Which Juicer Should I Use?

The first and obvious answer is ANY juicer that you WILL use.  After that, it comes down to budget, features, and how you will be using your juicer.

First, there are two basic kinds of juicers:  a Centrifugal and an Auger-type Juicer or Masticating Juicer.

Centrifugal:  Basically, these have a rim of sharp “teeth”. They look very similar to a grater that you might find on a food processor.  These spin rapidly and sling the finely grated pulp against a mesh screen using centrifugal force.  The pulp stays behind, the juice is ejected through the sieve and into the drainage tube.

The things that will improve or decrease your enjoyment of your centrifugal juicer are:

• How easy they are to clean, especially the screen
• How easy they are to use
• How much prep time you have to spend cutting, peeling, or manipulating your produce to get it into the unit
• How much juice they produce.  This will go along way in determining the ultimate cost of ownership. 
• Whether you plan on using more dry, green vegetables like kale and spinach or more wet produce like pineapple, berries, beets, and celery.
• How fast do they spin (rpm)? This will influence how thoroughly they extract the juice and will impact the volume of juice you receive.

Investigate these issues carefully before purchase or you could end up wasting your money.

Masticating or Auger type juicer:  These juicers use an auger like you might see in a grain truck, cement truck, or other industrial equipment. Through the action of the auger these machines “bite off” small pieces of the produce and run it through a tube that gets increasingly smaller.  By the time the produce reaches the apex of the auger, almost all liquid is squeezed from the produce similar to wringing out a wet cloth.

These are better for leafy produce, but they do not work so well on softer fleshed items like peaches and plums.

The main things you will want to consider:

• These are at least 1/3rd slower than the masticating juicers, but seem to be more thorough
• Slightly more juice volume than the higher end masticating juicers
• What type of produce will you be doing?  If you see yourself doing more beets, carrots, and tomatoes these may not be for you.
• How much will they cost and how much will they cost to operate for your purposes?
• How easy are they to clean.
• I hope this gives you some hints on which is best for you and can at least help give you some guidance.

Enough from me.  Here is a great video I found on youtube showing several different models. This guy is a salesperson, if that matters to you.  But he seems very sincere and extremely knowledgable. He looks and acts like a young, overly amped Lou Diamond Phillips, but forgive his hyperactivity and listen for the info.  It is a bit long, but worth watching.

Look, if you are going to drop 300 dollars (US) on a quality juicer, 30 minutes of education may be worth it, right?

BTW…you will hear a lot about oxidation in many of the videos you will find online. IMO, so what.  First, I am not planning on saving my juice, I am making it to drink immediately, or at least that day. Not much time to “oxidize” in my book.  If you are different it may be worth considering.  This, I believe is sound and fury signifying nothing.  Let’s face it, three weeks ago I was not consuming fruit and veg very much.  Now, I am getting 5 times more than the average american. Oxidized or not, I’m miles ahead of where I was. Enjoy the video and Juice On; Join the Journey.

30 Jan This entry was published on January 30, 2012 at 5:26 pm. It’s filed under Food Tips, Juicing, weight loss and tagged 60-Day Juice Program, David Robinson, how-to, join the reboot, jointhereboot, Juicer, juicing, juicing costs, morbid obesity, my juicing journey, obesity, raw food, selecting a juicer, weight loss, weightloss. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.