The items below are accompanied by affiliate links, meaning I earn a small commission if qualifying purchase is made through my links. This has no impact on the cost to the consumer.
I have been using my Vitamix Food Cycler for about five months now and I’m ready to share what I love about it, what I find a bit challenging, and how its changed my composting game.
To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t too excited about the food cycler when I got it as a present for Christmas. Last year will forever be known as “the composting Christmas”. I’ll tell you more about my other composting rig in another article.
What is a Food Cycler?
A food cycler is an electric drying and dehydrating machine that turns your kitchen scraps into a dried soil or compost additive. The food cycler comes with a removable container with a lid and a filter that you can place on your counter and fill with kitchen scraps.
I’ve tried these kinds of gadgets in the past and I hated the smells. The food cycler container is pretty small and it doesn’t usually sit around for much time. It is normally full after we have dinner. I then put the basket in the machine and let it do its magic overnight.
Pros
Waste Reduction
We can feel good about using our kitchen scraps as food for our garden and minimizing what we are sending to the landfill.
Quick Composting:
Unlike traditional composting methods, which can take several months, a food cycler can produce compost in just a few hours.
Nutrient-Rich Soil Additive
The output from a food cycler is a concentrated organic material that can be used as a soil amendment. This compost adds essential nutrients back into the soil, helping to improve soil health and fertility.
Odor and Pest Reduction
The Vitamix has an odor control system and are fully enclosed. The unit comes with an extra filter and it tells you when it needs to be changed. The closed system and lid also means no flies, or even worse gnats.
Easy to Use
It’s super easy to use and clean.
Cons
While food cyclers offer a number benefits for gardeners there are two things I need to call out:
- Really wet contents, like lettuce and spinach will sometimes burn and stick to the sides of the bucket
- The bucket is not water tight. As we found out when trying to clean burnt lettuce out of the bucket. The bucket was left on the counter to soak overnight. Needless to say in the morning the brownish water all over the floor made us think we had a bigger problem. If you need to soak, keep it in the sink.
Food Cycler – Conclusion
If you decide to give a food cycler a try, I hope you like it as much as we do. We are really surprised at how quickly our little box of soil amendments fills up.