Vitamix FoodCycler is a wonderful addition to your kitchen and helps work toward zero waste.
During the 2020 lockdown, tons of people started to garden. Lowes and Home Depot suddenly have a vast array of plants. The local garden centers were overflowing and packed with people wearing masks.
During Covid, this turned out to be an excellent outlet for many people, including myself, to focus on something that was mentally healthy. Instead of reading the newspapers and freaking out constantly, it was better to spend all day in the garden when you could.
For years I tried to make something out of our garden, and usually, half the plants died because I was not consistent about taking care of them or planting the wrong plants. It never looked like a place where you could go to zen and escape the world. In 2020 I focused on the garden to keep my mind occupied, and it started to turn around quickly.
PROS
- Reduces Food Waste
- Odorless, small, and easy to use
CONS
- Expensive, and a little noisy
- Half gallon size, not great for larger gardens
I bought plants that would work with my soil instead of getting others to work. I planted some privacy trees to create an enclosure. We built a cinder block wall to hide our ugly retaining fence and covered it with stucco.
That turned out to be one of our best projects; with the stucco painted white, it looked like the walls of Santorini and brightened the garden.
I was always confused between compost and fertilizer, and I thought they were the same for some reason.
I was wrong; fertilizer is food for the plants – compost puts nutrients back into the soil, which also helps plants.
I had looked at doing one of those compost piles, but it seems a bit painful, and if you don’t have a big garden, where do you put it?
Plus, you must wait months for it to process all the pathogens before you can use it, not to mention the pests it attracts. In researching compost, I came across the Vitamix FoodCycler and thought, what a brilliant idea!
How Does the Vitamix FoodCycler Work?
The Vitamix FoodCycler takes your food scraps and turns them into compost; it’s an efficient, odorless way to compost indoors; plus, it reduces food waste.
It can sit on your countertop if you have enough room, but it’s bulky, so we keep ours in our laundry room.
It would be approximately the size of a big deep fat fryer that you would put away after use.
The Vitamix FoodCycler is effortless to use with one power button and three status lights. It contains a half-gallon bucket with a lid and sits on our countertop.
That lid has an insert that will reduce odors, and so far, it has worked perfectly for us. It’s a good size and doesn’t get in the way.
As you cook, you throw all your extra food scraps into it; instead of putting one type of food in, you should mix it up so that the compost has a mix of nutrients.
Some items you can put in are meat scraps, chicken and fish bones, eggshells, eggs, tea bags, coffee grounds, cheese, pet food, and most vegetables.
Some fruits are too sweet, so don’t add too much. Foods that are not good to add include bread, rice, starch, sauces, dressings, soups, oils, jelly, beef or pork bones, nutshells, and some nuts.
Once the Vitamix FoodCycler is full, you take the lid off and put the bucket into the recycler, which has its separate cover that you lock into place. You press the on button and leave it until it’s finished.
Vitamix states that it can take from 4 to 8 hours depending on what you put in it; so far, for us, it has taken roughly 5 hours each time.
Is The Vitamix FoodCycler Noisy?
During the portion of the process where the FoodCycler is grinding the food down, it can be noisy, which is another reason,
I would not recommend having it in the kitchen. It’s no louder than a dishwasher or clothes washer, but the grinding is annoying.
Since it’s in our laundry room, I can’t hear it. Find somewhere you can put it where you know you won’t hear it or run it overnight when you sleep.
When it’s finished, you end up with usually sandy compost that feels like lumpy sand.
You don’t get much compost when the FoodCycler finishes, so this may not be for you if you have a large garden. I take the compost and throw it in different sections each time.
One step in the journey to produce less waste, and I am making this a priority for my family to have less waste and use less plastic.
Stop using one-use items and replace them with something we can use repeatedly. I love using the Vitamix FoodCycler, which was a worthwhile purchase.
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