Your Guide to Choosing Juicers

There is no doubt that fruits and vegetables are a food source for many nutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fibers, and others. Many people choose to make juice or cocktails instead of eating their fruits as they enjoy it more.

Squeezing juice out of fruits and vegetables goes way back, but with the rise of the second industrial revolution in the beginning of the 18^th century, many people started to invent machines and electric devices and appliances to ease people’s daily lives like doing laundry, storing food and beverages, mincing and grinding meat, cooking food, etc…

Juicers was one of those appliances that simplified the act of making juice whether to enjoy the taste of the juice or to get the nutrients without having to peel and cut the fruits and vegetables.

We will not list the importance of fruits and vegetables in this article, but we will guide through buying a juicer by listing the different models, specifications and features you need to check.

We will now list the most important types of juicers:

Manual Juicers

Manual juicers are usually used when squeezing citric fruits like oranges and lemons. It does not require a power source and its mechanism is simple; the fruit is placed in and the manual handle is pressed to squeeze the juice out through holes without mixing the juice with the seeds inside the fruit.

This type of juicers belongs to the classical type and it is considered an easy to use noiseless tool (since there is no motor). It relies on manually pressing the fruit to remove the juice. This type is also considered the most economical, and smaller models are easy to clean. Note that this type is only suitable for citric fruits, which is also considered a flaw.

Also, since you manually have to press the handle, it might be hard to squeeze a large quantity of fruits to produce the juice – this applies to all models of this type.

Some manual juicers have a small motor that once pressed will squeeze the fruit and spin to produce juice making it easier on the user.

Centrifugal Juicers

Centrifugal juicers have a micro-mesh strainer basket that spins on a very high speed powered by electricity. This leads to the vegetables and fruits to be cut down (mashed) into tiny pieces. These tiny pieces in turn are collected in the strainer bowl which also spins at a high speed to produce juice.

Centrifugal juicers have two main types: the first collect pulp in a container inside the juicer, and second collect the pulp in a container outside the juicer.

Juicers that collect the pulp inside produce a bigger amount of juice faster. Both types can juice many different fruits and vegetables and are easy to use. Juicers that save the pulp outside it does not need cleaning except for after the juicing, while juicers that keep the pulp inside might need to be cleaned more than once during the same juicing process.

It is important to know that fast spinning inside the centrifugal juicer leads to heat which may affect some of the nutrients extracted. Also, the motor inside it creates noise that some label as annoying, but that depends on the number of spins per minute.

Masticating Juicers

This type of juicers can have an adjustable pressure cap that can mash fruits and vegetables. The inner parts of this juicer have similar mechanism to centrifugal juicers but it is slower. This type can also mash and squash making it suitable to prepare baby food.

The noise made by this type is usually less than the centrifugal and the mashing and juicing takes more time to finish which leads to producing more nutrients in the juice.

We must point that masticating juicers are not as efficient when mashing vegetable as it is better at mashing fruits.

What are the specifications you need to check before buying a juicer?

After choosing the type you want (between manual juicers, centrifugal juicers, or masticating juicers) there are some specifications you need to check to make sure you are making a smart and wise decision that are listed below:

• Quantity: it is important that the user is aware of the amount of juice they want to produce. If a person with a farm wants to produce juice then none if these types are suitable as these types are useful for home use.
• Pulp Container: there are different sizes of pulp containers in juicers. If the user wants to juice a big quantity then you need to get a big pulp container.
• Feed Chute: there are different sizes for chutes (chutes pass the fruit to where they will be juiced and mashed). Large chutes will not require the user to chop the fruits into little pieces while a small chute will need the user to cut the fruits into little pieces.
• Electric Cord Length: check the length of the cord and get a juicer with a suitable power cord length to reach the electric plug.
• Capacity: usually the internal strainer that does not remove the pulp outside can hold up to 2 liters.
• Electric Consumption: the range of consumption ranges between 550 and 700 watts and there are some juicers that reach 1000 watt.
• Multiple Blades: regardless of the type you want to get, some juicers have more than one blade that can be changed. Each blade can give a different result like some will give you thicker juice!

Summary

The price of juicers depends on how they process the fruits and vegetable, mash or juice, and the extra specifications, warranty period, and other factors.

We must point that manual juicers are the cheapest type, while juicers that are powered by electricity are more expensive. Generally, you can get a good quality juicer with extra features for around 100 JODs.

Just like always, Labeb advises you to choose what you need and what is within your budget. Also, remember to get an easy to clean juicer!

Finally, we must mention the brands available in the market like: Philips, Moulinex, Sona, Conti, Omega, and others.