My Vitamix, My Beloved.

Oh, where do I even begin.  It's a love affair.  It began one day when my husband and I were talking with some folks out at a farm store that we frequent here in Dallas.  They told us about this amazing machine called a Vitamix.  We thought about it for awhile and then started looking around for one.  I ended up getting ours at Costco because it was the best price I could find.  They are not cheap, but worth EVERY penny.

So, what is so sweet about the Vitamix?  Well, lets start in the morning.  Every morning for breakfast I have my smoothie.  The smoothies are sometimes different, but generally these smoothies consist of the following:

• carrots
• spinach
• purple cabbage
• banana
• apple
• yogurt
• stevia or honey
• ice

Depending on what I have on hand I might throw in some kiwi, strawberries, orange, blueberries, cranberries and sometimes even a raw egg.

Ok, so are you sold yet?  Well, let me explain what this amazing machine does.  Not only is the Vitamix a blender, it's like the mack daddy of all blenders.  It blends everything into oblivion, creating an amazingly smooth smoothie.  Let me elaborate.  If  you wanted, you could put the apple in to the Vitamix whole and it would chop that baby up so fine you would have no idea you were eating a core and stem.  It's that good. 

The Vitamix can do a lot more than smoothies.  I have done the following with mine:

• peanut butter
• grated cheese
• cole slaw
• apple sauce
• salsa
• chopped vegetables
• soup
• churned butter or whipped cream
• sorbets and ice cream

I want to elaborate on a couple of these.  See, the Vitamix isn't like a typical blender where you push the button and it's one speed.  This thing can finely chop things on speed 1 or obliterate things on speed 10.  The blades are so high powered that on the highest speed it can heat the ingredients to steaming after about 4 minutes.  And that it how you get soup.  I have done it several time and it's awesome.  Heating fresh vegetables for only 4 minutes retains so much more nutrients than cooking on the stove for much longer.  The applesauce.  Awesome.  You can make applesauce from fresh apples, no cooking required, saving all of those precious nutrients from all the cooking usually required.  Those days when I don't feel like putting time and effort in to lunch I'll make the kids mac n cheese and then put a couple apples in the Vitamix and they have fresh applesauce.

Seriously, this machine is awesome and I am not being cheesy when I say that it has literally changed our lives.  I tell everyone I can about this thing because it rocks.  Imagine starting your day with a veggie and fruit packed smoothie and then having it at your disposal to make healthy things to add to your daily diet.  Adding yogurt will add those awesome probitiocs into the mix too.  If someone in the house is sick we always add in some extra powder Vitamin C, or an orange if we have it on hand.  The sorbets are so good and the kids love them.  We do orange, strawberry or banana.  All you have to have to do it is the fruit, ice and some sweetener(we use stevia) and it's a really good, healthy treat. 

The biggest thing about this whole thing is the fact that you are getting raw food, put directly in to your gut.  The benefits of this are endless.  I encourage you to research this if you haven't already and find out exactly how insanely beneficial this is to your body.  I know for me personally, it's hard to eat a lot of fruit and veggies throughout the day.  It's a lot easier for me to drink it in one glass, versus eating all of those things seperately....especially raw.

You won't believe it until you try it.  If you can afford it, get yourself one.  If you still need some convincing, come up to my house and I'll prove it to you.  Or you could go see a show they put on at Costco periodically.  They really are worth every penny.