Simply opening a carton of orange juice for breakfast just doesn’t cut it in some households. This is why the demand for juicers has gone through the roof. They allow people to drink healthy tasty varieties of juice with different health benefits at home. Here is our guide on the best juicers to buy.
A juicer at home allows people to make tasty and healthy drinks party of their everyday life.
Advantages of Juicing
Juicing is said to have many benefits, including:
- Drinking freshly squeezed juice introduces vitamins and minerals to your diet. These will improve your health
- Juices have a number of different positive effects on your body. For example, some juices have anti-inflammatory properties, some boost your immune system and some give you more energy
- Having a juicer, is a convenient way for people to increase their intake of fruit and vegetables
- Juicing adds variety to people’s diets. This is because they are encouraged to try different ingredients in their juices
- Juicing is a good way of using up fruit and vegetables that are about to go off
- Juices taste great
Citrus Juicers
Most simple type of juicer. Used for soft fruits such as oranges.
Centrifugal Juicers
Most popular type of juicer. This is due to the compromise between performance and price. These are quick and easy to use, while being considered affordable.
Cold Press Juicers
Cold press juicers are also known as masticating juicers. They produce more juice than citrus and centrifugal juicers that is more nutritional. However, they are more expensive.
Twin Gear Juicers
For the juicing enthusiast. These are the best type of juicer, in the the fact that they produce the most juice from the ingredients. The nutritional value is much higher than the other types.
Types of Juicers
There are four main types of juicer you can buy. Which one you choose depends on what you actually want to use it for.
Citrus
All of these juicers are capable of extracting juice out of citrus fruits. But, if this is all you want to do, you don’t need anything too fancy. In fact, a standard citrus juicer will do the job perfectly well, saving you money.
You can buy a very simple citrus juicer for around £10. But there are more expensive electronic versions, which will allow you to juice different types and sizes of fruit.
Advantages
- Simple to use
- Easy to find inexpensive models
- Easy to clean
- Compact, so easy to store
Disadvantages
- Not great for making loads of juice
- Not very versatile, as you can’t use it for anything other than citrus fruits
Centrifugal
Centrifugal juicers are also known as juice extractors. They are the most popular type of juicer you can buy. They work by using fast spinning blades to chop up your ingredients. They also have filters that separate the pulp from the juice. This type of juicer is more versatile than the citrus juicer. They are also considered more affordable than the other types.
Centrifugal juicers are easy and quick to use. They are good for juicing most fruit and vegetables. However, if you intend to add herbs, leafy green vegetables or wheatgrass to your juice, you will find that they won’t juice too well. The fact that the pulp gets separated from he juice, means that some vitamins and minerals are left behind. Also, the pulp contains the fibre. However, you can use the pulp for other things. Such as putting it in to healthy snacks.
Advantages
- Easy to use
- Lots of options to suit all budgets
- Versatile
Disadvantages
- Some veggies don’t juice particularly well
- Doesn’t produce as much juice as a cold press juicer
- Less nutritional value, as the pulp is separated from the juice
- Takes a while to clean
- Large
- Quite loud
Cold Press/Masticating
Cold Press juicers are more expensive than citrus and centrifugal juicers. However, they do provide more nutritional value and more juice.
Cold Press juicers crush the ingredients to get the juice out of them. They can extract the juice of lots of different types of fruit and vegetables. This type of juicer works a bit slower than the centrifugal type, but you will get more juice that will actually last longer. They are quite versatile too, as they can be used for making nut butter or baby food.
Cold Press juicers are for those that will juice every day. This is because they are more expensive, therefore, if you are an occasional juicer, you may want to look at other options.
Advantages
- Longer lasting juice
- Extracts more juice than centrifugal juicers
- More nutritional value from the pulp
- Quieter than other types of juicer
- Versatile
- Can extract the juice from leafy greens better than centrifugal juicers
Disadvantages
- More expensive than centrifugal juicers
- Cleaning takes time
- Quite large
- Juices stay fresh for longer
Twin Gear
The twin gear juicer is for the juicing advocate. Twin gear juicers are more expensive than the other juicers, but there is a reason for this. They extract even more nutrients from the ingredients than the other types. They work by squeezing the ingredients between two interlocking gears. They do this quite slowly, to make sure that they get as much out of the ingredients as possible.
The majority of people won’t really want to spend the extra cash on a twin gear juicer. But, those that are very dedicated to a healthy lifestyle. This type of juicer is the very best type.
Advantages
- Extracts very nutritious juices
- Quiet(ish)
- Juice stays fresh for longer
- Versatile, as it can be used for making bread and pasta too!
- Can be used for extracting juice from a wide range of fruit and vegetables.
Disadvantages
- Quite expensive
- Not easy to clean
- Slow (but that’s how it works)
- Large, so may be difficult to store
- Not suitable for citrus fruits, as it is too powerful
How to Choose the Best Juicer
While you are looking for the best juicers to buy, you need to consider a few things.
1. Budget
The amount of money you want to spend is always the starting point to buy anything. You do get what you pay for, so higher end juicers will cost more money. More expensive juicers will extract more juice, be easier to clean, look nicer, be better made and will have good warranties.
If you are looking to juice everyday, we suggest that you spend more money on your juicer. Cheaper ones will leave you feeling unsatisfied with your purchase, as they won’t perform as well and produce poor quality juices. More expensive juicers will last much longer too.
2. The time it takes to make a juice
The type of juicer you buy will be determined by the amount of time you can spare to make the juice. This is because, some juicers take a long time to work. Twin gear juicers are the best, but they take a while to do their work. So if time is of the essence, you may want to compromise between having the best juice possible and getting it on time. If this is the case a centrifugal juicer would be best.
However, if quality of juice is more important than getting it quickly, a twin gear would be a better choice. This will take about five to seven minutes to make 500ml of juice, where a centrifugal juicer will only take three to four minutes.
3. Amount of Juice and Pulp
The amount of juice you get from ingredients is a good measure of how effective a juicer is. The more juice a machine produces, the more expensive it is. Twin gear juicers produce the most juice and very dry pulp. While centrifugal juicers produce less juice and wetter pulp.
4. Cleaning
Juicers are actually quite a faff to clean to start off with. However, once you know how your new juicer comes apart, it becomes a lot easier. Some juicers are more complicated than others with more moving parts. One thing to look out for, is that some juicer manufacturers claim that their product is be exceptionally easy to clean. Don’t be drawn in by this too much.
5. Noise
If you get up before everyone else in the house and have a morning juice, noise may be a consideration before you buy a juicer. Centrifugal juicers are quite loud, but there are some juicers that are designed to be super quiet.
6. Size of the Feed Chute
Large feed chutes make juicing much quicker. For example being able to stuff a whole apple in to the juicer is a lot quicker than having to slice it up first. You will find large feed chutes in centrifugal juicers, cold press juicers have smaller ones. This is considered a safety feature to stop kids poking their fingers in.
7. Speeds
Some juicers come with different modes. They will have slow speeds for soft fruits such as oranges and fast for ingredients such as carrots. These modes are useful if you want some flexibility in your juicing.
8. The Design and Size
If you are juicing on a daily basis and keep your new juicer on show, you will want it to look good. However, if you are short on worktop space, you may want to put it in a cupboard. This means you should consider the size of the juicer to ensure you have somewhere to put it.
The length of the cord is worth considering too. This is because you obviously need to plug it in, and if your spare kitchen space is too far away from the plug socket, you are going to be quite frustrated.
9. Warranty
Juicers come with warranties, but the warranties vary between manufacturers. Most high speed centrifugal juicers come have one to five year warranties. This is because the motors can burn out. However, clod press juicers can have ten year warranties . They can also have domestic warranties on the motor and 5 year plus warranties on other parts.
You should look at the warranties of the juicers before you buy, to see what they cover.
10.Leafy Greens
Leafy greens are rich in vitamins, minerals and enzymes. The most nutritious ones are:
- Wheatgrass
- Spinach
- Kale
- Chard
- Cabbage
Centrifugal juicers are not very good at juicing leafy greens. If you want to supercharge your juices, you should buy a cold press or twin gear juicer.
