April 2014 Love with Food Box Review

                                  

This box has to be the best snack box I've ever gotten! I've been subscribed to Love with Food for about a year now so it's about time I review it! Love with Food is $12 a month, and they send you healthy snacks every month. Love with Food also donates a meal to feed a hungry child with every box that is bought. Let's open it up! 

Here's the first look. 

                                    

                                  

                                    

The first thing I saw was this bright red package of Wild Hibiscus Herbal Tea by Heart-tée. This tea can be ordered from Europe from the Wild Hibiscus Trade Shop for about $7. I can't wait to brew this up and drink it!! 

                                      

This little card gives some information on some different ways to enjoy your hibiscus tea, making it into popsicles, iced tea, and even a sangria! Hibiscus has many health benefits like lowering your blood pressure, and cholesterol. I'll have to order some online if I enjoy this so I can try some if the ideas on this card! (I do love sangrias!!)

                                      

Oh my gosh I LOVE these! It's a waffle cookie that you set on the edge of your glass while drinking hot tea, coffee, or coco and it melts and gets warm and soft and amazing! It's the perfect addition to a warm cup of tea! 

                                     

This is a BumbleBar organic energy bar. I'm not too thrilled with this but I'll give it a try, I don't really like almonds but again I'll try it. These are $2 apiece. 

                                    

Again with the almonds! These are glazed almonds with cranberries honey and sea salt by Sahale snacks and retail for about $1 apiece. I opened these just to give them a try and I'm gonna say I didn't like them at all, not even the cranberries. If she doesn't mind that I already opened it I'll probably see if Emma (E.S.) wants to finish these off. 

                                    

This is chocolate mint creamed honey by Vintage Bee. I'm a bit hesitant about what to do with this, I don't think it would be the best thing to put it green tea, (which is what I normally do with honey) When I looked up this product it recommended to use this on cakes and brownies or even in bread recipes! I'll have to decide the best way to enjoy this! For a 8 ounce jar it's $9.50. 

                                    

Next is a sample of fruit spread by Fiordifrutta. When I looked this product up I expected it to be pricey because it talked about how three pounds of fruit went into each 8 ounce jar of spread, but it's only about $6 a jar. I'll have to try this with some peanut butter for breakfast tomorrow!

                                   

Next is Crave Canyon popcorn. It is cane juice and sea salt kettle corn with anise (which tastes like licorice). Again, I was a little hesitant about this because I hate anything that tastes like licorice but I'm always willing to try something once. And now that I've tried it I must say I regret it, I don't like this at all. 

                                 

Last but not least is Orchard Blend Crunch Dried Fruit. I love dried fruit, especially apples! This is an apple and peach blend so I was very excited to try this, and I wasn't disappointed! Yummy!

What did you guys think about Love with Food? I love trying new foods, whether I like them or not! Let us know what you guys think! 

-F.M.

March 2014 Healthy Surprise Box Review

I'm becoming familiar with Rue La La faster than I would have imagined. They ran a special recently for a $50 voucher to Healthy Surprise for $25. Now, boxes are $40, but a starter box (which doesn't automatically renew) is $50. 

Health Surprise boxes are vegan. They ship very quickly! I ordered my box one afternoon, and it was showing as shipped less than a half an hour later!

First look.

Quite a few treats! Then again, there had better be, for a value of $50 (even if I did pay $25).

These were so good! They weren't quite as good as the chai spice macarons by Emmy's that Felicia got in her Love With Food, but they were still pretty darn great. I saved a couple, but it was hard to stop eating them.

I'm kind of sick of seeing these in boxes already. Also strawberry banana isn't my favorite taste sensation, but we'll see.

Alright, so I'd already noticed, but at this point I'm really annoyed about the lack of information card in this box. This is mexican chocolate of some sort, and apparently vanilla-flavored. A friend of my mom's used to send us Mexican chocolate, and I haven't had any in a long time, so I look forward to this. It feels much softer than what I'm used to.

Saving this for breakfast or camping, but I kind of wish it had nuts rather than little bits of things. 

These looked really good, so I decided it was only fair to inspect further. They taste very fresh, and the flavor is just the right level. The last covered almonds I had were a little hard, but these are perfect.

I like Hemp Hearts, but not these so much. The shells are very hard and get stuck in your teeth, and just about the only flavor is the sea salt and a wood-like fiber. Ick.

This was part of my breakfast this morning, and it was great. Much better than I'd expected, great flavor and consistency (not that rubbery pressed fruit you usually get).

I happen to like mangoes, but these were amazing. They taste great and it's only 83 calories per bag!

Not what I expected at all. I was expecting something sweet, like banana chips, but these are salty. They're like a more fibrous potato chip.

Saving these for later because I can't eat everything at once. I wish I'd gotten one of the other flavors. I'm imagining these will be something like papadums, but no idea yet.

My favorite thing in the box! I've been wanting to try kale chips for a while, and they were worth the wait. I can't believe there's no cheese in the cheddar flavoring either. My only complaint is that they were very crushed and mostly crumbs when I got them.

Overall, this box had a lot of good, valuable stuff in it, but it's also a $50 box. I would buy another box, but only for a slightly lesser price. 

What do you think? Any good/bad experiences with Healthy Surprise?

-E.S.

February 2014 KLUTCHclub Women's Box Review

Just recently got my first KLUTCHclub box. KLUTCHclub provides a box of healthy products each month for $18 ($10 plus $8 shipping). I received my first box for only the $8 shipping price.

It ships in a pretty handy little box, with a slide-out drawer. This box was particularly heavy, and I wasn't sure why yet, but I was excited to find out!

Even though I see people talk about these a lot, this was actually my first time trying Pop Chips. They're pretty good! Barbeque isn't my flavor of choice, but I didn't even mind it this time. For non-health reasons, I generally prefer baked chips to fried ones, but I think these are pretty much as good. They're made like puffed rice cakes, but with potato starch.

I got some of these in a Conscious Box a couple of months back. Even though they're really good, I still haven't used them all, but they're definitely something I like and want to use.

I thought this was the same as the Hemp Hearts, but it's a hemp-based protein powder. Some day, I should just mix all my nutrition powders together and make a gross/healthy drink mix. Or, yanno, use them like normal.

Tried this last night and I did have pretty restful sleep, but I'm gonna say it was probably coincidence. The flavor is nice, but I kind of wish it were carbonated.

More new teas! And these look like great flavors, too. Eh, they all look like good flavors! But these say "focused energy" on them, so maybe they'd be good for one of those days when I'm having issues concentrating.

This is a bottle cleaning tablet that will come in very handy at some point, but I'll surely try to use it as far away as possible, just in case of an emergency.

I got burnt by some baby food like this, but this one looks tasty, so I tried again. It tastes good, but still a little like baby food.

I like pomegranate, so I'm excited to try this shampoo. It smells really nice. My hair isn't super damaged, but hopefully it will still do something.

I'm sitting here rubbing my eye, thinking I don't have allergy symptoms much anymore...But in any case, I still might offer them to my dad, who usually gets allergies way worse than me.

I really want to try this, but I want to save it for a breakfast (or concert? It definitely looks marketed toward concert-goers).

Loca turns out to be a pretty good ginger ale, but it tastes a little like the artificial sweeteners I know it doesn't contain. Really not bad though.

Coupons! I'll almost certainly use the Pop Chips one.

KLUTCHclub is a pretty cool box! It definitely seems worth the price. It contained quite a few items I've never heard of, and a nice mix of samples and full-size products. The shipping price is definitely accurate, with a couple of drinks in the box! I've unsubscribed for now, but I would totally do this box again in the future.

Have you tried KLUTCHclub? What do you think? Let us know!

-E.S.

March 2014 Bulu Box Weight Loss Review

I haven't been very serious about it so far, but I'm really looking to lose weight. That said, I ate well over 430 calories for breakfast this morning, because I cooked two spring onion pancakes, and you can't just let one go to waste...

So anyway, when faced with the decision of which Bulu Box to go with, I figured it wouldn't hurt to go with this one (weight loss). Bulu Box subscriptions are $10 a month, but I got this box for $5.

First look

This is super cool! It comes with a lot of hummus. I'll probably take it as a work lunch someday to keep me from eating pizza. [Value: ~$3]

Sounds like it would be pretty good, but it's got glycerin in it, so it will join either my box of "stuff I can't use" or be given to F.M. [Value: ~$2]

Oh boy, I wish this box had allowed me to...not get non-vegetarian items. It's fine, I made the decision, but here's another thing I can't use. It was a bonus item anyway though, so fair enough. [Sample]

Tea! Helps tea is supposed to "help" digestion, sinus health, etc., but this is the "R&R" one, so I'm guessing it's supposed to be consumed before bed? I will almost certainly use it tonight if I remember. Although I've always been a fan of Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Vanilla tea. [Value: <$0.30]

Another thing with animal products in it. Looks very cool though! I'm glad I have another Conscious Box coming, hopefully I can get my fix of stuff I can use! [Value: ~$1.60]

Now this I can use! The question is, will I? I don't typically "work out" (although I probably should), but I'm wondering if this would be good for before and after bike rides. Will try. [Value: ~$1]

Another bonus this month was a "Yes! Change is Easy" notecard. I didn't take a picture of it, but...and this is terrible of me, but I'm wondering if it will work as a write-on wipe-off type deal. It doesn't seem to be about motivation so much as positive thoughts, which I could use!

As a vegetarian, I definitely can't get $10 worth out of this box, so I shall not be getting this particular one again, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad deal. I'd say the value is somewhere around $8-9, so you decide for yourself. I'll definitely enjoy the tapaz!

Did you get this Bulu Box? How would you say it stacks up against the classic (non-weight loss) box? I'm still thinking I might try the non-weight loss once, just to compare them if nothing else, but tell me what you think!

-E.S.