Vitamix 5200 Blender

Posted by Petra Smirnoff on June 21, 2010

I had left my new, bright red 5200 model Vitamix in its box for a few days since it had arrived, since I did not want to unpack it when I was about to move house. But in the end my curiosity got the better of me and I decided I just had to try it out. I unpacked it from its very neat packaging and placed it on my kitchen bechtop to behold.

I was surprised to discover that the container is not actually held down to the base at all. I do not know the physics behind why the liquid will rise but the container will not, but it works. The container simply sits on top of the motor, and the power pushes it sideways, to be caught by four corner plugs. It s a very simple design, and I much prefer it to my Sunbeam Cafe Series blender, which is almost impossible to use now as it is been designed to lock in place and the locking mechanism has been worn away.

According to Raw Pleasure .com .au where I bought my Vitamix, the blades travel at 384.26 km per hour so you can expect your food to be well and truly pulverised. It also comes with a seven year warranty which is very impressive.

I decided to break the blender in with a very difficult task to see how well it would respond: blending a whole pineapple. Well, without the skin of course. Normally pineapples are very stringy and a standard blender cannot break through the tough fibres which makes it unpleasant to drink in a smoothie. I put the pineapple and some water in the blender, flicked the switch and WHOOOSH! the machine was busy blending. It was not as noisy as I expected, and when I came to pour the drink it was smooth and creamy with a lot of ‘head’.

Overall, the smoothie was consistently smooth, and I was quite surprised that I could not identify the individual fibres. There were a few small lumps still in my drink due to me not having blended quite long enough, but that comes down to some experimentation I think, because it is possible to over-blend. I was a bit nervous not to let it run too long because six minutes blending would have turned it into a hot cooked soup! I think I only blended for 20-30 seconds so it was not warm at all.

I had a good look at the cookbook after drinking my smoothie, and I’m impressed. The book actually folds out into its own book stand, and the pages are spiral bound which allow them to sit flat when you’ve got the book standing up. The recipes look very simple and tasty!

Want to find out more about the Vitamix, then visit Petra Smirnoff’s site on how use the Raw Food Diet to lose weight and become healthy.