A juicer is a kitchen appliance, which is designed to extract juice from fruits and vegetables. Most juicers can also be used to make fruit drinks, and a high quality juicer can be a very useful addition to a kitchen. Many consumers engage in juicing because they believe that it will enhance their health by increasing the amount of vitamins and minerals that they consume. In addition, juicing is fast and relatively easy, especially if you keep fruits and veggies prepared, so it can provide a quick meal or snack.
There are three main types of juicers. They differ by how they extract and separate the juice from the pulp. Some juicers are better suited for fruit and some are better suited for vegetables. There is no single juicer that performs all juicing operations at the same level. One of the best sources of juicers is at Breville Juicers.xtz.cc.
A masticating juicer chews up the fruits and vegetables, which are pushed through it, extracting juice while retaining some fiber as well. Many masticating juicers can be used to make nut butters, pureed foods, and fruit sorbets as well. A masticating juicer tends to be slow, because it extracts as much usable material from the food being fed through it, and it will produce juice, rather than a blended drink like a smoothie. These juicers are suitable for making wheat grass and carrot juice, two popular dietary supplements. Some consumers maintain that the quality of juice is higher with a masticating juicer, although it takes longer.
A centrifugal juicer spins blades around at high speed. The blades often resemble a grater, and are designed to quickly extract juice while routing the pulp out the back of the juicer and into a waste container. Typically, the blades are covered by an enclosure, with a hole to feed fruits and vegetables through. Centrifugal juicers are more suited to whole fruits and vegetables, and do not work as well with leafy greens. The juice produced tends to be light and tasty, although it does not have as much fiber as juice from a masticating juicer.
The Centrifugal machine first grinds the fruit and vegetables then pushes them through the strainer by spinning at a very high rpm (similar to your washing machine on the spin cycle). This method usually yields a little more volume of juice. The Omega 1000 & 4000 and Juiceman II are centrifugal machines. Most juicers sold on the market are centrifugal). Optional citrus attachments are available for the Omega 1000 and Omega 4000 juicers that allow juicing of citrus fruits without peeling.
Single Gear (Masticating) Juicers use a single gear or auger that literally chews fruit and vegetable fibers and breaks up the plant cells, resulting in more fiber, enzymes, vitamins and trace minerals. Masticating juicers are very capable at juicing most fruits and vegetables, and they will also extract juice from wheat grass, spinach, and other leafy greens and herbs. Note: the Champion Juicer does not juice wheat grass or greens well).
The Triturating (twin gear) machine, which turns at a slower rpm, has a two-step process. The first step crushes the fruits and vegetables, while the second step presses the juice. This process gives you more fiber, enzymes, vitamins and trace minerals. These juicers also have magnetic and bio-ceramic technology that slows down the oxidation process, which is good if you want to make and store your juice. These juicers are excellent for juicing leafy greens, wheat grass, sprouts, root vegetables like beets and carrots and most water dense (non-pulpy) fruits. Juicing time is longer with twin gear juicers due to the slower juicing process, which gives you a higher quality juice.
But here's the really interesting part — you can replace the screen with a solid plate and instead of apple juice, get applesauce; or you can put in nuts and get nut butter. And when the peanut butter you've just made sticks to the roof of your mouth, you know what you can do? Wash it down with some freshly made Granny Smith apple juice. With a smidgen of imagination, you can turn your juicer into a one-stop snack bar — not a bad return on a couple of hundred bucks.
Juicers are a great addition to your raw food kitchen, but not all juicers are created equally. A centrifugal juicer (the common spinning basket type) adds lots of oxygen to your juice (thus detracting nutrients), is very wasteful, and cannot juice drier produce like parsley, wheat grass, or ginger very effectively. The best type of juicer to buy is a masticating or "homogenizing” juicer, such as a GreenLife. These juicers have slow moving parts (less heat) that "chew” up fruits and vegetables, extracting the maximum amount of juice from just about anything. Another advantage is that you can run nuts and seeds through these machines to make delicious nutmeats and nut butters. Masticating juicers are much more expensive than centrifugal juicers, but well worth the investment.
Twin gear juicers operate by pressing food between two interlocking roller gears. This juicing process yields a larger volume of juice and extracts more fiber, enzymes, vitamins and trace minerals. Twin gear juicers do more than just extract juice, they homogenize to make baby foods, nut butters, fruit sorbets and many have attachments for making pasta and rice cakes.
Quality of parts: The lowest priced juicers have more plastic than metal. Not only is metal a stronger material, but plastic also tends to stain over time especially with vegetables like carrots and fruits like tomatoes.
Wheat grass Juicers are made exclusively for extracting the juice from wheat grass and other leafy greens, as well as some soft fruits like grapes. Wheat grass juicers are not made for extracting juice from vegetables and most fruits. Wheat grass juicers are available in both electric and manual models.
When shopping for a citrus juicer, here are some popular features to consider. Many come with a large reservoir to catch the juice and pour directly from the container. Many have a variable pulp control so that the juice can be made to be more or less pulpy. Some electric models will spin the juicing cone in forward and reverse directions in order to get the most juice from the fruit. Some come with different sizes of juicing cone to accommodate different sizes of fruit such as small limes and large grapefruit. Citrus juicers can range in price from around $20 to over $100.
Vegetables have fibrous, "tough" cell walls, requiring more aggressive mechanical juicing action than fruit. If you want to juice MOSTLY vegetables and some fruits, the above listed centrifugal and centrifugal-ejection juicers are fast and easy to clean and do a good job with most vegetables as well as fruits. Where they have trouble is with wheat grass and leafy greens.
The Champion juicers can juice almost every type of vegetable efficiently. They do have some trouble with leafy vegetables and stringy vegetables like celery. By blocking off the juice spout (with the blank or solid plate), the Champion can be used as a homogenizer to make such foods as raw applesauce, tomato sauce and baby food. It can make peanut butter or other nut butters. It also makes wonderful ice cream-like desserts from raw frozen bananas and other fruits. By assembling the Champion without the blank or juicing screen, it can be used as a grater or to make shave ice. The Champion's do not juice wheat grass but do a better job with fruits than the single-auger and twin-gear juicers (which are better at leafy greens and also juice wheat grass). Noni Juice is very healthy for your immune system and also as a weight loss product.
