Nutribullet review

There are blenders, and then there’s the Nutribullet; the company behind it, Homeland Housewares, prefers to call it a ‘nutrition extractor’, and has turned it into something of a health phenomenon, bombarding Americans with round-the-clock infomercials extolling the virtues of a healthy ‘Nutriblast’-based diet. The two bundled user manuals are more lifestyle guides than instructions for use, with headlines like “SLOW DOWN THE AGING PROCESS” and “CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR NEW LEASE OF LIFE” and a full six-week meal plan, complete with recipes that don’t even require the Nutribullet itself.

It’s all inspiring stuff, but whether you’re interested in a serious lifestyle change or just after a new addition for the kitchen, the Nutribullet is one of the most compact single serving blender/juicers around. The 680ml blending receptacle doubles as a cup to take your creations on the move, or store in the fridge right after making. Its vertical design doesn’t take up much space on a counter-top, although you’ll need to find room in a cupboard for the two extra cups, two resealable lids and whichever blade you aren’t using. The 1.45m power cord isn’t the longest either, but should suffice for most kitchen counters. Two blades are supplied; the four-bladed Extractor blade will see the most use, but the two-bladed Milling blade is handy for turning oats, nuts and seeds into powders.

Nutribullet is supposed to produce healthier concoctions than traditional blenders or juicers because the skin, stalks, and other parts of fruit and vegetables you would typically throw away are kept in the mix. There should be more nutrients in each glass as a result. It also means there aren’t multiple parts to clean; just the cup and the blade. The cups are dishwasher-safe, but the blades aren’t; you have to wash them by hand in warm soapy water.

You can of course create your own concoctions, but there are plenty of recipe ideas to choose from in the user guide. Each Nutriblast is comprised of 50% greens and 50% whole fruits, topped up with water and with optional ‘boosters’ of seeds and nuts. The amount of water you add dictates how thick the resulting smoothie will be, but it’s not an exact science; unless you’re following one of the recipes from the user manual, the mix of fruit and vegetables will produce varying amounts of liquid. It isn’t designed to work with hot liquids either, so you’ll need to microwave your creations afterwards if you want them warmed up. You can blend ice with it, but only as part of a recipe – not in isolation.

With no buttons, speed functions or settings dials, the Nutribullet is beautifully simple to use. After filling one of the cups with ingredients, you screw on one of the blades and push the pair into the base. The screw-on blades can be a little tricky to tighten and remove, though, particularly if you have weaker wrists. Twisting the cup into place starts the motor, and you untwist when everything is smoothly blended.

The 600w motor spins up rapidly, blending our chosen recipe in a little under 30 seconds. It is supposed to use a cyclone-style motion to draw ingredients down towards the blade, but we occasionally had to remove the cup and give it a shake to get all the ingredients to blend correctly.

The results weren’t completely smooth, so we tried the same mixture again on a one minute 30 second blend. The second attempt was only slightly smoother, and still had a slightly grainy texture, so depending on your choice of fruit and vegetables you may want to leave the motor spinning for at least a minute before tasting the result. The motor was also surprisingly loud; you won’t be able to continue a conversation at speaking volume while it’s spinning. At least the suction cups built into the base kept the unit stationary and upright.

As a single-serving blender, the Nutribullet gets the job done. It’s compact, relatively easy to clean, and incorporates the skin, stalks and other parts of your ingredients that would otherwise be wasted in a traditional juicer. At £80 it’s not overly expensive, either. It’s not meant for families, the need to add water to every mix makes it unsuitable for certain recipes and the inability to make hot meals is a real negative (considering we’re currently in the middle of winter).

The company wants you to think of Nutribullet as a lifestyle, and on this level it only works if you’re planning a serious change to your eating habits. I’m not a nutritionist, so can’t vouch for the effectiveness of a juice-based diet, but if you struggle to eat fruit and veg at the best of times, it’s certainly a convenient way to add them to your diet while keeping the flavours different and maintaining variety.