The precursor to Vitamix was founded in 1921 by William Grover (W.G.) Barnard as the Natural Food Institute. W.G. sold kitchen products while becoming a pioneer in health foods. He studied the connection between whole foods and a person's well being. In 1937 W.G. saw that a blender could quickly make healthy foods. He started selling the new product which was named the Vitamix. Over the years, the blender became quite powerful and extremely versatile. The Vitamix Corporation has stayed in the Barnard family to this day, and the blender is considered to be the best on the market. The current blender version is the Vitamix 5200 which was introduced in 2007 to rave reviews.
The Vitamix 5200 has dozens of uses such as making smoothies, salad dressings, salsas, frozen desserts, baby food, marinades, sorbets and much more. In fact, it has been said the 5200 can create every dish of a home cooked meal! But after all this cooking and blending, the device needs to be cleaned. You would think it would be difficult to clean the unit, but surprisingly, it is not. It is suggested that you fill the container about half full and add a dab of dishwashing liquid. Then run the blender on high for up to one minute, and you are done. One review extolled the ease of cleaning by saying that just rinsing the unit out takes care of it!
Juicing is one of the main uses of a Vitamix blender. Other juicers can extract the liquid from fruits and vegetables such as broccoli, celery, carrots, apples, and spinach. However the other juicers create a huge amount of waste in the form of skin, pulp and other solids which many say is the most nutritious part. A Vitamix blender will liquefy the entire fruit so that many more vitamins and minerals are available for absorption. Juicing with no waste and better nutrition is definitely the way to go.
The Vitamix 5200 has a unique feature for making hot soup. You can put all your ingredients into the blender and run it about five minutes. Blade friction heats the soup while the ingredients are being chopped. The piping hot soup is ready to serve straight from the blender with no heating on the stove top or in the microwave. Cleanup is a snap with only one item — the blender — to rinse out!
