Health products and programs can provide a helpful structure for your health journey when you feel out of control with unhealthy habits. However, deciding which health product to use can be difficult. Everyone is different, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach to choosing a product. It ultimately depends on what suits your individual needs and what fits into your lifestyle.
Many people find health products more convenient and easier to fit into daily life. To save you tiresome research and help to answer some important questions, this guide compares two popular New Zealand health products; My Food Bag – Fresh Start and Second Nature.
My Food Bag offers a range of options and bags, however for the purpose of this comparison we’ve decided to focus on the ‘Fresh Start’ bag, as the nutrition content of this bag relates closest to the nutrition ethos of the Second Nature program.
My Food Bag – Fresh Start and Second Nature focus on supporting individuals to make healthy food choices by promoting consumption of a wide variety of whole, un-processed foods. However, the main difference between the two products lies in the delivery.
My Food Bag – Fresh Start is a meal service delivery, providing consumers with pre-packaged ingredients to make calorie-controlled recipes at home (<450 calories per recipe). In contrast, Second Nature is an app-based program that focuses on holistic lifestyle change through pillars of nutrition, mindset, exercise, sleep and stress. These pillars are explored in different sections of the app; educational articles, exercise ideas/workouts, meal planners and guides. Where nutrition is concerned, Second Nature take a lower-carbohydrate approach to assist individuals with weight loss and blood sugar control.
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Trustpilot score
Trustpilot is a platform where consumers can leave reviews and scores reflect overall customer satisfaction.
| My Food Bag | Second Nature | |
| Star rating |  |
 |
| Score | 4.1 / 5 read reviews |
4.8 / 5 read reviews |
Signing up
| My Food Bag | Second Nature | |
| Free trial | ✗ | ✓ |
| Clear breakdown of costs | ✓ | ✓ |
| Clear cancellation policy | ✓ | ✓ |
| Length of program | Food boxes are delivered weekly or fortnightly, based on consumer preference. No locked-in contracts. Program types and length vary over the year | 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
| My Food Bag | Second Nature | |
| Dietary approach | Calorie controlled (< 450 calories per meal) |
Lower-carb |
| Caters to vegetarian | ✓ | ✓ |
| Caters to vegan | ✓ | ✓ |
| Vegetarian/vegan recipe section | ✓ | ✓ |
| Supplements encouraged | ✗ | ✗ (Other than Vitamin D.) |
Support
| My Food Bag | Second Nature | |
| Tailors the plan around diabetes | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tailors the plan around other health issues | ✗ | ✓ |
| Access to registered dietitian or nutritionist | Nutrition-related questions can be emailed ad-hoc to the My Food Bag team however, the qualifications of team members are unclear. | ✓ |
| Coaches based locally in Australia and New Zealand | ✗ | ✓ |
| Assigned to local support group (timezone friendly) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Weekend support available | ✓ | ✓ |
| Daily support from coach | ✗ | ✓ |
Program features
| My Food Bag | Second Nature | |
| Encourages daily weigh-ins | ✗ | ✗ |
| Makes you take numerous body measurements | ✗ | ✗ |
| App | ✓ (Predominantly for ordering food bags.) |
✓ |
| Recipe videos | ✓ (Available on their public website blog.) |
✓ |
| Exercise videos | ✓ (Available on their public website blog.) |
✓ |
| Tracks steps | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks exercise | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks water intake | ✗ | ✓ |
| Tracks custom habits | ✗ | ✓ |
| Education of nutrition science | ✓ | ✓ |
| Requires calorie counting | Meals are calorie-controlled (<450 calories per meal) | ✗ |
| Food diary feature | ✗ | ✓ |
| Meal planning tool | ✓ | ✓ |
| Meal delivery service | ✓ | ✗ |
Pricing
When health 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 plans for each health product (as of September 2021). All admin fees are included in these prices.
When comparing the two, the Second Nature program works out to be significantly cheaper than the My Food Bag – Fresh Start bag, not only secondary to cost but also value for money. Second Nature provides members with a dedicated health coach throughout the program and offers additional support through app features; recipes, educational articles, tracking tools and meal planners. Comparatively, My Food Bag – Fresh Start provides only a meal delivery service.
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:
| My Food Bag | Second Nature | Weekly Nutritionist | |
| Registered dietitian or nutritionist coach | Qualifications unclear | ✓ | ✓ |
| The same, personal coach throughout the programme | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Price | $655 / month* | $75 / month | $300 / month |
*Based on an individual purchasing Fresh Start bags for 5 dinners each week over a month (4 boxes/month). Breakfast and lunch foods, as well as 2 extra dinners per week, need to be purchased separately.
Example response to an exercise query
Exercise is a major part of any health journey. Therefore, it is important to receive accurate and reliable exercise advice. We asked each program a common exercise-related query to see how the information provided as an answer compares.
Q: Are eggs bad for your cholesterol? Should I avoid them?
My Food Bag‘s answer:
“You will need to contact your doctor if you have any concerns over your cholesterol.
We cannot make any recommendations for foods to avoid for personal health reasons – please consult your GP or nutritionist for advice”.
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 from rising). Therefore, you do not need to be restricted unless recommended to do so by 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 what would fit into your lifestyle and help you achieve your goals.
- Second Nature and My Food Bag – Fresh Start understand the importance of good nutrition and provide you with the tools to build healthy meals
- My Food Bag – Fresh Start 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 gives you online access to recipes, exercise videos, meal planning tools and allows you to track exercise, sleep, steps, water intake and custom habits.
