Health Homework (27) Enjoy your Blender for easier/more intake of fruit-veg phytonutrients, fibers, and your customized smoothies
Someone finally beat the famously powerful-ugly-expensive Vitamix
If you’re in the market for a blender, or if you want to replace or upgrade from your Vitamix, then this message is for you. If you don’t have or use a blender, then this is also for you. This one post could (assuming you’re in the market for a high-performance blender) save you enough money to pay for years and years of subscription to HealthyThinking!
Having and using a powerful blender helps you intake more fruit/vegetable juices (and sauces/salsas) to increase your phytonutrient and fiber intake—generally speaking: more is better regarding phytonutrient and fiber intake.
Making your smoothies at home means you can customize the combinations of fruits/veg/seeds, choose organic, include protein powders and yogurt/probiotics, and include other nutrients such as creatine and nutritive oils.
Using a [powerful] blender at home to blend/mix *whole* fruits and vegetables allows you to receive the entire fruit and/or the entire vegetable, including the fiber.
Also, you’re consuming these phytonutrients/phytochemicals/enzymes in their natural uncooked (undenatured) forms which helps preserve their biological activities.
Making your smoothies at home means that you can customize the blend to exactly what you want.
You also get the convenience of having it when you want it without having to depend on some retail outlet to service this particular need. More convenience becomes better regularity/consistency which becomes better and more consistent nutrient intake which equates ultimately to better health.
In contrast, most commercial juices 1) have most of the fiber removed, and 2) are commonly pasteurized—heat treated—which reduces some of the nutrient content and biological activity. Furthermore, 3) commercial juices are often sourced from whatever location happens to be producing at the time without any regard to ethics, pesticides or quality. 4) Commercial production generally means longer transport (preproduction) and longer storage (postproduction) which often necessitates the use of unripe fruit for the starting material and also the use of more preservatives to maintain shelflife—Either way, you’re getting a poor quality product.
Finally, someone beat Vitamix by providing a blender that is stronger, prettier, and cheaper.
My wife makes fresh vegetable-fruit-mix juice for us essentially every day and now twice per day; she reports that this new blender is much better than the Vitamix.
Disclaimers:
NO FAN OF AMAZON: No, I am no big fan of Amazon, I don’t like their politics, and their customer service is horrible. But they still have the biggest assortment of various “stuff” and this is one example.
CLEAN LINKS: No, I don’t get any affiliate commission (nor do I have such) on these, but if I did that would still be OK. I don’t have any affiliate accounts.
DURABILITY PROBABLE but without the history of Vitamix: I assume the new blender is reasonably durable; we’ve had ours for 10 days—not 10+ years—but even if it has to be replaced in a few years it would likely still be a better value than the Vitamix.
Famously ugly and boring: Our Vitamix in the photo has about 13 years of frequent use, but it was still ugly-gray-black on its first day out of the box.
Powerful, but not the best: Famously powerful with motors that range from 1380-1500 watts **but** the new blender pictured to the right in blue-turquoise is actually more powerful at 1800 watts.
Outrageously expensive at $289-$600, to the point of insult for replacement parts: Vitamix are offensively expensive, and the replacement part prices are absurd—hundreds of dollars for a simple plastic pitcher. The new blender pictured above costs less than $70: You can buy 4-8 of these for the same price as a single Vitamix, and/or use the savings toward your subscription to HealthyThinking.substack.com.