Summer, 2001

. . . Adventures in Vita-Mixing

Drawbacks

While the Vita-Mix is effective at performing many tasks, it may not be quite as effective as all the top-of-the-line individual appliances specifically designed for a single purpose. However, it is less costly and takes up less space. I have found it to be more than satisfactory.

In spite of the money you can save by having one machine do many tasks, it's still a fairly pricey investment. It does have a 7 year warranty. You can purchase it cheaper at a show than through the Internet or a catalogue, and sometimes the show demo models are sold even cheaper. Going to a show also lets you see first-hand how it works, and you get to taste some of the things it can make. The standard recipes demonstrated at a show include: juice, ice cream, vegetable soup, and salsa. Check out the Vita-Mix web site to see their show schedule.

Friction heat is created when blending for more than a couple of minutes. This is great for soups, and a non-issue for smoothies and ice creams as they take little time to blend and start out with frozen ingredients. However, things like nut milks and nut butters can take a little longer to blend and you don't want heat damaging the essential fats (same goes for grinding grains). I have found that storing all nuts, seeds and grains in the freezer solves this problem quite nicely. When making nut and seed milks I use water that is ice-cold but not frozen.

The Vita-Mix has a 2 horse power motor which allows it to do heavy duty jobs in a small amount of time. This means it is a little on the loud side when blending at high speeds. Since most of my blending is done in less than a minute (and in some cases less than 30 seconds), I don't notice the sound that much. When blending things that take a few minutes I do notice the loudness more, but for me this is a minor nuisance when compared to all the healthy meals I have been able to make.

Conclusion

I decided that for me, the Vita-Mix was a worthwhile investment. I've had it for 4 months and use it almost every day. I make a smoothie every morning for breakfast. I whip up a quick broccol soup for dinner when I don't feel like cooking. I also make soft-serve fruit ice creams with little to no sweetener, almond milk, hemp nut butter, lemon slushies, fresh salsa and pasta sauce (the hyper-linked recipes are my own creations; the rest come with the Vita-Mix cookbook).

For more information visit Vita-Mix online.

Note: This review was written solely to share my experiences with you; no remuneration of any kind was received from Vita-Mix.

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