This is something of a branch-off point, BUT– if you envision doing any ‘hard grinding’ prep (like grinding nuts in to nut butter) or making fresh juice from fruits & veggies, well then, VITAMIX blenders have a pretty great reputation for being real workhorses. For that reason they’re pricey just as you’d expect, but can still be found used online, or in thrift stores, etc.

They also have strong, generous warranties as I understand it, being covered for up to 10yrs I think, with shipping costs covered both ways. I personally have my eye on them as someone who already has a couple juicers, but doesn’t like the idea of having leftover pulp. (plus, juicers can be a pain to clean on a regular basis) So for a Vitamix, the whole juice prep is done right in the single container, easy to clean afterwards, and if you still don’t want the pulp, you can strain it out.

Okay, there’s my dos centavos.

I have actually used one for hummus (although not nut butter, which I DO do) and it does work well. However there are 2 inherent problems: hummus is sticky and gets flung to the sides and sticks, so you have to go in with a spatula several times during your blend to scrape the sides. The second is that the bottom is narrow, because it’s a blender of course, and the blades take up a lot of that small space, so getting your hummus out of there is annoying and difficult, and there’s always a lot of waste because you can’t get it all.