The Oster® Brand Promise: Performance. Versatility. Durability
As a smoothie junkie, I like to have gadgets that are fast, space efficient, easy to clean and convenient to handle. The Oster MyBlend delivers on all four criteria plus more and finally supersedes my hand held blender with its open beaker, a power button that I have to constantly hold whilst blending and its inability to crush ice.
Having never heard of the Oster brand, I was surprised to discover that it’s been around since 1924 when John Oster established a small company specialising in hair clippers. When Oster’s company bought Steven Electric Company in 1946 with the acquisition came the patent for a liquifying blender. The Oster Brand blenders was born. For the last 55 years the Oster Brand has been a trademark of Sunbeam Products.
Putting their motto to the test, hubby and I have been experimenting with creamy, icy and non-dairy recipes and concluded that the Oster MyBlend is a terrific addition to our kitchen appliances.
Here’s why:
BPA free bottle
BPA is an industrial chemical known as Bisphenol-A and it’s a main component of polycarbonate that is used to make water bottles and food storage containers. Research studies, whilst not conclusive, have indicated that BPA can seep into food and beverages from containers and potentially be harmful to ones health. No such problem with the MyBlend 600ml bottle.
Sealed container
Have you ever been distracted and forgotten to put the lid on your blending jug and you’ve turned the power on? If not, you can still imagine the outcome followed by the clean up time. There’s no such risk with the MyBlend because the bottle only has one open end, either for the blending blades or the lid for sealing the contents.
Extra bottles
Blend’n go is a great theory if you are a single person drinking smoothies or couples with different tastes. By buying an extra bottle there’s a spare in case a bottle is lost or left in the office. Couples with different tastes can make their preferred version. In our household flavours vary as hubby likes vanilla, I prefer coffee and our daughter is a strawberry fan. Multiple bottles allows us to have our own preference with minimum fuss.
Portability
The blender itself is small, lightweight and easy to store. Let’s suppose you work awkward hours, like my hubby, and find yourself usually teleconferencing during meal times. One way around these awkward times is to have a couple of fresh ingredients along with protein powder in the office and prior to the meeting blend a protein-packed smoothie that you can drink instead of guzzling more coffee. It would tie you over until you go home for dinner. The blender itself has a convenient handle to hold with one hand freeing your other hand to carry the ingredients to the staff kitchen for preparation.
Blend and freeze
Let’s say you whipped up a smoothie but 600ml is too much. To maintain the nutritional value poor the remainder of the juice into popsicle moulds and freeze them for a healthy frozen desert. Kids will most likely love them in this form.
Ice crusher
With its high speed function, smoothies can be turned into thirst quenchers by adding ice to the mix and blending till the ice cubes are completely crushed. Thirst quenchers can aid with cooling the body temperature post a workout whilst ingesting vitamins and nutrition derived from the blended fruits and veges.
Health benefits
It’s widely understood that a person needs to have 5 servings of fruits and vegies on a daily basis. Unfortunately, busy lifestyles often means that we take shortcuts with our eating habits. Having a diverse range of fruits and vegies in the fridge and taking 10 min to prepare a smoothie as a snack or light meal will help towards the required daily intake. Whilst juices are great to get the vitamins and nutrients immediately into the body they are not fibrous. Smoothies on the other hand maintain their fibre which are particularly useful to keep your gut moving, control blood sugars and fill you up when you need to run out the door.
Muscle repair post-workout
Any serious workout session that tears muscles will require repair by having protein based foods within half an hour of the finished workout. The quickest and most efficient way is by making a smoothie that includes raw eggs, protein powder and dairy products. Our banana smoothie is a favorite. It’s a quick and staple smoothie that we drink post workouts and also fills us up for a couple of hours. It’s a much easier way to have something for breakfast if you are not a brekky kind of person (we’re certainly not).
Recipes
Below are three recipes we experimented with. Cut all the fruits in small chunks, add the suggested ingredient and whizz away.
Banana smoothie
2 bananas
2 tablespoons vanilla ice cream
2 tablespoons natural yoghurt
2 scoops of vanilla whey protein powder
2 raw eggs
100ml milk
Banana, nashi pear and orange mash
2 bananas
0.5 nashi pear
1 orange
120ml apple juice
Blueberry, nashi pear and guava juice thirst quencher
1 small packet of blueberries
0.5 nashi pear
120ml guava juice
3 ice cubes
Healthy additive for smoothies
To increase the health properties of a smoothie try adding any of the following:
- Wheatgerm – boost of vitamins B & E
- Flaxseeds/linseeds – rich vegetarian source of essential fatty acids
- Pumpkin/sunflower seeds – gives a nutty, crunchy taste and texture
- Tahini – for a distinctive flavour plus nutrient boost
- Protein powder – muscle repair
In summary, the Oster MyBlend with its slim, high speed, blend’n go, ice crushing, BPA free features is recommended to any health conscious, on-the-go, minimum fuss person. I’ll certainly be enjoying my smoothies and will happily move off my handheld blender to blending soups only.
Cheers
