One of my smarter purchases! This mixer is wonderful! I have 10 Boxers that I feed a raw diet to, and prior to this mixer, I was having to hand mix and knead everything together which was becoming more painful or this old gal with arthritis starting to set in. Then I tried a large bucket with a drywall mixer drill attachment and ended up chasing a bucket around the kitchen which the dogs found more entertaining than I did. As much product as I had to mix, those old latex gloves were not. near long enough... I was able to make 2 of my 18 pound recipes in one go with this mixer -saving a ton of time and only one clean up session. The crank was SO very easy to turn in either direction and took no time at all to completely incorporate several ingredients. It was easy to swivel so that I could dump into my food bin to begin packaging. The CONs for me: occasionally when Turing handle counterclockwise it would drip small amount of grayish colored liquid- perhaps liquid from my product getting into the turning shaft - don't know. Not a big deal. More of a big deal to me was that you need to set the machine up so that the handle hangs off the edge of whatever work station you use as there is no turning clearance otherwise and I understand the reasoning for that design but it leaves me needing to find a sturdy portable work station if I want to do this in my kitchen as the counter is out as cabinets are in the way and bar is too high for my short self, which left me having to tote ingredients from counter after weighting in bowls across the kitchen to the table - lots of trips considering what all I have to mix. Small inconvenience for the benefits gained, and as I work more with it I'm sure I'll figure out a more convenient way of doing things. All in all, I love this thing and wish I'd known years ago that things like this even existed - said the lady still using an old hand mixer to make cookies with. What a time and hand saver this is for me!