From: altar@beaufort.sfu.ca (Ted Wayn Altar)
Subject: What's the Best Juicer
Keywords: {
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 17:10:39 GMT


Shaula "moo" Doyle writes:

>My mom wants a juicer for xmas, and she said she wanted to
>check consumer report, but I figure the real experts are here.


	 After shopping around I personally arrived at
buying the Champion Juicer (the better one the with stainless
steel shaft) since it came with an attachment for grain grinding.
I fact, I grind more grain for bread making than I actually use
the juicer for juicing!

     Originally, I thought that it would be nice to not waste
some apples from our tree (which are not very good for eating)
and also conveniently juice the many blackberries that grow here.
I used to first grind up the apples and berries in my blender
than then place the pulp in some cheesecloth and hand squeeze out
the juice.  Laborious but it does work quite well.  I thought I
could spare myself this manual labour of hand squeezing if I had
a juicer.  Well, the juicer works fine, but I do still have to
hand squeeze the pulp (in cheese cloth) that comes through the
juicer otherwise about 1/2 to 1/3 of the potential juice is
wasted in the still somewhat moist pulp.  The juice from those
apples and berries, however, is excellent :-)

     The pulp from firm carrots, however, is quite a different
matter.  Here the pulp is very dry and the juicer effectively
works to squeeze out what juice one could squeeze out even if one
were to attempt it by pulping it in a blender and then squeezing
out the juice by hand using cheesecloth.

     This dry pulp from the carrots, however, I just can't bring
myself to waste (especially since I always use organically grown
carrots), so I use this as vegetable mass for making burgers or
casserole dishes.  Works quite fine but given how much pulp can
be produced, this means a lot of burgers and casserole dishes for
the next few days.  What pulp I can't immediately use I simply
bagged and place in the freezer.  What this entails, however, is
that I simply don't make a lot of carrot juice since I also have
to use the pulp.  You might feel different about throwing away
that good vegetable matter and fiber, but I just can't justify
such a waste.

     You might, therefore, consider buying the kind of juicer
that doesn't attempt to separate the juice from the pulp but
simply blends things so finely that a drinkable slurry or thick
juice is produced.  At least in this way you don't have any pulp
to worry about and you can drink the whole vegetable, fiber and
all, which is better than simply drinking the juice only and
throwing the fiber and pulp out.  I don't know if there are any
disadavantages to eating only finely ground fiber as opposed to
larger chunks that result from chewing.  I wouldn't think so, but
I could be wrong.


Ok, in summary, here are 4 considerations:

A.  The standard juicers separate the juice from the pulp and you
either have to learn how to utilize that pulp in some recipes or
simply be wasteful and throw it out.  What one throws out,
however, are good vegetable nutrients and fiber that one also
should be eating along witht he juice.

B.  If you don't eat many vegetables but like vegetable juice,
then a juicer is a good way to start eating more vegetables.  I
would think, however, that this would apply to only a few people
who should maybe learn how to prepare and eat more vegetables.  I
is cheaper and might in the long run this is the better way to go
in order to learn how to eat and enjoy more vegetables.  Maybe
with some fussy kids, a juicer is a good way to get them to begin
to eat more vegetables.


C.  If you are going to buy a standard juicer, then consider how
much juice you really think you are going to make and drink week
in and week out.  To make better use of your juicer, consider
those models that also have a grain grinding attachment.
Grinding your own flours (wheat, barley, corn, soybean, rice,
lentil, bean, etc.) is easy and there are 5 notable advantages:

     1.  Whole grains are much cheaper to buy than ground flours
     2.  Whole grains can keep for years while ground flours only
          keeps for weeks or even sometimes only days.  I find
          this to be a considerable advantage.
     3.  You can determine the fineness or coarseness of the
          flour.
     4.  Freshly ground flour tastes better than store bought
          flours,
     
     5.  You can grind only what you need rather than be
          compelled to buy more than you are going to use in the
          short run.  In this way you can have available a far
          larger range of "flours" than you would otherwise have
          if you had to buy all and each already ground.
          Everyone has rice grains in the cupboard, but how many
          people have rice flour?
     
D.  If you anticipate drinking lots and lots of vegetable juices
and grain grinding is not for you, then consider the newer
juicers that masticate the whole vegetable into juice so that no
pulp is wasted.  These are, however, quite expensive.


Shaula, here are some other considerations that prompted
me to choose the Champion Juicer.  

1.  easy to clean.  Some machings are too fussy in the
kinds of components that need assembling and disassembling
each time you clean it.   

2.  produces as much juice at any one session as you wish
to make.  This is not the case with, say, the centrifrugal
juicers which consist of a container that spins the juice
out but which needs emptying before you attempt to make more
juice.

3.  heavy duty and longlasting.  This is the kind of juicer
that health food juice bars will use.

4.  resale value is good, should you later decide to sell it.


Now, the centrifrugal juicers are cheaper, and if you are not
anticipating make a lot of juice at any one sessions, say only
a glass at a time, then this might be a good way to go.

The Champion Juicer is expensive but not as much as, say,
the Vita-Mix, which makes "total juice" by pureeing whole
fruits and vegetables into drinkable puree.  


If it is just nutritious veg. and fruit juice you want, 
then do consider one of these "total juice" makers.  I guess you
can always add some water or can apple juice to make this
puree thinner if your find it to be too thick to your liking.
Of course, one must still remove the bitter parts (e.g., sees, pealings).
There is an advantage to "total juice" in that more nutrients
will be obtained.  For example, so I am told, there is about
3 times more vitamin C from a whole orange (peal and all) than
from just the juice alone.  Of course, kwiwi fruit has about
3 times more vitamin C than a whole orange, and here you
don't have to eat the skin.  Anyway, good luck in your choice.
Try posting some brand names you are considering to see if
any happy consumers out there on r.f.v or some of the other
food related conferences, might have some specific advice
about the product.
.
					cheers,

						ted
.


Newsgroups: rec.food.veg