Does anyone have a Vita-Mix?

[wildeyed]

I got a few cookbooks from the library about raw food diets. I am not planning to go all raw food, but I have expanded my garden this year and thought I might get some excellent ideas for preparing the produce, which will be at peak taste and nutritional value right out of the backyard.

So raw foodies have two special kitchen appliances, a serious dehydrator that they "cook" in and a vita mix for smoothies, etc.

Now I am always up for a new kitchen appliance, so this was very interesting to me since I only have an old Oster blender and no dehydrator at all. The vita-mix looks like it makes serious whole food juices and smoothies, but in addition, you can grind your own flours. Also a very spendy item.

A dehydrator would be handy if I have enough left over produce and want to save some, but I doubt that I will have enough this year to justify the expense. So that will go on the list for later.

But the vita-mix looks cool. I noticed while I was at Costco today that they are having a special vita-mix event next month, too. :D

[noamnety]

1. I got a dehydrator at a thrift shop

for less than 5 bucks. We have some fruit trees, so we put it to great use. I couldn't bring myself to pay for a new one.

[wildeyed]

2. I have a friend who has one.

I borrow it as needed. If I get the garden going really good, it might be worthwhile to purchase my own. Large scale canning is probably beyond me, and you need a big pressure cooker for that anyway, which would probably cost the same as a decent dehydrator anyway.

[hippywife]

4. I found a very nice

16-qt. Mirro pressure canner at the thrift store for $20. I just need to order a new pressure regulator for it, which will run about $15.

[wildeyed]

6. I am not good at thrift shopping, or shopping in general.

I get so jealous hearing about all the great deals people find!

[hippywife]

7. I don't enjoy shopping, either.

We don't go often but I like to just look for specific things in the thrift stores every once in a while.

[NMDemDist2]

3. what do they want for Vita Mixes these days? I dumped all mine out of the coffee shops

and replaced them with these

http://www.everythingkitchens.com/blendtec_ez_blender.html

they recommend this one for home use though

http://www.everythingkitchens.com/k-tecblender.html

[wildeyed]

5. The same, I guess.

$300-$400ish. Expensive! The site won't tell me how much the home model K-tec costs, which is annoying. If it is cheaper than the Vita-mix, I would definitely put it on the list of options.

I looked at the archives and saw you talking about this model a while ago. You like it better than Vita-mix because it is quieter? Anything else? Does it have the same reliability? The Vita-mix has a 7-year warranty and a 30-day money back guarantee, which seems like a good deal if I were inclined to spend that $$$ on a kitchen appliance.

We have been drinking lots of smoothies recently, but I don't know if we have been drinking enough to justify a $300 blender. On the other hand, all the reviews I have read indicate that these really last and people seem to enjoy them.

[NMDemDist2]

8. this page has the prices (albeit in small text LOL)

http://www.everythingkitchens.com/blenders.html

with the vitamix you can buy new blades and gaskets ($12-18), with the Blendtec you buy a whole new jar($35). the BT is lighter and has a smaller footprint, the vitamix weighs a ton

both held up under commercial use, the BT was about $100 less than the VM

[wildeyed]

9. So you can grind flour and nut butters in the BT, too?

I am particularly interested in making nut butter. With two little kids, I go through a lot, and when I buy it at the store, it always separates on me and makes a mess when I try to recombine it. With a spiffy blender, I could buy whole nuts and make smaller batches at home. There is probably a health benefit to making it fresh, too.

[NMDemDist2]

10. yeah, it will do that fine

:hi:

[housewolf]

11. Are you wanting to grind flour for bread?

I suggest that you do a fair amount of research on grinding wheat for bread, if that's a main purpose you have in mind for the Vita-Mix. Will it grind wheat berries? Yes, it will. Will it grind it into a flour that makes the kind of bread that you want... well that's another question.

The starting question is What kind of bread do you want to make? Do you want all whole-wheat? Do you have children? (Oh, I just saw about where you say you have 2 little ones). Are they used to eating whole wheat bread? Are they used to eating commercial/plastic-bagged whole wheat bread or are they used to a more heavy/denser hand-made type of loaf? Do you just want to add some whole wheat flour to your white bread recipe? Do you want to mix flours? Whether the Vita-Mix will do what you want with flour depends on your expectations and what your answers are to questions like these.

In large degree, the quality of home-made whole wheat bread is dependent on the degree of fineness of the grind of the flour (and some techniques of bread-making). A coarsely-ground wheat berry gives you a low, dense loaf of bread that may be delicious but often isn't what's preferred. What you need to ressearch is how finely the Vita-Mix grinds wheat berries and whether that degree of fineness will give you the type of bread you want.


:bounce:

[Warpy]

12. That is excellent advice

The best way to home grind wheat for bread is with the stone grinding attachment for the Kitchen Aid, the only attachment I've ever been tempted to get. There is absolutely nothing like freshly ground whole wheat flour in bread, and there's no substitute for stone grinding.

Grinding your flour in any of the super blenders will result in a coarse grind with an overheating of the very fragile wheat germ oils. The product will always be unsatisfactory when compared to stone ground flours.

I guarantee kids will rebel and refuse to eat bread made with it, especially if they've been used to the balloon bread from the supermarket.

[wildeyed]

13. I was thinking more about specialty flours.

Chick pea and the like. I would probably grind wheat flour for bread occasionally, but doubt it would be a weekly project. I actually prefer a coarser ground flour. I have hypoglycemic issues and even regular whole wheat is a problem for me. The coarser grind takes longer to digest and is easier on my metabolism.

As for the kids, they will eat it when they get hungry enough since there won't be anything else :) And if I add enough honey or something else sweet they will be mad for it regardless.

But the fineness of grind is a good point, as is the heat of the blades damaging the oils in the grain. I will do more research before I make a decision.