Healthy nibbles

[Lateralus]

Now, in some regards this is shameless spam, but it's something in which I imagine at least some people here will be interested. I was recently given a voucher for www.graze.com which is a company set up by the guy who originally started lovefilm and which sells letter-box sized packs of healthy snacking food. Having received a couple of tasty boxes I thought I'd pass it on, as they've given me code for other people to try it out with one free and one half-price box.

Each box contains 4 small packs of food, from their total range of 140-odd, and you can indicate which things you'd be interested in and they then select what to send based on your preferences. If anyone wants to try it out then use the code 91RMZBF, then you get one and a half free boxes. As a bonus, I also get a quid off my next box, but I'd honestly recommended them even without that incentive.

I'd never had them before, but I would heartily recommend the dried strawberries - most nyom.

[buzzmong]

I think Grimmie did this a while ago.

[Dog Pants]

No chocolate or pretzels, or chocolate pretzels?

[Lateralus]

Oh, well I did search first and didn't see any reference to it, but I would have been surprised if no-one else here already knew of it.

Some of the boxes have chocolate in them, and chocolate-covered fruit and nuts too. In fact, my last box had choc-covered sunflower seeds which were rather tasty.

[Grimmie]

You can choose to get a discount off your next box, or donate it to the rainforest alliance.
It's such a good quality pack that I often donated it.

http://twitpic.com/28pe2 - The box
http://twitpic.com/28ped - Inside

Bit expensive for what it is, but it's a nice little service if you have spare change knocking around your pocket.
They'll offer you nice (but not as healthy) things in substitute for one of the boxes, if you ask. Nom.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I really can't see the point of this, most fresh fruit will keep for a few days easily as long as you keep it whole.

I dunno what they're doing to their pre-cut apples to stop them going brown (actually, I do, they're sticking it in acidulated water) but I'm not sure how that goes with the "Ingredients: Apple" claim.

I don't need my food pre-cut like a child, nor delivered to me for £3 a day.

[Lateralus]

I really can't see the point of this, most fresh fruit will keep for a few days easily as long as you keep it whole.

I dunno what they're doing to their pre-cut apples to stop them going brown (actually, I do, they're sticking it in acidulated water) but I'm not sure how that goes with the "Ingredients: Apple" claim.

I don't need my food pre-cut like a child, nor delivered to me for £3 a day.

I agree with most of this, which is why I chose not to receive any of the fresh fruit or olives, both of which I tend to have in the house anyway. Apples in particular just seem pointless to include in this kind of pack. However, for the other snacking things it adds a bit of variety to what I usually eat.

[Grimmie]

Their fresh fruit doesn't taste acidic.

FAQ #30 - What is Grazefresh?
http://www.graze.com/help/faqs#faq30

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Surely a bit of imagination and a wander around proper shops would do the same job, save money (you could spend £864 a year on this*, should it appear every day) and the environment by not adding 3 unnecessary steps to the food distribution process.


*I spend less on vodka.

[Lateralus]

Yes, I imagine that at some point I may well decide just to stock up properly and do this kind of thing myself, but as a first foray into this kind of food I like the convenience/variety of this, and can afford £3 a week for the privilege (I just get one box a week).

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Their fresh fruit doesn't taste acidic.

FAQ #30 - What is Grazefresh?
http://www.graze.com/help/faqs#faq30

Course it doesn't, You don't need that much acid to stop the browning happening, and the human tongue is crap.

Vitamin C, is (IIRC) acidic, so I'd guess that's what they're using, as they say in that FAQ up there.

[Roman Totale]

I did this quite a few times, but it got frustrating when my favourites were constantly out of stock.

The fruit is nothing special, but the huuuge variety of nuts was great.

[spoodie]

I did this for a few months. The stuff you get is exceptional quality and a lot of thought has gone into the combinations. Bakewell tart really does taste like it. Plus you get to try snacks you'd never get the opportunity to otherwise, without buying a whole packet and without knowing whether you'll like it or not. Graze introduced me to rice crackers and wasabi peanuts, among other things. Although I still can't accept the more unusual dried fruit, blurgh!

However it is relatively expensive, but I think you can choose not to have a fresh fruit option and get better value.

/edit
What highstreet shops would sell more interesting snacks like Graze has? My local supermarket has normal nuts and sometimes Japanese rice crackers, but not a lot else.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

You probably need to hunt down your local Asian supermarkets and the like, they're usually full of interesting stuff.

Hell, even go poking around fleabay and mail order sites, buying in bulk and storing properly works really well for a lot dry snack type things.

[Joose]

buying in bulk and storing properly works really well for a lot dry snack type things.

^This, ive always got a small selection of nuts and dried fruit in the cupboard. Much cheaper, pretty much the same end result.

[buzzmong]

Oooh, they do wasabi peas. Tasty!

[FatherJack]

Oooh, they do wasabi peas. Tasty!

Tesco do 200g of them for £1.59, I buy them quite a lot and mix them in with other nutty or rice crackery snacks.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

You could also go for 2.3KG.

Last you for a while

[HereComesPete]

No chocolate or pretzels, or chocolate pretzels?

Pretzel flipz, they were damned tasty. I keep meaning to order some on the internets, but then I forget and sober up.

[HereComesPete]

I'm all for being healthy, hence having salad on my kebab instead of chips.