The Vitamix seems like a great machine, but the Blendtec has earned its place on our kitchen counter. We’ve had ours for about 4 years and use it at least daily – and if you know anything about us, you know that we make some pretty monster sized smoothies! We also use it to make frozen banana “ice cream”, almond, cashew & peanut butter, as well as for grinding wheat berries into whole wheat flour.
There were a handful of things that swayed us toward Blendtec instead of Vitamix:
– The Blendtec feels more modern to me with it’s digital control panel and pre-programmed options (though you can manually set the speed as well) vs. the Vitamix’s manual analog knobs (though some people prefer the knobs, to each their own).
– The Blendtec has a slightly more powerful motor.
– The Blendtec uses a blade that is dull to begin with, so you don’t have to worry about it becoming less effective with use. It’s basically designed to beat your ingredients into oblivion. The Vitamix comes with sharp blades which can dull with use.
– The Blendtec has a proprietary “Wildside” jar which is a 5-sided rectangular jar that works really well for pushing ingredients toward the blade. No tamper is needed. As with any blender, you need to be strategic about how you layer your ingredients though. If you put all your frozen ingredients in the bottom of the jar and put your leafy greens and liquid on top, you’re going to turn the frozen ingredients into a thick slush which will prevent the other ingredients from reaching the blade. By putting liquid in first, and then greens, and then frozen ingredients on top you can largely avoid this problem.
– Speaking of jars again, Blendtec has another proprietary jar called the Twister Jar which we just bought earlier this month and it ROCKS! It seriously feels like having a whole additional machine. The Twister jar is designed for smaller batches of stuff, or for blending more difficult ingredients like nut butters and banana “ice cream”. It has a unique lid with two scraper like extensions on it that you turn in a counter-clockwise direction (while the blender spins clockwise) which forces sticky ingredients right into the blade. It works ridiculously well and I couldn’t imagine blending difficult ingredients without it now that we have one.
– The Blendtec is roughly about 20-25% less expensive than the Vitamix. Our local Costco has regularly been offering the Blendtec for $300 which is a steal.
