The Blended Lifestyle

Making smoothies or blending your favourite fruit, vegies, seeds etc has become a real big deal in recent times. Those looking to get their daily intake of nutrients in liquid form generally turn towards the cheap NutriBullets or even this little guy from Breville. Generally after a month or so of gaining the nickname “Chia Seed” you think it’s time to upgrade to a more serious blender.

Then enters a big name like Vitamix. Their products are known for being in the top echelon of blending. We have been using one and can let you in on the truth.

The Vitamix that we have been testing is the Total Nutrition Centre, it’s the first white one we’ve seen but that’s just a cosmetic feature. In the interest of consistency we’re making the same green smoothie from previous blender reviews.

The Vitamix has two modes, we coin them; self controlled or off the chain (Variable and High in real life). In self controlled mode you are able to control the speed using a dial whereas in “off the chain” mode the blender goes all out and gives 100%. Basically, at 100% you could throw concrete into the Vitamix, it’s gonna eat it up like a ravaged dog on Tuesday.

We added all our ingredients and tried both modes. Like most blenders we immediately found a common problem; add raw solid ingredients, the blender starts firing and nothing is pushing or turning the contents to blend. This leads in a fast spinning blender which isn’t churning the contents. Vitamix include a tool to push the contents around until it gets a grip, the alternative we found is adding a dash of liquid (water or juice) to help with the swirling.

We noticed two key things while making our smoothie. Firstly, the Vitamix created one of the smoothest blends we’ve ever had, the sheer speed of this machine churns the heck out of the contents and makes a great smoothie with no lumps or missed bits. It also does it in record time, great for those short on time. But with this insane churning comes heat, when so much energy is expelled there is a noticeable temperature increase. Our smoothie needs time in the fridge before we drink, later we substitute the dash of water for ice-cubes.

At almost a thousand dollars the Vitamix should be used for more than just smoothies. Included in the box is a whopping sized recipe book (and online), soups, sauces, dips and so much more can be produced with the Vitamix. If you’re a rich gym junkie then this will be great for smoothies but for many looking at a product like this should be considering so much more, it’s a very capable, very powerful machine. Choose what you really need a blender for and make your judgement call then.