Discussion Board

i love my vitamix! I looked at the other ones....I like that they stand behind their warrranty and Iron Chef America uses the vitamix ones!

Got a Vitamix as a gift (and what a gift!!) a few weeks ago and it's incredible. Soups made from whole veggies are just divine and VERY filling. It's almost impossible to make something that isn't delicious. I do MWL, and my daily fruit is usually a banana blended with Wondercocoa and ice for a very generous bowlful of "legal" gelato.

I do make sure to have plenty of unblended whole veggies, too.

My machine is the Culinary Institute of America model on Amazon.

P.S. According to the DVD that came with my Vitamix, you can grind grains just fine in the big "wet" container. I have the smaller "dry" container as well, and the only difference I can see is that 2 of the 4 blades are square at the end instead of pointed.

Jam/Judy I live in Sarasota.

I have a Blendtec Blender. I recently had it repaired by the manufacturer, I just got it back this week. They took my old canister and gave me a brand new one.

I'm looking to sell the Blendtec because before I had tried it last month, it had sat and sat and sat for many months of disuse. They told me these are NOT made to be sitting but to be USED.

I had got it for my raw food foray (argghhh) but I'm really not gonna use it and was gonna sell it on craigslist/ebay

But I'll sell it to you if you want to come down my way. I think 250 is a good price.

In Kindness,
Orange

We've had our VitaMix approx. 23 yrs.; had only one occasion for repairs and they fixed it quickly and cheaply. Ours is the old metal canister type and we use it a lot!

I don't think you can even get parts for those any more. My mother in law has one that no longer works well and when I called company what they offered was steep discount on "comparable" new one because her model and replacement parts had been discontinued!

i remember those I think, not sure how old the one I bought was...got one at a yard sale once and gave it to my daughter..It had a stainless steel container and forward and reverse!

I have the BlendTec. Costco had the demo for it back in april. Paid $370 for it. Best $370 we spent. Before the BlendTec, had the old Jack LaLanne Healthmaster blender. It could not blend anything remotely as well as the BlendTec.
The one they are advertising now that Montel Williams is promoting is a very cheap imitation of Jack LaLannes old one. They want you to believe it works as well as a Vitamix. It does not. A regular cheapie blender works better than the HealthMaster emulsifier.
Don't waste money on junk. Either get a BlendTec or a Vitamix. I chose the BlendTec because it has the square container and I get more of the food out of it easier than I ever did with the round containers. And the container is smooth inside, no ridges like regular blender containers.
What's really great about the BlendTec too, you just put the ingredients in, press the button for whatever it is, and it does it for you. No tamper to push food down, which i like.

The Vitamix is a great machine as well. I think it all depends on what you want to spend and what you like making that will depend on what you will buy.

I bought my Vitamix 5200 in March of '09. I had wanted one for over 4 years but just couldn't get past the price. Plus, justifying $400 for a blender to my hubby took some time. However, I WISH I WOULD'VE PURCHASED IT A LOT SOONER!!!! I'm so in love with my Vitamix. I even named it 'Chewbaca'...'Chewie' for short. (yeah, everyone thinks I've lost it) Anyway, it is hands down my favorite appliance. If my house caught on fire, I'd run back in for Chewie.

My sister purchased a Blendtec at about the same time. She loves her's too. Both of them are great blenders. Couldn't go wrong with either one. I told my sis that maybe someday when the VM dies, I'll buy a Blendtec....but I'll probably die before my VM.

The new ones (e.g., 5200-model) are even better! I have one from about 35 years ago (stainless steel container). I need to put my old one up on eBay.

OK, all you Vitamix fans--can you give me some idea of what you use it for that fits on the McDougall MWL plan? I am kind of embarrassed to have such an expensive thing sitting on my countertop, that I only use every three or four weeks for salad dressing mixing.

I don't do smoothies, and I prefer to eat my soups with the veggies intact, but any other ideas would be helpful. (I even have a grinder jar, and have never used it. And since we don't use flours in MWL, I don't know what I'd be grinding.)

Here is a somewhat lower cost option to VM and Blendtec while not quite as powerful, likely still has plenty of Vrooom to get the job done...

The Omni 3 hp
http://www.3blenders.com/OMNIBlenders.html
This is from the linked site:


I have absolutely no affiliation or interest in the site or its owner other than it seems to be a very good deal and he has shown very high integrity and quality of service to me in the past.

I'd be curious to know what all MasserLMC uses her's for when she cans.

I love my VitaMix. Of course, by mistake, I started up the Vita Mix to make a smoothie after I had stuffed it full of good stuff, and it sounded like an airplane trying to take off. It began shaking and whirling and finally I managed to turn it off. I found out that the small plastic center that comes out of the heavy rubber lid had fallen into the bottom and of course I stuffed stuff on top of it and tryied to blend it. It totally broke the plastic lid piece and the middle base screw that holds the glass mixer on the stand broke as well. I called Vita Mix and they shiipped me replacement parts, no shipping charge, and viola!! Good as new. I wouldn't be without it but I will be looking into the glass jar now before I stuff things in it....

My wife just ground up her favorite, hand carved, wooden eating spoon. Was moving stuff around in the VM and forgot that she left it in there and fired it up. OOOPS! Extra fiber in her smoothie. Just a little, mostly a couple big chunks easily fished out.

I do love that machine. I have been making "ice cream" lately. Today for part of lunch frozen banana, frozen strawberries, 1 tsp flax to help thicken it, a bit of carob, vanilla, cinnamon. Comes out like soft-serve ice cream. Too good!!! I had that and a blended salad. Lot of those lately as it is so hot here and it just goes down much easier and tastes much better than chewing up a mass of kale and mustard greens and bokchoy etc.