Blenders for Smoothies

[Darienne]

My long-time Bullet gave up the ghost over the weekend and since we had a couple of free hours and were in the States...where the Walmarts are different from those in Canada...I went smoothie blender looking.

 

We found a suitable Hamilton Beach 'Go Sport' Blender and brought it home.  The specs looked good and the price was just fine.

 

HOWEVER...two major flaws in this blender which are worth noting.

 

1.  The blender bottle opening is quite narrow and I need a modified funnel to get my ingredients into it with ease.  Rats.  OK.  I can do this.

 

2.  And even worse.  This unit has NO protected blending blades.  That is, if you plug the unit in, put the cutting blades into the unit and turn the unit on and are being stupidly careless...as we have all been known to be...you can get your fingers cut to ribbons!!  (No, I did not do it.  Yet.)  Now, the directions do tell you THE safe way to use the blender...but they don't make any reference to the fact that you...OR MORE IMPORTANTLY, A CHILD...could massacre their fingers in this unit.  I was really surprised.  I can't recall the last electrical kitchen appliance which was so open to misuse and accident.  Almost all must have all the protective units in place before the blades will even work.   You'd have to do something truly unusual to hurt yourself using one.  (OK.  Go ahead.  Post all the exceptions to my statement.  )

 

I post this just in case. 

[dcarch]

But the blades are not exposed, they are inside the jar before you turn no the machine.

 

dcarch

[Darienne]

That's if you put the jar onto the blades before you put on unto the machine.  But you CAN just put the blades onto the machine without the bottle and turn it on.  Obviously this would be an accident. 

 

But that's my point about CHILDREN.  You can't put the blades on a Bullet and turn it on...it won't work.  Most things with blades have safety built into them so that you can't do this obviously incorrect thing. 

[kayb]

I'm glad you posted this, not that I'm planning on buying such, but I was sitting here wondering what I wanted to eat and read this and decided to have a smoothie. Frozen strawberries, a banana, some yogurt, a little protein powder, a little milk. Yum!

 

 I have a big Cuisinart countertop model that has a smoothie setting that I use quite regularly. Just hadn't been in a smoothie mood for a while, so again, I'm glad you brought it up.

[palo]

 

 

HOWEVER...two major flaws in this blender which are worth noting.

 

1.  The blender bottle opening is quite narrow and I need a modified funnel to get my ingredients into it with ease.  Rats.  OK.  I can do this.

. 

Try a preserving funnel, used for filling mason jars.

 

p

[Darienne]

The outlet on the Lee Valley catalog specifies that the funnel will fit into a bottle with an opening of 1".  My bottle opening is bigger than that.  What I did is to cut the long end of one of my kitchen funnels and I'll use that to get the shake protein powder into the bottle.  Thanks for the idea, palo.