My Life was Changed by a Blender: A Free Ad for Vitamix

On my birthday this year, my sweet husband gifted me with one of the most amazing inventions of all time, the Vitamix blender.

Months before this, my friends who owned Vitamixes acted like it was some cult that they full-heartedly believed in and needed you to join. “You can make UNICORNS in it. Your [insert any other brand of blender] doesn’t even compare.”

I owned a great blender, thank you very much. I loved the thing. Sure, it was a poor version of the Vitamix, but was it a gazillion dollars (roughly the price point of a new Vitamix) better? No way. 

Okay, so my green smoothies were a little chewier than I would prefer, but that just meant I burned more calories digesting them – that’s a win-win. I categorized the Vitamix as a frivolous purchase and virtuously decided to save that money for retirement like a normal person.

Then Will walked in the door with one as gift and I couldn’t say no. He said we could return it if I wanted, but it was already in my house. It was a done deal.

The first thing I made was my standard green smoothie. I vowed that if it wasn’t much better than the ones I made already, this blender was going straight back to the store. I put all the ingredients in the container and nervously turned it on.

The Vitamix has a variable speed dial numbered 1- 10; you start at Variable 1 and work your way up to whatever the recipe specifies. For a smoothie, it said to slowly turn the dial up to 8 until it reached your desired consistency.

Easy enough. I slowly turned the dial. The blender shook a little on its base as the speed increased. I was amazed at the force it was generating, and even more excited as I watched the contents whirl into a buttery, even-colored green. That never happened with my old blender, bless its little heart.

In about 30 seconds, the smoothie was done. I poured it into a glass. Initial thoughts:

- Did I forget to put chia seeds in? Nope, they were just completely pulverized.

- No bits of kale to chew. Hallelujah!

- So. Smooth. Sorcery. 

- What else will this thing blend? Rocks, maybe? Can I make my own sand?

- Vitamix, take my money!

I got so excited, I made another smoothie for Will, waited for him to praise how smooth it was because it was the truth, and then dug through the fridge for other things to blend.

That same night, I also made the soup recipe below using some vegetables that were a bit past their prime.  (This is a slight variation of the cream of asparagus soup recipe in the Vitamix recipe book). Later, I threw a bunch of lightly steamed green beans, a red pepper, two zucchini, green onions and a couple cups of my homemade bone broth into the blender and made that into a soup as well.

Wow. It came out smooth as silk and steaming. Hot soup out of a blender! Madness. I thought I might cry.   

Since then, I've made mango pineapple sorbet, lazy-chopped vegetables for spaghetti sauce, and even threw a whole avocado pit in to see what happened. It disappeared, which was cool, but I'm not convinced that it's necessary or ​even healthy to eat those things so I chalked that up to an experiment.

I can't wait to try out other recipes that didn't seem possible in a normal blender: my own peanut and almond butter! ​Hummus! Ice cream! The list seems endless.  

To tie this to health rather than just advocating to be a brand ambassador for Vitamix, I have high hopes about what this may do for my household's eating habits. Making an easy-to-drink soup filled with a variety of vegetables seems like a great way to increase my vegetable intake​, and the added convenience of creating healthy dishes increases the chance of us eating at home rather than going for takeout or buying the same product pre-packaged. In a world where we try to pack as much as possible into every minute, sometimes convenience creates space for more healthy habits.

I now divide my life between those dark, ignorant pre-Vitamix years and the glorious present. This is how the other half lives! If you have  a Vitamix, let's compare notes and share recipes!* 

*Vitamix did not pay me to write this post, I swear. Actually, we paid them a lot of money. 

Articles to consider:

50 Surprising Things to Make in a Vitamix

Using your Blender to Build Better Health​

Benefits of Blending​