You knew this was coming: A Graze Fan blog post.

GRAZE. I LOVE IT. Everyone knows this, at least if we are friends on Facebook. I make a weekly graze post about my box, with photos, and pimp out my friend code (AUBRIE35B) so that my friends can get 3 free boxes (your 1st, 5th and 10th box). I think 10 of my friends have done this so far, which is awesome, because it saves me £1 per box. And I am a grad student, so we all know that £1 is a lot of money to me.

Anyway, I decided to make a blog post about why I love it so much. And no, I (SADLY) do not work for Graze. Everyone keeps asking if I do or saying I should, but alas, I am just an obsessed consumer of delicious goodies.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages (seriously, there's a kids box!), I bring you

THE REASONS I LOVE GRAZE:

1) Options

The main thing I love is that there's so many options. On the UK website there are 144 different little boxes of deliciousness. You can search and sort them by key words like "peanuts" or use their handy-dandy dietary requirement thingy if you are more serious about your wants, needs and allergies.

With 144 options, if you get the once weekly box, it would still take 36 weeks to try all of them, which is brilliant because every box is JUST SO EXCITING.

Also, you have options about how often your box comes: 1x/week, 1x/2 weeks or once a month. I believe the US only has 1box/2weeks, whereas in the UK, we can get once weekly, and even a "one-off" box to be delivered whenever, if we want. I will weep tears of horrendous sadness if and when I move back to the US. I will weep even more tears if and when I ship off to a far away land with the Peace Corps. I highly doubt they have Graze in Namibia.

There are also different kinds of boxes, such as low calorie, breakfast, and kids!

Plus you can select items based on your preferences, after viewing photos and ingredients, and mark it so that they either send it to you often or NEVER EVER SEND IT (looking at you, spicy pistachios. YUCK.)

Here is what it looks like!

2) Great Customer Service

Seriously. WOW. The first (of 3?) times I wrote to Graze was to ask if they had considered a sort of box re-use or re-claim project. The boxes are recyclable (which I will talk more about below) but I wondered if they couldn't just re-use them and pick them up when they drop off the next week's box. They replied to me the same day. Apparently people like the idea of recycling but don't want someone's used box. Which is silly, but it's not Graze's fault people are dumb.

The third and most adorable time I messaged them was when my lovely grandma informed me that she was trying to buy me 3 boxes as a gift (they have that option!) but it wasn't taking her info, and that they didn't have a phone number. So I contacted them, gave them her email and asked that they contact her. And they did! And they CC'd me! AND they found a solution to the issue, and now I have 3 free Graze boxes from my grandma (shout out to the Notorious P.O.G!). How sweet are they to do that? I love it.

3) The Website/Easy and Awesome UI (send soon, bin/try/like/love, it's beautiful, selection, holiday)

Ahhhh the website. It is BEAUTIFUL. You can find it here. Seriously, it's the most user-friendly, visually simplistic and lovely website ever. It's better than Zappos (sorry Zappos). I love everything about the UI. Check out my latest box, which is a cool option as well!

I love that you can BIN/TRY/LIKE/LOVE things (as seen above), and it remembers your preferences. I love that you can click on the date the box was delivered and immediately see the contents. It even allows you to see the FULL ingredients of each packet they send you (and the box comes with the nutrition facts).

There's also a send soon option on the UK site (sorry, USA) which lets you get it in one of your next boxes if it's available (it's worked so far!). The selection of things is super easy and you can just click on a category ("flapjacks," "dips & dippers," etc.) and see all the wonderful treats that could soon be in your belly.

ALSO, and I love this especially, you can set when you're going to go on holiday and suspend your box for whatever amount of time. This is great especially because some items (like the olives) are perishable if not eaten in a timely manner. My box never lasts more than a day because I eat it so quickly, so I have yet to have this problem...but if I was gone for two weeks, it might lead to disappointment! This way, I don't have to worry.

The rewards program is also super simple. It even tells you who joined using your code. Then you can choose to get your £1 off or donate the £1. Sadly, I am not ready to donate my precious friend rewards, but maybe some day!

4) Accountability

My box is always on time. And only 1 time ever did they say they sent something and it turned out to be something else. No big deal. I wrote them and they said that item (Hello, Graze Brownie) would be in my next box. AND. IT. WAS.

5) Taste

Everything is so delicious. Nothing more needs to be said about this. And if I don't like it, I just bin it and never have to see the offending food ever again. But it's mostly because I'm picky, and not because Graze isn't tasty.

6) Health/Environment

So the cute brown box that fits perfectly in my mail slot is made form sustainable trees and is 100% recyclable! YEEEEE. And I clean out the plastic packs and recycle those as well. I wish they were made from something other than plastic, but I think Graze is doing as good a job as they can with it so far. I'd be interested to learn more about their sustainable practices, but for now that's all I know. Either way, I love it.

Also, most of the food is relatively or super healthy. You can choose what you get and how healthy YOU want to be. Also the ingredients are on everything. As a semi-paleo person, they use a bit more soy product than I prefer, but it's so low on the amount that it isn't too much of a concern. Also, there are PLENTY of options for me if I wanted to go completely soy-free. They list the ingredients of every single thing on the website, and send nutrition facts with your box. And of course there's the low calorie box I mentioned before. Also they label the different packets with symbols, letting you know what's low-cal, or a good source of vitamins or fibre!

So, in conclusion readers....get Graze. You will not be disappointed. And if you are, you can cancel at any time, even after your first free box! It's cost effective, at least in my opinion, at £3.89/each!

British Grading System: Confusing Americans Since 1776 (or something)

So. The British school system. I don't really understand it. I know that they call high school "college" and then college is called "university" or "uni" but other than that...it's complicated. Everything else I know comes from Harry Potter...they call math "maths"....there's people called "first years," which are like freshman but I think they are younger than our freshman in America. Also they have weird things like the "Head Girl/Boy" and "Class Prefect," whatever the hell that means. 

Here is a stock photo of some confused girl. 

When I taught school in Ghana, due to their previous British colonization, they had a school system somewhat like the UK. However, I only taught "Form 1" and "Form 2" students and they were all so mixed up and so behind for their age level that it didn't really mean much to me other than their general ages, which was mostly guessing on my part. I also had a class prefect who did my bidding, basically, which was lovely. His name was Ofeh and he was really smart and I miss that kid. He was my obvious favorite. Ah, memories.

But I digress. BACK TO BRITAIN!

So I didn't think much when I moved here about the differences in all this sort of thing. Who cared if I called it college or uni? But what I didn't think about was the grading system. It's such a mess. It defies mathematical logic, I tell you.

So I wrote my first essay, and it was 750 measly words (as it was supposed to be), which, let me tell you, is not enough words to make for a good an argument about international politics or international law. Anyway, I didn't put in a ton of effort as it wasn't going to count for anything and I had other things to do, so I didn't expect an A...probably a B. Well, I get the paper back with the comments and the grade and it says something like "58."

So of course, I FREAK THE @(#*$& OUT. 58?!??!?! I FAILED?! AN F?! I basically had a panic attack and momentarily died. I have never gotten anything less than a B except once, and I fixed that paper and turned it into a B+. Usually I get an A- on things (hello bane of my existence in undergrad), especially things I write because I am a good writer, and my mom is a brilliant woman who helps me edit all the time. (Thanks momma, love youuuuuuuuu!!! xoxo)

So I decide that maybe their system is weird, because one time on the bus a classmate of mine told me something about "nobody ever gets above a 70."

So I google, and I look on my schools website. It turns out this is basically true.

A 70, in this land of mathematical discord, is an A (in university, anyway). You can in fact get above a 70 (if you're a magical unicorn or Albert Einstein or just a super over-achiever who makes everyone else look bad - I'm looking at you, war studies guy who got a 90 something on his thesis last year!) but it's not likely. Basically anything above a 70 is exceptional and publishable, but anyone who gets close to a 70 should be overjoyed. (Why a 70 BASICALLY equals 100% instead of 100 equalling 100% is anyone's guess.)

So my 58, or whatever I got, is actually just fine. It's still a B, it's just some weird alien form of a B. (Like an old Cylon toaster model instead of a Caprica Six)

So in addition to this they have these weird grading scales, called like "a first" (a 1st) and "a second"(a 2:1) and "a third" (2:2) and after that there's some other things. Here's a chart comparing it to the American system:

Basically if you get anything less than a 2:1, places won't want to hire you. Which makes sense, because that would be a 2.5 GPA or less in America, which is horrible. It's like a bunch of C's. So, here's hoping I get a 2:1 and never ever go back to grad school ever again in my life. CHEERS TO THAT. And God save The Queen.

I know, wrong Queen.

P.S. I'm totally not trying to dump on the British system here but logically and mathmatically, the American one makes way more sense. There are plenty of British things that make more sense then American ones, but this, sorry, is not one of them. 

Tea...

I just realized British people put MILK in their TEA.

MILK IN TEA. WHO DOES THAT?!

More updates on British tea once I finally have High Tea some time in April. I probably won't be putting milk in it though...