What is the Best Juicer?
What attributes does a fantastic juicer have?
Makes your liquid rocket fuel (juice) with no pulp in the juice. No floaties welcome here.
Leaves the pulp adequately pulverized and dry. It squeezes (literally) the most out of the money that you paid for the produce.
You use it and clean it and use it again. 100% of the juicer you don’t use doesn’t make juice.
The Creme of the Crop Best Juicer: The Green Star
The Green Star has a unique design for extracting juice — a twin gear press which actually presses the juice instead of cutting and shredding as many centrifuge-juicers do. For this reason, the Green Star is actually the equipment that will produce the longest-lasting juice. It’s juice, whether green or fruit or otherwise, will love you long time. The Green Star is also unique in that it is capable of juicing tough greens like kale and collards, which are the types of produce that many other juices have a hard time with. The Green Star also leaves pulp far dryer than other juicers, making it the most efficient juicer. The downside? Green Star juicers are a pain to clean and reassemble because of their multiple, intricate parts. I’ve had some clients who have nearly quit their juice cleanses simply because their juicers (Green Star or otherwise) simply took longer than they had the patience for. And obviously, if our means to juice causes us to quit altogether, then it may not be the best fit.
*Note: I receive zero compensation and am in no way affiliated with any of these companies*
Your Best Juicer Could Be Your Blender
I personally do not own a juicer. I make juice in my blender by blending everything up with some water and then straining the mixture through a nut mylk bag. The Vitamix and nut-mylk bag method of making juice is gaining popularity, and for good reason, too. It’s by far the easiest and fastest way to make juice, and also has the fastest clean up. Additionally, you can throw whatever the heck you want in it all at once (want some kale watermelon juice? Throw ’em both in there at the same time). By manually straining the juice through a nut mylk bag (which doesn’t really take all that long), you can squeeze your little heart out and leave that pulp oh-so-dry, not to mention building a little sexy arm muscle along the way. The only downside is that juice from this method doesn’t last as long, and should be consumed preferably within 12 hours (if you make juice at 8pm, you could refrigerate and drink it at 8am the next morning), though it will be still fine within 24 hours if refrigerated.
Cost-Effectiveness
The Green Star and a Vitamix (you really need the best of the best to make your juice with a blender) are more pricey choices. Of course, the cost is relative, because what price can you put on your health? If you can get more juice out of the produce you buy, versus lamesauce equipment that doesn’t get all the available juice out of a given produce chunk, then a better piece of equipment is actually saving you money if you plan to drink juice at all. The Vitamix and Greenstar also generally last a very long time, so they are a good investment. If a Vitamix lasts you 8 years, for example, you’ve paid about $70 per year, or about $6 per month to have that Vitamix.
That being said, you simply may not have the ability to spend several hundred dollars on juicing equipment. If that is the case, there are still options for you!
There is a wide variety of well-loved cheaper juicers out there. If you can’t go for a Vitamix or Greenstar, consider getting the next best juicer you can for the price. In general, the quality does indeed reflect in the price.
Some other well loved brands of juicers: Samson, Omega, Breville, Norwalk, Jay Kordich, Hurom, Jack Lalanne.
Nifty Tricks if You’re Stuck With a Janky Juicer
Despair not, Juicy One: your doom is not impending. Try these:
1) Put your pulp back through your juicer. You’d be surprised at how much more juice you can get by running pulp through again.
2) Get a nut mylk bag and squeeze out the rest of the juice from the pulp your juicer left.
What is your favorite method for making juice? What model of juicer do you use?
Courtney
