Raised Real Review

In 2016, Raised Real entered the market with the aim of revolutionizing the baby food industry. This baby food delivery service based in San Francisco offers raw, organic, ready-to-make meals for tiny humans with ever-changing needs.

As Raised Real meals are not ready-made, they can be prepared anyway that works for your little one. They contain all the ingredients that support healthy growth and your job is to take a few minutes to cook them in accordance with your baby’s eating habits.

If you prefer homemade food but have too many daily tasks to juggle, be sure to read this Raised Real review to find out if this delivery service can be a valuable ally in your efforts to provide nothing but the best for your baby.

How Raised Real Works

Wishing to make ordering as easy as possible, Raised Real has opted for the subscription-based business model and curated vs. customized subscription box type. That means that as a Raised Real customer, you get to make 3 decisions: how many meals you want to get per delivery, how often you want the meals to be delivered, and which ingredients you do not want to see in your little one’s meals. Here is how it works.

First of all, you can choose to receive 12 or 24 single-serving baby meals per box. Second, you can receive deliveries every 2 or 4 weeks. Third, you can choose 3 ingredients not to be featured in your box. If you want to exclude more ingredients, you should talk to the company’s representatives and they promise to make it happen.

If you are not sure how many meals you should order and which delivery frequency you should choose, you can take the quick quiz on the company’s official website. Based on your cooking and feeding habits and your baby’s eating habits, you can get a concrete meal plan recommendation in a minute.

Once you make all the decisions, the service curates a box for you. Its expert team handpicks your baby’s meals from 16 ready-to-make items on the menu, honoring your every request.

However, it is important to know that your initial choices are not final. You can edit your subscription whenever you want and modify your ingredient preferences, change the number of meals in your order, and switch between bi-weekly and monthly deliveries. Furthermore, there is no minimum subscription period. You can skip a delivery or cancel immediately after your first box by sending a message to the Raised Real support staff.

As a Raised Real customer, you get to make 3 decisions: how many meals you want to get per delivery, how often you want the meals to be delivered, and which ingredients you do not want to see in your little one’s meals.

What Makes Raised Real Different

Raised Real aims to strike the perfect balance between simplicity and versatility. It provides curated boxes filled with pre-portioned, easy-to-cook baby meals that are carefully designed to satisfy the different developmental needs of tiny humans, ranging from muscle development to vision support. Each meal you get in your delivery is pre-selected in accordance with your child’s preferences and crafted to support a distinct set of important bodily functions. Each ingredient in each meal is organically sourced, low in sugar, and free from the 8 most common allergens.

Therefore, the service’s simplicity is reflected in the fact that all the crucial food-related decisions are made for you by a team of nutrition experts. You do not have to choose, plan, and portion the meals, purchase and combine ingredients, think about allergens or wonder whether your child’s diet is well-balanced or well-suited for his or her needs. The Raised Real team takes care of everything for you, except for the meal prep process.

Raised Real meals are in fact raw, pre-prepped ingredients that are flash-frozen to lock in the nutrients. This is what makes them so versatile. Whether your child currently enjoys blends or has already started solids, Raised Real meals can work for your little one because you are in charge of the cooking.

You can introduce Raised Real meals into your tiny human’s diet at about 6 months of age or when you start using blends. As time goes by and your little one grows, Raised Real meals can still be a great choice and only the preparation method will change. They can work for a variety of ages and make meal prep easier for you for a long time.

Trying to offer more than just ready-to-make baby meals, Raised Real has decided to provide other kinds of support to young parents. First of all, every member has access to the company’s Real Hotline, which allows parents to talk to advisors who can answer all kinds of food-related questions, help with picky eating, and more. There is also the Tiny Reads blog on the company’s official website, which explores topics related to nutrition, feeding, lifestyle, and baby food ideas and hacks. Finally, as a member of the Raised Real family, you get exclusive discounts on products offered by the company’s partners like BÉABA. Every now and then, your box may include a surprise gift, as a thank you for being a loyal customer.

While we are on the topic of gifts, let us just mention that Raised Real offers lovely gift cards you can send to your friends. The cards bring the recipient 1 or 2 boxes including 12 or 24 Raised Real meals. The recipient gets to set the ingredient preferences. Along with the meals, Raised Real gifts include meal cards detailing the benefits of meals and provide access to the company’s Real Hotline.

Each meal you get in your delivery is pre-selected in accordance with your child’s preferences and crafted to support a distinct set of important bodily functions. Each ingredient in each meal is organically sourced, low in sugar, and free from the 8 most common allergens.

Meals And Recipes

As we mentioned earlier in this Raised Real review, all the meals on the menu are organic, sustainable, non-GMO, ready-to-make, and suitable for a variety of ages, depending on the way they are prepared. They are also free from major allergens, including tree nuts, peanuts, shellfish, fish, wheat, dairy, eggs, and soy.

You do not choose the meals yourself, but that does not mean that you do not get information on what you can expect in your box. In this section, we will take a look at the meals on offer, explore different preparation methods, and provide a few tips on how to properly store your baby’s meals.

The Raised Real Menu

The 16 items on the Raised Real menu feature different combinations of raw, organic ingredients. They have less than 1-9 grams of sugar per serving, that is, less than 5 grams of sugar on average. Each of them contains 4-5 different ingredients and is designed to boost and support 3 distinct bodily functions. A portion weighs 3.5 ounces raw and about 4.5 ounces cooked.

The items are not cleverly or adorably named; instead, they are simply presented as lists of ingredients. For example, you can opt for:

• The Spinach, Banana, White Quinoa, Chia Seeds, & Coconut Butter mix, which supports bone health and muscle development and boosts immunity;
• The Butternut Squash, Banana, White Quinoa, Cardamom, and Coconut Butter mix, which provides muscle development, brain development, and vision support;
• The Cauliflower, Kale, White Quinoa, Garlic, and Avocado Oil mix, which provides vision support and has anti-inflammatory and immunity boosting properties;
• Raspberry, Sweet Potato, Ground Pumpkin Seed, Cardamom, and Coconut butter mix, which supports brain development and bone health and helps with digestion.

As you can see from these examples, in addition to fruit and veg, the meals contain healthy grains, proteins, and fats (like white quinoa or avocado oil), as well as select spices known for their unique health benefits (like cardamom). Essentially, they provide everything necessary for a balanced diet and healthy growth.

Preparation Methods

When preparing your baby’s Raised Real meals, the first and sometimes only step is heating. You can choose between the stovetop method and the microwave method.

If you opt for the stovetop version, you should take the frozen meal out of your freezer, empty it into a saucepan, and add 3 tablespoons of water. Start with medium heat, cover the saucepan, and after the water boils, reduce the heat and simmer for 5-6 minutes.

In a microwave, using a microwave-safe bowl, combine the meal with only a splash of water and heat it for 1 minute. After that, continue heating it for 15 seconds at a time until the temperature is just right.

You can serve the meal heated, without any further steps, if your little one is already used to finger foods. If not, you can puree the meal in a blender together with all the cooking liquid or mash it in a blender with just a dash of cooking liquid.

Storing Tips

You should keep the meals in your freezer until you are ready to prepare them. You can keep them frozen for at least 3 months worry-free. After you prepare a meal, you can keep it in your fridge for up to 48 hours. If you have left it out of the fridge, it is not safe to eat if more than 2 hours have passed.

Pricing

At Raised Real, the price per single-serving meal is determined based on the number of items included in your delivery. If you get 12 meals per delivery, you pay $5.49 per meal, $65.88 per delivery. In case you opt for the 24-meal box, you pay $4.99 per meal, $119.76 per delivery.

The pricing is obviously simple, although not the most affordable on the market. That said, it is not too pricey or unreasonable either. You get free shipping on all orders, so you never pay for anything other than the food your little one enjoys.

If you choose to send a gift box, the prices remain the same. One box with 12 meals costs $65.88 and one 24-meal box costs $119.76. If you send 2 boxes with 12 meals, you pay $131.76. If you send 2 boxes with 24 meals, you pay $239.52.

Delivery Area

You can have Raised Real meals delivered to your home if you live within the mainland United States. The service is working on making its baby food available for home delivery in Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and other US territories.

The company’s shipping service of choice is UPS. Orders are processed every Monday and delivered on Wednesdays and Thursdays, depending on location. You should receive your tracking information via email on Wednesday morning.

If you are not at home to receive your delivery, that is absolutely fine. No signature is required and the amount of dry ice used is enough to keep the meals cool until the end of the day. All you need to do is place the food in your freezer as soon as you can.

Raised Real Pros & Cons

To make sure Raised Real meets all your standards and expectations, it is important to know its biggest advantages and disadvantages. With a short overview of its pros and cons, you can easily decide if Raised Real is the right meal delivery service for you.

Sample Dishes

With Raised Real, you get delicious meals prepared by pro chefs at affordable prices. To find out what kinds of delights you will receive in your delivery, we have chosen a couple of sample dishes that accurately represents its offer and can help you decide if it is the right service for you.