My NatureBox Review
Can I Just Live in a NatureBox? Please?
NatureBox is a snack subscription that focuses on providing healthier options to promote wellness and reduce stress. Their snacks are unique, delicious, and guilt-free in that the following is true of each and every item on the NatureBox site:
- No artificial flavors, colors or sweeteners
- No corn syrup of any kind
Some newer offerings by NatureBox include a Wellness Collection of snacks that contain adaptogens in their ingredients list, CBD Snacks that are infused with hemp, supplements, and coffee.
My introduction to NatureBox was a few years ago. I fell in love with their interesting flavors and better-for-you snack options and missed them dearly when they took a pause to reconfigure their subscription model. Now, instead of a monthly box of surprise snacks, Naturebox offers a membership-based subscription that lets you choose what you want and save on every order. I love that this model lets you do the shopping!
ACTIVE DEAL: Get a 30-day free trial membership when you join! No coupon needed - just use this link.
About NatureBox
Plans & Pricing
About the NatureBox Membership:
- A 30-day free trial is offered when you add 1 or more items to your cart and click "Checkout."
- After your free trial ends, membership costs $30 per year.
- Save 25% to 40% on every order with a NatureBox membership, plus receive $5 in store credit every month (that's $60 a year!).
ACTIVE DEAL: Get a 30-day free trial membership when you join! No coupon needed - just use this link.
Note that you don't have to have a membership to purchase NatureBox snacks. You just won't get any discounts or benefits!
This box was sent to us at no cost to review. (Check out our review process post to learn more about how we review boxes.)
NatureBox ships to the US (including most PO boxes and APO/FPO/DPO addresses) and Canada.
- Standard shipping is free for continental US orders of $25 or more.
- Standard shipping costs $4.95 for all other addresses (Hawaii, Alaska, US Territories, Canada, and Military Addresses).
- Express 2-day shipping costs $10.
Shipping methods:
- For standard US shipping, they use FedEx SmartPost, a method which passes your box off to USPS for local delivery.
- For some US territories and protectorates, including military (APO/FPO/DPO), they ship through USPS Priority.
- For Canadian addresses, they ship through Landmark Global, who works with several Canadian carriers to get you your package as soon as possible. Often they use the Canada Post.
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See NatureBox's note on recyclability and reusability of their packaging:
"Yes, your box is 100% recyclable! You can also reuse it as a photo file box, mail sorter, crayon sorter, window herb garden, or whatever else you imagine.
Additionally, while our snack pouches are not recyclable, the vast majority of them are resealable, offering a variety of ways to reuse them. Although we're a young company, we're committed to continuing to reduce our environmental footprint as we grow and we greatly value your feedback and support."
Preferences & Allergens
Along the left-hand side of their website, NatureBox has a series of filters that you can use if you're targeting a certain type of diet or feature.
While there isn't the option to filter or sort by allergens, each NatureBox snack has an Ingredients tab that clearly calls out important allergen information.
Signing Up
In order to sign up for a NatureBox membership you must first add 1 or more items to your cart. If you want NatureBox to do the snack-choosing for you, you might consider trying on of their Discovery boxes, which are curated around different themes and offered at several price points.
You'll notice a little auto-checked box above the Checkout button that says, "Become a member and save $X." This savings calculator automatically updates as you add items to your cart. You'll also see a message along the top of your cart items list that indicates how much more you have to spend to unlock free delivery (the minimum is $25).
When you're ready to checkout, you'll be taken to this Shopping Cart page that gives more details about membership. After the free 30-day trial ends, members will automatically be charged the yearly membership fee and the cost of the products they've added to their cart for auto-ship. Prior to any charges, you will be notified via email that your trial period has ended and your next shipment is coming up, and you'll be given the opportunity to make changes to your cart.
My NatureBox Review
For the sake of this review, I was sent a box of top-selling NatureBox snacks. Note that they also sell Discovery boxes, which are curated around different themes and offered at several price points.
Some of the snacks in my box are new arrivals, and some were familiar to me (see our past NatureBox reviews here). I'm so thrilled to walk you through these delicious goodies!
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Protein Bars Variety Pack, 3 at 43g each — Retail Value $10.99/Member Price $9.99
In my NatureBox days of yore, such snacks as protein bars had yet to be conceived. Aside from the fact that the festive packaging design got me feeling enthusiastic about trying these, I am also admittedly rather picky when it comes to protein bars, so a completely new option was a welcome opportunity. The three flavors sent in this trio are Sea Salt Brownie with Ashwagandha, Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip with Ashwagandha, and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough with Maca. The nutrition info for each individual flavor isn't available in the variety pack product page, so if you're curious you'll have to click into each bar's page. If you just want the gist, I'll tell you the ingredients lists for all three are simple, pronounce-able, and the protein comes by way of pea protein + some combination of egg white protein, peanuts, and oat flour.
Here's what the Sea Salt Brownie bar looks like unwrapped. If you're thinking, "that looks like a gigantic tootsie roll," you're not at all off-base. It kind of tastes like one, just not as sweet (in a good way)! Even moreso, though, all three flavors have a similar vibe to an RXBAR in that they're satisfyingly chewy, dense but not overwhelming, and their chocolate chips and small bits of nuts offer nice texture. They each include 10-11 grams of protein, which feels like a well-packed punch for a relatively small bar. I would totally buy these again!
The Peanut Butter flavor was as expected. I think the maca paired with peanut powder gives it a bit of a malty flavor. The Cookie Dough bar wasn't quite what I was hoping for—I mean, a very specific drool-inducing image comes to mind when the words "cookie dough" are uttered, and I just don't know that it's possible for a protein bar to capture that idea to perfection, but the bar was still tasty. It contains peanut butter, which I could readily taste, and the maca flavor was noticeable to me, too. I'm not as familiar with the flavor of ashwagandha on its own, so it wasn't evident to me in the taste of the brownie bar.
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Apple & Cinnamon Oatmeal, 45g — Buy a 3-pack for $6.99/Member Price $4.99
Another new development since I was last acquainted with NatureBox is single-serve oatmeal. It's offered in two flavors: Apple & Cinnamon and Blueberry, Apple & Sunflower Seed. I'm just going to say off the bat that every oatmeal company needs to stop what they're doing and take a page out of NatureBox's book. These oatmeals are so well done, by which I mean they're oatmeal with a few mix-ins pre-added for you, rather than processed sugar-goop with the oats as an afterthought. The sweetness is really faint—just enough to keep you interested—and it tastes natural because it is natural, it's organic evaporated cane sugar.
The Apple & Cinnamon flavor is nothing but oats, dried apples, organic cinnamon, organic evaporated cane sugar, and salt. I'm not huge on dried fruit, so I picked out a few of the apple pieces prior to pouring boiling water into my cup, and it was perfect for me. The cinnamon flavor is prominent and after tailoring the fruit levels to my needs I felt this was a really well-balanced snack.
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Blueberry, Apple & Sunflower Seed Oatmeal, 45g — Buy a 3-pack for $6.99/Member Price $4.99
The Blueberry, Apple, & Sunflower seed flavor is all of the above plus raw sunflowers and dried blueberries. I ate this one as-is and it was truly delicious, no complaints, just a classic healthy cup of oatmeal.
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Sriracha Cashews, 8 oz — Retail Value $11.99/Member Price $9.99
My husband would consider nuts as a staple of his diet, and I wish I could say the same for myself, but I just get kind of bored with them. Enter Sriracha Cashews! I mean, these are pretty fun. I'm pleased to report that they're more zesty than they are spicy because I think a spicy snack is hard to down by the handful (you won't see me eating wasabi peas on a casual Tuesday afternoon). They also have a sweetness to them, which I would maybe tone down a little since cashews are already kind of sweet on their own. That said, if one were to create their own trail mix with these cashews, the sweetness would probably work really well. Also, if I were to find myself entertaining guests, I would 100% absolutely put these out and feel really proud about it. Basically, ignore my gripe about the sweetness and just eat these cashews.
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Pineapple Chews with Hemp Extract, 5 oz — Retail Value $29.99/Member Price $19.99
Ladies and gents, a CBD-infused snack. I know there are some folks out there waiting for the CBD craze to pass, but I personally think it's cool to see all the different ways in which it's popping up on the market. The serving size for these pineapple chews is 5 pieces, which contains 25mg of broad-spectrum hemp extract and 1 serving of fruit. These taste delightfully sweet and pineapple-y, but I have a fraught relationship with gummy foods that get stuck in my teeth, so 5 pieces seem like a really generous serving size to me! Then again, I know people who could probably polish off this bag in one sitting. (Not recommended due to the CBD, which isn't psychoactive, but is still a supplement that you don't want to overdo.) NatureBox answers a few basic questions about CBD on the Pineapple Chews product page for those exploring it for the first time.
Note from NatureBox: this snack is not intended for children.
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Chocolate Chip Cookies, 8 oz — Retail Value $7.99/Member Price $5.99
Okay, so these cookies are insanely good, which is no surprise considering the vanilla bean wafers and lemon cookies of NatureBox past (no longer available) that I would have crushed in an instant had my cookie-hoarding-so-they-last-longer tendencies not kicked in. The other professional snacker in my house made the good point that they are delicious in the way that cookies are delicious, but they aren't necessarily the top chocolate cookie he's ever had. I'll give him that. They aren't wildly chocolate-y, and they're no match to a batch fresh from the oven. But if you're comparing them to Famous Amos, which it's hard not to considering their similarities, it's night and day. Let's put it this way: taking a moment to close my eyes and imagine myself back in a world where I worked in an office and wanted to cry every day at 3 pm because everything was boring and my blood sugar was on E, these cookies would have been the most miraculous thing to have ever lived in my desk drawer.
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Lemon Turmeric Cookies, 7 oz — Retail Value $7.99/Member Price $5.99
Who invented these? You, my friend, are a genius. Even my 2-year-old has been asking for them by name. Important to note that if you already know you don't like turmeric, these cookies probably aren't going to magically change your mind. They taste exactly like lemon + turmeric, equally distributed, which reads as a fantastically complex mix of sweet, tart, and earthy-peppery. They're a very crunchy cookie, which works well for them. Not to mention, if you can help yourself from eating them all in one bite, you are treated to the most magnificent orange color on the inside. It adds to the experience!
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Peanut Butter Maca Cookies, 6 oz — Retail Value $7.99/Member Price $5.99
Yesterday I decided that my own personal tagline is, "Cookies follow me wherever I go." And they really do! How else could one explain the luck of receiving 3 bags of delicious, crunchy cookies to snack on? These cookies would be pretty straightforward for a PB cookie, except that they contain the adaptogen maca, adding a bit of depth to the flavor and the nutrition.
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Banana Maca Energy Bites, 7.4 oz — Retail Value $11.99/Member Price $9.99
I love a snack with a short ingredient list, and these chewy squares contain just four: Organic Dried Banana Paste, Organic Shredded Coconut, Organic Maca Powder, and Coconut Oil. While I like bananas, I'm specific about the ripeness, which I don't think is entirely uncommon. These energy bites tasted distinctly of an overripe banana to me, so I had a hard time getting them down. If that wouldn't bother you, I think they could potentially make for great workout fuel. They're chewy but not overly sticky, and I could see them being good for running a marathon or a long bike ride!
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Aged Cheddar Lentil Loops, 8 oz — Retail Value $7.49/Member Price $5.99
Welcome home, Aged Cheddar Lentil Loops, it's been too long. I know and love this snack, and now I have the distinct privilege of inviting my daughter into the club. (Note: they will henceforth be referred to in my family as "wentil woops.") If you're familiar with veggie straws or chips, these are of the same ilk, but Lentil Loops do it better in that they use lentil flour (paired with potato starch) as an actual ingredient, instead of just sneaking a hint of veggie powder in for coloring. And perhaps more importantly, they contain sunflower and/or safflower oil, rather than the dreaded canola oil. So, are Lentil Loops the answer to your healthy snacking problems? No, but they're a significantly better version of the alternative. Plus, that shape! So fun!
This Aged Cheddar flavor is the best one in my opinion. It's a subtle cheesiness that has no artificial aftertaste, and while it does leave a dusting of powder on your hands, it doesn't leave any color behind.
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Smoky BBQ Lentil Loops, 8 oz — Retail Value $7.49/Member Price $5.99
The Smoky BBQ flavor is my second favorite Lentil Loops pick for the same reason that a BBQ potato chip does what it does exquisitely, but there's a time and a place for it. This version offers a greater burst of flavor, and while sweet in the way that barbecue sauce is, it's also surprisingly spicy! Maybe "zesty" is a better word for it. I had a much easier time sticking to the suggested serving size (1.5 cups) with this flavor due to the zing.
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Sweet Jalapeno Lentil Loops, 8 oz — Retail Value $7.49/Member Price $5.99
I waited a few days before digging into this Sweet Jalapeno bag because I was nervous about the spice. Would I be signing myself up for heartburn? I had to time it right. As it turns out, they didn't overdo it with the heat (which should come as no surprise considering NatureBox snacks are always so well-thought-out), but they aren't something I'd necessarily serve to a known avoider of spice. The sweetness in these is not over-the-top, and overall the flavor is mild with a little twang at the end. It definitely builds up as you go, though!
My Verdict
I don't want to sound extreme by saying that NatureBox can do no wrong, so I'll put it this way: NatureBox's snacks are well-thought-out, they're undeniably healthier options as evidenced by their ingredients lists, and they are consistently delicious. I was sent 14 different snacks to try (including some items in several different flavors) and among them were 12 snacks I loved, one I liked (Sweet Jalapeno Lentil Loops), and one that wasn't for me (Banana Maca Energy Bites). I'd call that a win! Value-wise, my box contained nearly $120 worth of snacks when paying full-price, but with a membership, I'd save $29.50. A year-long membership to NatureBox costs $30 (after a 30-day free trial). In the case of this sample spread, the annual membership cost just about breaks even to the savings, so all member discounts on my future orders would be genuine savings. That feels like a fantastic deal to me. I absolutely recommend a NatureBox membership.
ACTIVE DEAL: Get a 30-day free trial membership when you join! No coupon needed - just use this link.
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