Yesterday we bought a VitaMix blender. I’ve wanted one for years, but could never justify the price. Yesterday we were in Costco, and they were selling them for $50 less than the online price. We had our laptop in the car, so my husband went out and checked Craigslist again (we’ve done it before, to no avail) and the only VitaMix for sale was about 35 years old. There were two ads for people wanting VitaMix blenders, but none for sale – as usual. So we decided to just do it. We have a lot more money these days than we used to, and although most of it goes into savings, we do allow ourselves an occasional splurge.
I was so excited to use it – I made a green smoothie last night, and it was so much better than the ones I make in the food processor. That VitaMix has some get up and go. Anyway, I made another smoothie this morning, washed out the container, and left the container on the counter to dry, with the lid plug inside it. This afternoon, I decided to make another smoothie. I cut up some pineapple, washed a bunch of grapes and spinach, added a carrot and some celery, and dumped it all into the blender. When I turned it on, it made the most horrific noise – I couldn’t figure out what in the world was going on – it was only fruits and veggies, but it sounded like I was grinding rocks. Oops. The lid plug. Yep – it was still inside the blender container. Damn. I had to compost the entire smoothie, since I think that little ground up pieces of plastic probably negate the health benefits of the spinach. And of course the lid plug has seen better days. Happily, the blender itself is just fine, and I looked online and found that I can order a new lid for $15. And the blender still works just fine without the lid plug, I just have to put my hand over the hole in the lid to make sure stuff doesn’t splatter out.
When it first happened, I cried. I was so bummed. I’d only had the blender for 24 hours and I’d already ground up part of the lid! Who does that?? But my husband reminded me that now that we have our son, any mistake we make that can be remedied by just buying a new part, isn’t that big a deal. And luckily the blender is fine, except for the lid plug. So I’m out a $15 lid plug and about $5 or $10 worth of produce. A bummer, but I guess it could be worse. And I’ll never again put food in that blender without looking inside!
Stefanie says
Oh my! That definitely sounds like something I would do. I am always forgetting things like that. The other day I put some eggs in a pot to hard boil, and I accidentally left them there, boiling, for well over 20 minutes. Amazingly, they ended up coming out fine! I was expecting them to be rubbery.
M- says
do you like you vitamix? I want one, is it worth the extra money for one?
FrugalBabe says
M – I love the VitaMix. It does a dramatically better job of making vegetable smoothies than my food processor. I include stuff like wheat germ and flax seed, and with the food processor, I could always tell they were in there. Not so with the VitaMix.
Lucas K Allmon says
Oh man, that completely sucks! I do want to ask how the lid plug ended up getting into the blender? It’s actually pretty tough to get it in through the black rubber lid.
Don’t sweat it too much either, I went through two defective Vita-Mix units before getting the keeper, but it was worth it…I love the thing!
Definitely try making soup in it! I used the base veggetable soup in the start up book as base to make some pretty incredible things.
FrugalBabe says
Lucas – I left the lid plug in the blender after I washed it. I set the blender on the counter to dry, with the lid plug, tamper, and lid inside it. When I went to use it again, I grabbed the tamper and lid, but forgot the plug was in there and added food on top of it. :(
djc says
I’m a little late to the party with this comment, but did you know you can make liquid compost in a Vitamix?
http://www.vitamix.com/household/infocenter/composting.asp