there is an option to bin each product as well which means you will never get sent it. I did this with the pineapple and a few other things I just don't like. After I recieved the hot chilli almonds i went back to the site to rate them to say i loved them so hopefully will get some more soon.

As well as the fresh fruit, nuts and seeds combination and dried fruit there are also some items that are more indulgent and treat like but still fairly healthy - like yoghurt covered rainsons and yoghurt covered apricots. They sound lovely so hope I get some of those soon!

I meant to stop after I had my half price box and am now paying full price but I have ordered another one for Friday as they are so nice! I love the laziness factor of getting delivered! I doubt I will be able to afford one a week realistically but then again it is only the price of a coffee so its possible. I would definatley get one a month though as a treat.

As I said at the beginning of the review I used a code to get my first box free and my second half price.

If you use this code 516MGGJF this will give you the same offer. It is only for a limited time so I can't guarentee it will still work by the time you read this review. I have to state that this is a code is a code I was given after signing up to pass on to friends and family and other people to give them the same offer as I had. If you do sign up to it via that code it will give me £1 off my next box so if you don't want to give me an extra £1 off don't use my code!

You can instead sign up on the site without any code and they will give you your first box half price. Not such a good deal but don't want to force anyone to use my referral code!
You can of course sign up to the offer and just get your free box and then cancel but I doubt very much once you have had one you will want to do that!

Summary: .