Buying the best juicer will provide you with many benefits. Juicing offers many health benefits. Professional athletes like Jon Jones juice in order to recover from demanding workouts. Celebrities like Martha Stewart juice in order to improve their overall health and emotional well being.
Regular readers of Juicing for Men have written in to thank us for their glowing skin. Some users have stopped using diabetes medication, as their blood sugar levels have been regulated. One dedicated juicer cancelled his Achilles surgery after juicing for 4 months healed him.
You’ve found this page because you know that juicing is awesome. You want to buy the best juicer for your money. What should you do? Should you buy a Breville Juicer? Should you buy an Omega Juicer? What is the best juicer for you?
The best juicer is the one you use the most. How is that for a quick-and-dirty answer?
I don’t mean to be flip, but that really is the truth. Experts will argue all day about the best juicer. They will make fantastic points about the pros and cons of various juicers. But what good is a juicer that you never use?
The long answer is much longer. Let’s talk about a few things you should consider.
Best Juicer: Things to Consider
How much can you afford to spend on a juicer? The economy is tight. Employers expect us to “do more with less.” What is your juicing budget?
If you can afford to spend between $50 and $100, you should buy a Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juice Extractor or a Breville BJE200XL Compact Juice Fountain 700-Watt Juice Extractor.
The Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juice Extractor was rated a “best buy” by Consumer Reports. The Hamilton Beach gets a very high yield of juice. “Yield” refers to the amount of juice extracted from a given amount of produce.
The Hamilton Beach actually outperformed some of the more expensive Breville Juicers. It is the juicer that is my own kitchen.
How much time do you have to juice? If you only have 5-10 minutes to juice, then you will want a centrifugal juicer such a Breville Juicer. With a centrifugal juicer, you drop produce through a chute. A blade spinning at up to 10,000 RPMs shreds the produce, extracting the juice out one end and the pulp out of the other.
Centrifugal juicers are extremely fast and do a great job with apples, carrots, beets, celery, cucumber, and other firm fruits and vegetables. They generally offer lower yields from leafy vegetables such as kale, collard greens, spinach, and lettuce and with herbs such as parsley and mint.
(Making a Real V8 Juice with a Breville BJE200XL Compact Juice Fountain.)
The Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juicer is a centrifugal juicer. Because it tears through commonly-juiced vegetables and is easy to clean, it’s also an excellent candidate for “best juicer.”
Will you primarily juice leafy greens or will you juice more carrots, apples, and other fruits? If you are going to juice leafy greens, then you want a masticating juicer like an Omega Juicer.
(Making Kale-Grape Juice with the Omega J8006 juicer.)
A masticating works by grinding fruits and vegetables with an auger. The auger moves at 80 or so RPMs. Because the auger moves more slowly, it extracts more juice from the produce.
Some people believe that using a masticating-style juicer causes the juice to oxidize less. A juice with less oxidation will have more nutrients and enzymes, tastes better, and will store longer.
I’m not entirely sure that oxidation is a big issue but I know for a fact that a masticating juicer will give you 50-100% more juice from your leafy greens. Where as a centrifugal juicer may only yield 2-4 ounces of juice from a large bunch of kale, a masticating juicer may yield up to 4-8 ounces.
Bar none the best masticating juicers are the Omega brand juicers. Omega juicers come with 10-15 year warranties. They are high quality and high yield.
The top contenders for best masticating juicers are the Omega J8006 and Omega VRT 350.
These are commercial grade juicers that are made to last. Omega stands behind their juicers. If you buy a new juicer from Amazon, you will receive a 10-year warranty. (Breville only offers a 1-year warranty.)
Buying an Omega juicer is a lot like buying in bulk. You pay more money up front to save money by not having to make several smaller purchases.
Since they offer a higher yield, you save money in the long run because you won’t have to buy as much produce. You also save more money in the long run because you won’t have to buy a new juicer for at least 10 more years.
You can also make “banana ice cream” in the Omega juicers. Simply run frozen bananas (or any other frozen fruit) through your Omega juicer. It will turn the bananas from a sold mass to something resembling ice cream. It is delicious.
(Making banana ice cream with an Omega J8006.)
What’s the bottom line? As you can see, there is no single answer to the question, “What is the best juicer?” Each person has to find the juicer that is best for him.
My first juicer was a Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juicer. Most of my friends bought a Breville juicer. All of them love their juices and many of the pictures you see on our Juicing Recipes page are reader-submitted.
I eventually upgraded to an Omega J8006 and could not be happier. Everyone I know who has purchased an Omega J8006 has been similarly thrilled.
However, the best juicer, once again, is the one you use most often. As long as you are using any juicer, you are on the right path.
Once you’ve bought a juicer: Try out our Juicing Recipes.
Leave a Reply