Flash in the Pan

When I started testing the Magic Bullet, a friend of one of my kids said, "Oh, that's a Magic Bullet!" Apparently this is the stuff of infomercials and, according to the PR people, is one of the "must haves" that Jessica Seinfeld touts in her book on how to Deceptively Delicious. Avoiding the controversy of whether Seinfeld or her publisher was looking closely at the ideas of Missy Chase Lapine or not and jump into something else. I think the Magic Bullet has a few things going for it, but I don't think it's really not all that its promoters would like to promote to the world.

They position this relatively small device as a cross between a blender and a food processor. Let's look at the first part. The instructions claim that usually 10 seconds of blending does what you need. Not a chance. I tried milkshakes and fruit smoothies, and usually I needed upwards of a minute, which is fine except that you're warned under pain of hellfire and damnation not to let the unit run longer - NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER, as a Lear might instruct - than 60 seconds. A second longer and you could cause a cataclysm. Much longer than that, and I think life as we know it comes to an end.

Seriously, if you need a single serving of blended something, this device is decent. It comes with four plastic cups with removable colored rings at the top. Remove the ring, fill the glass with whatever, screw the blending attachment, invert the lot and put it onto the blender, and you're in business ... eventually. If things dont' seem to be blending, the instructions say to picj up the entire blender and cup (or one of the normal blending containers) and shake away.

Personally, I think this novel approach is probably an attempt to pragmatically spin the problem of not being able to stop the blender, easily remove a container's upward facing lid (remember, the part the screws off is now face down into the blender), shove a rubber spatula in to scrape down the sides, and then remove the spatula, replace the lid, and continue blending. However, hey, it worked for me. When things are done, you remove the container. If it's one of the glasses, you unscrew the blending unit, add on the colored collar, and start drinking. That's a lot better than washing two continers. Also, you can get to the blades to make sure they are clean, rather than having them forever fixed at the bottom of a vessel.

Where the Magic Bullet offers a misfire is in the food processing part. The instructions would have you take a chunk of vegetable (like an onion) that fits into the small blending container, drop it in, attach the flat-bladed chopping base, and pulse away. I tried it and was completely disappointed. Perhaps the piece was a bit large (though it didn't seem stuck in the container). Instead of being sliced and diced in a matter of seconds, the end facing the blade seemed a little chewed up, but that was about it. Now, I did try a few cloves of garlic, but it was a case of all or nothing - either full cloves, or a very find mince. (Had I not been pulsing the unit, it would probably have turned into garlic mush.)

So, if you like smoothies or need other blending jobs where dealing with a large container and heavy base unit doesn't sound good, then by all means check the Magic Bullet - the Platinum Pro runs $139.99 (including tax and shipping) with the two blending containers, four container/cups, blending bases, motor unit, and so on. It also seems to be avaiable various places on the web for about $60. But if you need to chop, forget this device, as it cannot "easily take the place of any food processor."

Labels: appliance, gadget, opinion, product, review