Choosing the right juicer can mean the difference between making juicing a part of your daily routine or giving up on it completely. So, it’s important to find a juicer that fits your needs and works well with the way you live.
Many people want to know if they can use their blender to make juice. But you can’t use a blender as a juicer because it doesn’t separate the juice from the pulp (insoluble fiber). Instead, everything you put in a blender gets mixed up or turned into a liquid, leaving the insoluble fiber in the juice. You might think that adding pulp from carrot, beet, or celery juice is good for you, but I can tell you from experience that it tastes like pulpy sawdust. A good juicer is what you need to make clear, tasty juice that you can drink every day. Think about looking for the following things:
• Adequate horsepower (hp)
When looking for a juicer, it’s best to choose one with a horsepower (hp) rating between 0.3 and 1.0. Juicers with weak motors and low horsepower ratings have to turn very fast (rpm). But rpm alone isn’t a good way to judge how well a juicer works because it’s measured when the machine isn’t doing anything, not when it’s juicing. When you put fruits and vegetables through a low-power juicer, the rpm will slow down a lot, and the machine may even stop. In fact, I’ve broken a few machines trying to juice just one carrot.
• Efficient at extracting juice
I have tried several juicers, but each one wasted a lot of fruit and vegetables because there was still a lot of juice in the pulp. The pulp that is left over shouldn’t be able to be used to get any juice. Even though I’ve tried some expensive models, I’ve found that some machines just aren’t good enough, and the pulp they make is too wet. I’ve met people who spend a lot of money on fruits and vegetables, only to find out that their inefficient juicer caused a lot of waste.
• Sustained blade speed during juicing
Look for a juicer with electronic circuitry that keeps the speed of the blades constant while you juice.
• Able to juice all types of produce
Make sure that the juicer you choose can juice both tough vegetables like carrots and beets and delicate greens like parsley, lettuce, and herbs without a special attachment for citrus. You need a wheatgrass juicer or a juicer that presses the juice, like a single or double auger or twin-gear machine, to make wheatgrass juice (also known as a masticating juicer). Keep in mind that machines that can juice wheatgrass as well as other fruits and vegetables may take longer to use because their mouths are usually smaller, so the food needs to be cut into smaller pieces. Also, some of these machines may take longer to clean.
• Large feed tube
If you don’t have much time to juice, you might want to look for a juicer with a large feed tube. This will save you time because you won’t have to cut up your fruits and vegetables into small pieces before you juice them.
• Ejects pulp
Choose a juicer that has a system for getting rid of the pulp. This design is much better than one where all the pulp stays in the juicer and needs to be scooped out all the time. Juicers that keep the pulp in the middle basket and don’t throw it out can’t juice continuously, so they have to be stopped often to clean. Also, you can line the pulp catcher with a plastic bag from the produce section of a grocery store. This way, you won’t have to wash the container every time. When you’re done making juice, you can throw away the baggie with the pulp or use it for cooking or composting. This way, you don’t have to clean this part of the juicer.
• Only a few parts to clean
Look for a juicer that only has a few parts to clean and can also be put in the dishwasher. The more parts a juicer has and the harder they are to clean, the longer it will take to clean and put back together. This makes it less likely that you will use the machine every day. I like to rinse the parts of my juicer and let them dry on their own.
