Tag Archives: budget

Getting a new blender; vitamix or blendtec

Posted by on July 4, 2011 No comments

Not so long ago my old blender died on me and I had to fall back on my hand blender. This will actually work for green smoothies!

But I wanted something better. So I started reading some reviews and asked around. A vita-mix or blendtec seemed a bit expensive and I wanted to blend green smoothies with lots of leafy vegetables.

So I bought myself a Tribest Personal Blender PB-250 with 475mL cups and some nice accessories. I used it for a while and it does work great. But 475mL is just to small for me and takes to much time to make larger batches.

So I made the investment to buy a vita-mix 5200!

Why I bought a vita-mix? After watching some video’s how people where using the vita-mix and its tamper on slow speeds I shifted towards vita-mix instead of blendtec. The 7 year warranty and reports of better after sales from vita-mix was an other shifter. I do like electronic buttons used by blendtec, but It seems more convenient to rotate a knob to control the variable speed of the blender, so an other shifter towards vita-mix.

Blendtec does seem easer to clean and since its now available with a larger canister this may be a downside for vita-mix.

So far no regrets about the vitia-mix! A pleasant surprise where the recipes and information that came with the vita-mix. The tamper works really great, and I can do vegetable blending at the low speeds without adding water and make a large batch of almond milk on the highest.

Please share your experiences and links about your blender used for raw food and alike.

Buying fruit at the local market

Posted by on July 3, 2011 1 comment

Being all new at this blogging and writing and having no idea where it will lead to I will just start somewhere. (oh boy…)

When I first started eating more fruit and vegetables I used to do my weekly shopping at the supermarket. With a cart full with healthy food the total price got quite high, compared with a non-plant based diet. (this will be a nice topic for an other post surrounding our government mostly subsidising meat production but not organic fruit and veggies)

So I stared to free some time on Wednesday or Saturday to go to our local small market. I guess I had not been there for more then 8 years!

I usually bring two fold-able crates with me to save packaging materials and just let them fill the crates. I mostly buy fruits since my vegetables are coming from an organic allotment garden (volkstuin in Dutch and more about organic gardens in an other post)

The local market is a great place to get food from a more reliable source, most products are produced in our own country and some are organic. The prices are also better then in the supermarket! I just ask where the products come from, every week is there is some variation on what is available.

The owner of the fruit market stand is a great enthusiastic guy always telling me if he got something organic or interesting.

I am currently spending about 8 a 9 Euro per person and per day on fruit in the summer season here in the Netherlands. How much are you guys spending on fruits with a high-fruit plant-based diet?

So that is how my weekly fruit stock looks like, my taste buds are already adjusted to all this fruit!

So my first tip in eating more fruit and vegetables is to buy them at your local market and ask some questions about the products and where there coming from!

Please share your own experience when buying fruit…