Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Juicers

Juicing in and of itself can be daunting to those who are new to it, let alone the part where you have to pick out a new appliance to accomplish all the cool new things you want to try to do. My first recommendation would be to find some books on the topic that interest you to see if there’s a particular trend in the type of appliance the authors are recommending. I would also make a list of things you intend to juice that you think might be awkward in just a regular blender, that way you can ask your salesperson qualifying questions about all the machines you might encounter to find the best fit for your individual needs.

Do NOT get suckered into whatever your friends tell you is the new best hot thing, unless your friend has been using said item for a number of years heavily and you trust their opinion. ;) Fads come and go - these machines cost a lot of money! They will last forever if you get the right one that works for you.

As with anything, look at the type of warranty they offer and look at both positive and negative reviews to see if their customer service is reputable in case you have an issue. These machines are expensive and should last you many years if treated properly!!

Question 1 - Do you want to juice wheatgrass or other leafy greens?

Ok, you’ve decided it’s time to take a step up from your regular blender. You hear about how amazing the VitaMix is, but then there’s all these juicers, too, what’s the difference?

A VitaMix is still a blender, while an extremely powerful blender, everything you put into it pours out into your glass to drink, so if you want to add wheatgrass, you’re going to have some issues. I did find some tricks to extract the juice from the wheatgrass without a juicer, but it seems like a lot of extra work to me, personally.

VitaMix Professional Series blenders

If you don’t care about greens, then a VitaMix might be all you need. You can do all sorts of awesome things in the VitaMix like make your own nut butters, confectionary sugars, etc. so it’s a great addition to your home if you want to make more of your own pantry staples as well as juices and smoothies.

One last thing to remember is that blending your fruits and vegetables adds more oxygen (and with the VitaMix, possibly heat) which in turn reduces the amount of nutrients you are actually extracting from them.

(Don’t worry, I will cover the VitaMix and blenders in more detail in another blog post! This is just to help you figure out super-blender vs. juicer.)

Question 2 - What’s the difference between the types of juicers? (Or, as one friend said, “There’s more than one type of juicer?!?”)

Alright, so you do need to step into juicer land. But there are so many!! At least with the blenders, you know VitaMix is the next step up and that’s it! (Ok, that's not really it, there's a bazillion different VitaMix models and now the Ninja with their bazillion different models, too...another time!) But juicers…where to begin?!

The main difference between any juicer on the market is whether it is centrifugal, masticating, or triturating. What???

Centrifugal —> Masticating —> Triturating in this order is equal to:

Cost - lowest to highest
Nutrients extracted - lowest to highest
Speed - fastest to slowest
Foam produced - most to least
Noise - most to least
Assembly - easy to complex
Weight - light to heavy
Versatility - least to most

Omega centrifugal juicer

Centrifugal Juicers

Omega centrifugal juicer parts
Did you ever get to use a centrifuge in science class or see them use it on the TV shows when they are looking at blood samples? It’s a spinny-thing. ;) It spins around really fast and separates substances of different densities, so with blood, you can tell what percentage of red blood cells are in it. It uses “centrifugal force”, thus its name. So, from this we can deduce a centrifugal juicer must spin around, yes? :) On a juicer, it is basically a metal drum that has teeth inside of it to help rip the pulp to extract the juice.


These are the least expensive of the various juicer models and don’t have a lot of parts. Because they spin so fast, a lot of foam is produced. You also don’t retain a lot of the nutrients from what you’re juicing, so it’s recommended to drink the juice immediately after juicing to reap the benefits. The amount of juice extracted from the fruit and vegetables will also be lower than with the other styles, and they also aren’t as effective with wheatgrass or other leafy vegetables.


Breville Juice Fountain
I personally think they are kind of messy to clean up because you have to get all the pulp out of the interior. I know the Omega brand centrifugal juicer has the option of purchasing filters to make cleanup easier, but even using those I still found it to be quite messy. The Breville Juice Fountain comes with a pulp container, but I would assume the interior still needs to be cleaned like the Omega. However, I don’t have experience with this! It just makes sense as to how they work; the Breville obviously just pushes most of the pulp into another receptacle after tearing it apart in the centrifugal portion. The Juice Fountain does claim to extract more nutrients because its design reduces contact in the centrifugal piece, which is where the oxygen is coming into play.

Jack LaLanne’s Power Juicer is a centrifugal style juicer. It has a really large feed chute, which is really all that I can tell that sets it apart from other centrifugal juicers. There are different models, some of which have similar features to the Breville Juice Fountain. Remember that you do still need to take large, hard pits out of fruits, so you might still have to do a little prep work despite its large feed tube. I had a roommate who really loved these, but mentioned that she often had to replace parts on it, yet she still swore by them. She found the machines and/or their parts at Goodwill frequently and purchased them anytime she found them so that she’d have the spare parts! That doesn’t scream endurance to me, but obviously she liked it.

Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Pro

De’Longhi, Cuisinartand Krups now also make centrifugal juicers, too!

Masticating Juicers

Masticating style juicers are what most serious juicers are probably going to own, or wish they owned, at least. These folks are more into their wheatgrass and greens and extracting more nutrients out of what they are juicing, as well. Why does that word sound familiar? Masticate. Ah - Chewing! Crushing food by grinding. And they do utilize an auger, just like a food grinder. Crazy! They actually make these in horizontal and upright styles, and each can do different things.

Omega Vert juicer

I am going to assume the mindset of folks owning these is similar to my own, which is that all serious electric juicers are expensive, so you might as well get the one that pulls more nutrients out of the produce you’re spending all that money on, while not completely breaking the bank on the even more expensive triturating style juicer. While these do have more parts than a centrifugal juicer, I personally find clean up to be much more simple because very little fruit remains on the individual parts and they are also small and easy to rinse under the faucet.

Omega Vert juicer parts

Omega’s Vert Juicer has a pulp ejection container as well as the juice container, so that makes it easier if you want to use the pulp - and there ARE ways to utilize your pulp afterwards! (Google, people!) I think this juicer is just extremely fun to use and really simple, so it’s my personal favorite. You literally just shove fruit and veggies into the top and it does its thing and plops the juice into one container and the pulp in another. Voila!

Omega Nutrition Center
The Omega Nutrition Center Juicer is their original masticating juicer, and it’s pretty simple to use, too, but since it can do so many more things besides juice, there are a lot more interchangeable parts. This machine is horizontal (Vert is…you guessed it, vertical!) and can also extrude pasta and soy milk, grind and mince coffee and herbs, make baby food, nut butters and frozen desserts. So this is obviously an amazing choice if you need the machine to do a little bit more of what you might want to do in a blender and makes this more of a comparison to a VitaMix than the other juicers. This machine doesn’t necessarily come with containers to catch the juice and the pulp (there is one small container with a sieve piece to help filter your juice more afterwards if it’s still pulpy); the juice comes out of the bottom of the “drum” and the pulp or anything else you make with the machine comes out of the front end of the “drum cap”.

Nutrition Center parts (similar pieces are interchangeable)

Omega seem to be consistently rated the top juicers in the ‘masticating’ category on most juicing sites I have discovered, and I honestly never had any customer complaints or returns with their machines, so I would definitely highly recommend Omega. However, there are other brands!

The Breville Juice Fountain Crush just came out in 2013 so there aren’t a lot of reviews available yet, but their centrifugal Juice Fountain is so highly regarded, I am sure this is going to be a really good model to try. Other brands that seem relatively popular include Hurom, Kuvings, Champion, & Big Boss. Krups has also just come out with a masticating juicer, too.

Breville Juice Fountain Crush
Triturating Juicers

Trituration is the act of grinding, like with powders in a mortar and pestle. Triturating juicers are the most expensive on the market and I have no experience with them at all, unfortunately. This type of juicer will extract the most juice of all the options because it uses very powerful twin gears that crush almost anything you put into them dry.

Angel juicer

Since triturating machines grind and crush, you can also use them as a food mill. They work rather slowly in order to keep the oxygen out and retain the nutrients, but because of this are virtually silent when operating. Very little foam is produced using this method and of course wheatgrass and greens are great in them. They can even crush harder fruits like guava, and also crushes seeds to extract their juices, too! (Be cautious - some pits can have poisonous effects and are not recommended to be eaten so know your pits and seeds!) Triturating juicers are of course very large and heavy, so storage space and having to move it around frequently might be a concern.

I would say these machines are for people who definitely have the money and the space, and to spend this kind of money on a juicer you are probably extremely serious and juice several times a day, or really just have a lot of money to spend on stuff you don’t need! :P

Green Star juicer

The only two brands I can really seem to find, but both seem very highly recommended on juicing sites are Green Star & Green Power Juicers and Angel Juicers. Green Star & Green Power were the mostly widely recognized name and several models seemed to be recommended across several sites.

Wheatgrass Juicers

Weston manual wheatgrass juicer


You can get both manual and electric wheatgrass-only juicers. I’ve never actually utilized one of these. The Miracle brand seems to have a few electric wheatgrass juicer models that can also handle other leafy greens, soft fruits and berries, but normally these machines are only for wheatgrass.

Miracle electric wheatgrass juicer
Electric Citrus Juicers

Just to add clarification, there are a lot of juicers made by all the brand names you are used to seeing on your other kitchen appliances. Most of these look very similar to a countertop glass or ceramic citrus juicer on the top, and that’s because that’s the only thing they can juice are citrus fruits. These are great for people who just like to make their own fresh orange juice or have a home bar and like to squeeze fresh citrus juice quickly and easily. Or, a summertime lemonade stand! :)

Cuisinart electric citrus juicers

I have always had good luck with the Cuisinart juicer, and a lot of customers were excited when Bodum released theirs because it has two speeds, although it doesn’t look like Bodum is marketing the juicer anymore so perhaps production has stopped. There are still a lot of places to purchase it online and the price doesn’t look any lower, haha!

Breville citrus juicer
Breville also makes one, as does Black and Decker, Waring Pro, Krups, Proctor Silex, Hamilton Beach, and many more!

Manual Citrus Juicers

We might as well round it out with the classics since we’ve talked about EVERYTHING else! We’re almost done, I promise!

You’ve got your basic glass or ceramic citrus juicer that’s kind of like a dish. Pretty much all stores sell the same brands from the same distributors like Harold Import Co.

Ceramic countertop citrus juicer

Brands like Chef’n and Prepara have gadgetized that classic idea with storage and measuring devices for the juice to fall into. I really like the Chef’n Juicester because of the measuring piece - it even has small measurement markings. Cleverly, I must say, you can just tilt the Juicester to the small measurement side to see how many teaspoons you’ve got! (The Juicester XL does NOT have the measurements, presumably because you want a lot of juice, not a little!)

Chef'N Juicester measuring teaspoons!

You’ve got citrus reamers - in plastic/melamine, stainless steel, and wood. (You want something non-reactive since citrus is acidic.) Oh, and now there’s even silicone!

Zak! melamine citrus reamers

Hand-held citrus squeezers (I really like the idea of the 2-in-1 Lemon & Lime juicer at the bottom!).

Chef'n hand held lime squeezer

And then there’s the big honking manual bar juicers. Most actual bars will own a commercial juice press, and popular brands include Cilio (search through the “Products —> Bar”), Amco’s OrangeX (I am wondering if I can’t find a direct manufacturer link because the juicers are sold through commercial distributors only??), Metrokane, and the Hamilton Beach Commercial Citrus Juicer.

cilio commercial juice press

Alright guys & gals, I am juicer-ed out! I learned a ton researching this blog - I would have been a WAY better salesperson if I had to write an essay like this about them, haha!. I must admit that in doing all this research that I also feel it’s the most comprehensive thing I’ve seen about juicers online, so take that, internet! :)

Monday, April 14, 2014

Fuchsia Saturday

Alright, confession time. I want to upgrade my blog site because I want the ability to have a little more organization and tabs so that I may also share recipes I have tweaked as well as gardening information! I have learned SO MUCH about gardening in just the last year and continue to learn more every day, and have found that a lot of my friends want that knowledge, too. So why not share! Plus, another confession, it’s SPRING and all I have is yard work on the brain, so it’s REALLY hard to focus on researching appliance information. I’m sorry! I really am working on a juicer blog!

So here is a peek at what happened in my garden this weekend!


Fred Meyer's Fuchsia Saturday Ad
FUCHSIA SATURDAY!

For one thing, I think I will finally remember how to spell fuchsia. YES! We moved into our house a little over a year ago and the previous owners left us a lot of trash, but also a lot of helpful items, too. Two nice black metal hanging baskets were left behind and I saw an ad for Fred Meyer (in the Kroger family of grocery stores) advertising for Fuchsia Saturday last year. Bring your own planters (up to 8), buy some flowers, and they will give you free Black Gold dirt. I took my baskets in and was smart enough (I thought) to arrive fairly early. They were already sold out of the fiber planter inserts you need for the baskets. Grrr. Home I went. Probably best that I save money for other projects anyway, right?

Fiber planter insert
This year, I am prepared! I bought the inserts at Lowe’s in February! Ha! I also got an ad that directed me to this video link they provide on how to plant and care for fuchsias, which totally helped me pick out the proper number of starts to purchase for my baskets. You want to have about an inch around the perimeter of the basket or pot, and you can just kind of set the starts on top of a little dirt and fill in around them until they are lightly packed in.

I probably could have stretched it to six, but I did five per basket. I did “Winston Churchill” in one and “Dollar Princess” in the other. And of course, I still arrived early and it was buzzing with action already, so I think that was a wise choice!

They need morning light and evening shade, so I ended up buying a new hook to install on the front porch. Which might get too much light. We’ll see! Hopefully by next year I will learn more about annuals and hanging basket arrangements, haha!

Miracle Gro Liquafeed system
You’re supposed to feed them often, so now I’m trying to figure out how to use all of the Miracle Gro Liquafeed refills the previous owners left behind for us in a normal spray bottle, versus the hose attachment you’re supposed to use. (My preference would be to spray them with a bottle versus changing the hose head just for two silly planters! I live in the Pacific Northwest - I rarely require Miracle Gro!)

I am going to trust this information I found on a gardening forum: “The Liquafeed refills are the same product as the 12-4-8 Liquid All Purpose Plant Food, which says to apply at 1/3 capful per 2 gallons. A capful is about 4 tbsp or 12 teaspoons, so 1/3 of that is 4 tsp/2 gallons or 2 tsp per gallon.” Hopefully that works!



I will definitely make this an annual event to take advantage of the free dirt and free labor to plant my stuff for me! I will also be sure to bring other planters if I have any more to fill next year. I am hoping to fill two with succulents (this year? Maybe…), so I may not need to.


Winston Churchill in my back yard

I will definitely share pictures if and when these babies bloom! Oh, and another tip from the video is to squeeze above the flower when they die so another flower will grow. Hopefully I make it to that point!! :)

Other than that, I got new gardening gloves while I was at Freddy’s! They are lovely! I divvied up two different varieties of daffodil bulbs that were getting overcrowded and had stopped blooming for this year. I planted some of the extra bulbs in other places in my yard and set the rest aside for a friend who is filling her new yard with goodies! I’m so glad I have someone to give all of my extras to - goodness knows I have plenty more to share when I get around to digging everything up!

Weed B Gon
My brother spread more weed and feed on the lawn in trouble spots. It worked really well last year on our front lawn/dandelion garden so this year we only have random spots to deal with. We had dug up a ridiculously large pile the two weeks previous to this, so it was high time for chemical warfare. I got a spray bottle to put my Ortho Weed B Gon weed killer into (because I didn’t store it properly and the hose must’ve clogged up over the winter. Whoops! Read the instructions, kids!) I did all the silly dandelions growing out of the cracks you can’t possibly dig them out of. Die, weeds, die!

My biggest weekend project was pressure washing our deck, which we inherited in pretty terrible shape! (Ah, the things you don’t pay attention to when buying your first home, hahaha!) Surprise - there’s wood under there! Next will be weather-sealing it. I’m so glad we’re finally getting around to doing this because we have to ice skate across it anytime it rains (which c’mon, we’re in Oregon, people, it’s always raining!) and I don’t want someone getting injured out there.


Pacific Northwest problems...

Phew - I am exhausted! I hope you all had a productive or else relaxing weekend! :)

Dollar Princess on the front porch