A blender has a container body, a push plate, a blade assembly that is mounted on the push plate and a guide rod mounted to the container body and affixed to the push plate limiting the push plate to substantially vertical movement. A variety of well known lifting mechanisms can be mechanically actuated by the handle and can also be actuated by a squeeze mechanism where the handle travels linearly as opposed to rotationally. To overcome the stickiness drawback in blender container bodies, the present invention uses a push plate to push the contents out of the container body.