Health products and programs can be helpful when you want to create healthier habits. However, deciding which health product to use can be difficult. Everyone is different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to choosing a program. Many people find online health products more convenient and easier to fit into their daily life. To save you some tiresome research and help to answer some important questions, we’ve compared two popular healthy lifestyle products; HelloFresh Australia and Second Nature.
HelloFresh Australia and Second Nature focus on supporting individuals to make healthy choices by promoting consumption of a wide variety of whole foods. The main difference between them is the delivery of the product. HelloFresh Australia provides consumers with pre-packaged ingredients to make balanced meals at home while Second Nature is an app based program that provides education on making holistic lifestyle changes. Second Nature’s ethos is based on a lower-carbohydrate approach to assist individuals with weight loss and improving their blood sugar control.
The Second Nature program also looks into more than just nutrition, encompassing mindset, exercise, sleep and stress into their education pillars. These pillars are crucial in building a healthy balanced lifestyle, and are discussed throughout different sections of the app; educational articles, exercise ideas/workouts, meal planners and guides.
Trustpilot score
Trustpilot is a platform where consumers can leave reviews and scores reflect overall customer satisfaction.
| HelloFresh | Second Nature | |
| Star rating |  |
|
| Score | 4.4 / 5 read reviews |
4.8 / 5 read reviews |
Signing up
| HelloFresh | Second Nature | |
| Free trial | ✗ | ✓ |
| Clear breakdown of costs | ✓ | ✓ |
| Clear cancellation policy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Length of program | Subscription service | 12 week minimum, then ongoing |
| Easy to cancel | ✓ | ✓ |
| Refund policy | See terms and conditions for the full refund policy | Full refund if cancelled within 14 days. After this point, any charges non-refundable. |
| Refer-a-friend scheme | ✓ | ✓ ($10 credit for referring family or friends.) |
| Easy to include family | ✗ | ✓ |
Nutrition
| HelloFresh | Second Nature | |
| Dietary approach | Whole-foods. | Lower-carb |
| Caters to vegetarian | ✓ | ✓ |
| Caters to vegan | ✗ | ✓ |
| Vegetarian/vegan recipe section | Vegetarian only. | ✓ |
| Supplements encouraged | ✗ | ✗ (Other than Vitamin D.) |
Support
| HelloFresh | Second Nature | |
| Tailors the plan around diabetes | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tailors the plan around other health issues | ✗ | ✓ |
| Access to registered dietitian or nutritionist | ✗ | ✓ |
| Dietitians based locally in Australia and New Zealand | ✗ | ✓ |
| Assigned to local support group (timezone friendly) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Weekend support available | ✓ HelloFresh assistant available online |
✓ |
| Daily support from coach | ✗ | ✓ |
Program features
| HelloFresh | Second Nature | |
| Encourages daily weigh-ins | ✗ | ✗ |
| Makes you take numerous body measurements | ✗ | ✗ |
| App | ✓ | ✓ |
| Recipe videos | ✓ Only available via HelloFresh blogs/YouTube |
✓ |
| Exercise videos | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks steps | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks exercise | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks water intake | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks custom habits | ✗ | ✓ |
| Education of nutrition science | ✗ | ✓ |
| Requires calorie counting | ✗ | ✗ |
| Food diary feature | ✗ | ✓ |
| Meal planning tool | ✓ When ordering meals |
✓ |
| In-app journalling tool | ✗ | ✓ |
Pricing
When products provide price plans in different formats, it can be hard to accurately compare prices. To make this easier, we have calculated the price of monthly basic price plans on each product (as of August 2021). All admin fees are included in these prices.
When comparing the two, the Second Nature program works out to be significantly cheaper than any of the HelloFresh Australia services*, not only secondary to cost but also value for money. As mentioned above, the HelloFresh Australia product centres around nutrition and is an ingredient delivery service rather than a multifaceted product. In comparison, Second Nature helps individuals to make holistic lifestyle changes via their interactive app. Second Nature also provides members with a dedicated dietitian throughout the program and offers additional support through some of the app features; recipes, educational articles, tracking tools and meal planners. This is not offered on Hello Fresh Australia.
Registration to a professional body requires a nationally recognised nutrition or dietetics degree. Weekly face-to-face sessions with a registered dietitian or nutritionist can be very expensive ($40-$100/hour). We have added a column representing this to compare costs (Weekly Nutritionist – WN).
Monthly (basic) digital subscriptions:
| HelloFresh | Second Nature | Weekly Nutritionist | |
| Registered dietitian or nutritionist coach | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| The same, personal coach throughout the programme | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Price | $399.96 / month* | $75 / month | $440 / month |
*The above price has been calculated for 1 person, assuming 2 HelloFresh Australia meals per day, across 5 days of the week (at $9.99 per meal). As HelloFresh Australia offers a maximum of 5 meals per week, an individual would need to eat half of each meal (i.e. one serve) fresh and the other half reheated for their next meal (as leftovers). Daily breakfast food and food for the extra two days of the week would need to be purchased in addition to this plan. It is worth noting the smallest option HelloFresh Australia provides is for 2 people, 3 meals for $69.95.
Example nutrition query response
Nutrition is a major part of any weight loss journey. Therefore, it is important to receive accurate and reliable nutrition advice. We asked each program a common nutrition-related query to see how the information provided as an answer compares.
Q: Hi, I’ve got high cholesterol and I’ve heard eggs are bad for cholesterol. Do you think I should avoid any HelloFresh Australia meals that have eggs?
HelloFresh‘s answer:
“Thanks for reaching out. Whilst we are at this point, unable to customise customers’ order to their allergy, we definitely have all allergen information available for you to look at: https://www.hellofresh.com.au/about/foodinfo. You will also be able to see which meals require an egg before confirming the meal for delivery.”
Second Nature’s answer:
“Eggs are a rich source of dietary cholesterol. It was previously thought that cholesterol-containing foods increase blood cholesterol and the risk of heart disease and strokes. However, this has not been shown to be the case as dietary cholesterol is poorly absorbed from the digestive system, and if cholesterol is absorbed, the body will produce less of it to balance out (and prevent blood cholesterol levels rising). Therefore, you do not need to be restricted unless recommended to do so from your GP/Healthcare professional. Eggs are among the most nutritious foods on the planet providing good quality protein as well as being loaded with vitamins and minerals.”
Take home message
- When choosing products to help with lifestyle change, it’s important to consider which product would fit into your lifestyle and help you achieve sustainable results.
- Both programs understand the importance of good nutrition and provide you with the tools to build healthy meals
- HelloFresh Australia provides you with pre-packaged ingredients and recipes, to make meals at home
- Second Nature provides you with an education of nutrition science, allowing you to make informed decisions yourself and develop a healthy relationship with food in the long-term.
- Second Nature is available on an app, and gives you access to recipes, exercise videos, meal planning tools and allows you to track exercise, sleep, steps, water intake and custom habits.
- HelloFresh Australia also has an app, however, is used for ordering recipe boxes
- By joining a Second Nature program, you are also supported by an Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD), Monday to Friday.
