First invented by Dr.Norman Walker in 1930 innumerable designs have been flooding the markets since the inception. It can be operated manually or electrically and can extract juice from fruits, vegetables or greens. The required nutritional benefits can be easily met with a glassful of refreshing juice regularly of different fruits or vegetables. Specially recommended for Cancer patients too, it helps supplement the lost minerals and vitamins. However people are often confused between the juicers and blenders. The juicer separates the pulp from juice without manual intervention while the blender grinds it and needs to be strained manually.

When planning to purchase a juicer a few points should be considered.

1. The price should always be considered though there is no guarantee that the most expensive ones provide highest quality. Uncompromising quality plus competitive pricing should be considered.

2. It should be user friendly without confusing one of the sophisticated technologies. One should be able to use, set the controls, clean and maintain it effortlessly.

3. Reliable and reputed brands like Cuisinart or Magimix are recommended for regular use. With excellent warranty, the parts need not be replaced very often.

4. The juicer with slow speed option is an ideal option as it reduces oxidation.

The easiest way to shop plus excellent offers like free shipping and manufacturer’s warranty are aplenty when shopping on-line! The prices, benefits and performance of various companies can be checked easily, in the comfort of the home or office when opting for on-line shopping.

Juicer Machine work by separating pulp from the liquid. All juicers have an inlet to take the produce in, one each for the fibre and liquid. Some will have a basin or other container to catch the juice. Others will require you to supply your own. The same goes for the pulp, which is usually extruded through a small hole.

Juicers are either electric or manual. Most manuals are for juicing wheatgrass or citrus. Vegetable and fruit juicers are almost entirely electric and some wheat grass juicers are electric as well as few citrus presses.

Before selecting a machine, it is important to ask yourself that what you will be juicing. Different products will have different shape, softness and amount of fibre requiring specialized mechanical designs.

• RPM Revolutions per minute: how many turns the juicing component makes per minute.

Fruits and Vegetable Juicers

Fruits are much softer than vegetables. You can get an all purpose juicer, or opt for a juicer designed for only fruits or only vegetables. Juicers designed to handle fruits and vegetables are centrifugal juicers, masticating juicers, as well as gear juicers. These juicers usually have a chute for receiving the targeted produce. Some have plastic tubes which are used to push the fruit or vegetable into the grinders. Others have a wider receiving mouth resembling a funnel. Some fruit and vegetable juicers are capable of juicing the whole lot of fruits in a single go. Consider the motor warranty carefully as this type of action tends to burn the motor out faster. Whole fruit juicers are specifically designed for the soft innards of fruit and will be less prone to motor burn out than juicers touted to juice whole vegetables as well.

Wheat Grass Juicers:

Wheat grass is known for its healthy chlorophyll and phyto-nutrients. It is a tougher plant which is primarily crushed through an auger system. Wheat grass juicers can be hand cranked or electric.

Citrus Press

Citrus includes oranges, lemons, grapefruit and limes. Manual citrus presses will require you to place half of the fruit on a reaming cone. You either apply pressure from one hand and twist the fruit or pull on a lever whose base applies extra pressure to squeeze out the juice (the blessings of physics!).

Electric juicers require the user to place half of the fruit on a reaming cone and press. The user holds it in place and the cone spins. This presses the fruits guts against the peel, squeezing out the juice. Some juicers come with a shield that can be lowered to hold the fruit in place. The juice is usually funnelled down into the machine to a spout to the container of the user’s choice.

• Features To Look For: If electric then noise is a consideration. Also look for one with a dust cover (as it can then stay on the countertop) and a spout which flips up to prevent post press drip. Splash protectors keep the juice in the container and off your work trousers. Some fruit and vegetable juicers will come with a citrus press attachment. Others will come with a screen to remove citrus pulp. Easy to clean is a must. Warranty on the motor should be a consideration, as the primary spinning action for juicing will wear it down quickly.

Centrifugal Juicers

Most fruits and vegetables are centrifugal juicers. They rely on a shredding blade at the base of a screen. This blade spins, pushing juice through the screen, which retains the pulp. Centrifugal juicers have a high rpm: 6000-8000, though it is said that some spin upwards of 10000. This makes them noisier than other types of juicers and creates friction which can heat up the juice. Heat is a concern because it is said to damage the micronutrients in the juice including the living enzymes. The high speed spinning also aerates the juice. This causes froth. The biggest concern of aeration is the introduction of oxygen into the juice components which significantly shortens shelf life and thus the life of the micronutrients. Pulp clogs on the screen are a concern. It is said that centrifugal juicers leave the most pulp in the juice. These juicers do best with fruit and other soft cell-wall wet vegetables. They do poorly with leafy greens. They are usually upright cylindrical juicers with curved cylindrical produce chutes.

Masticating Juicers

The produce is grated and then the teeth chew that material. Juice is pushed down through a screen. Its spinning action is around 1500 rpm, causing noise, though they are not as noisy as centrifugal juicers. The high revolutions also produce some heat which can destroy micronutrients (the point of fresh juice). Pulp build up on the teeth is a concern. This along with slow juicing can tend to produce a juice that is warm and frothy. The froth is usually less than that produced by centrifugal juicers. The juice is said to be bit thicker than gear juicers. Some consider this an advantage for making sauces and baby food. These juicers have difficulty juicing leafy greens.

Gear Juicers

Gear juicers are sometimes called masticating juicers. However, their juicing action comes from crushing or pressing produce through grooves in one or more auger like gears. Gear juicers are low speed: 70-120 rpm, which means they are lowest on noise and produce the least amount of heat. They come as single auger, dual stage single auger and twin gear varieties. These do the best with leafy greens and wheatgrass. Gear juicers will feel slower than centrifugal juicers but produce a higher and more nutritionally viable juice yield.

• Single Gear: Single gear juicers have a single auger that resembles a screw which turns. Stiff produce is assisted through with manual pressure and other produce is pulled through by the turning action of the groove. The fruit or vegetable is efficiently crushed releasing the juice which is pushed through a screen. Those that don’t come with a screen are primarily for tough fibrous produce such as wheatgrass which creates little if any wet pulp. Single gear augers are the easiest to clean of all the juicers. These are great for green leafy vegetables. The manual ones are primarily for wheatgrass.

• Dual Stage Single Auger Gears: Dual stage single gear augers follow the same process as the previous, except the fibre is next turned down one more screen to increase juice yield. High motor powers are desirable to reduce wear on the motor with either type of single gear juicers.

• Twin Gear: Twin gear juicers have two gears which look like long screw-like augers with grooves twisting their length. These two gears operate approximately 0.1mm apart. These juicers are heavier, have more parts, are more laborious to push produce through and are more difficult to clean than single gear. They are still easier to clean, less noisy and create significantly less heat than masticating and centrifugal juicers. Twin gears with magnets, originally provided to keep the gears at the right distance, create a small magnetic field which pulls more nutrients from the produce into the juice and improves shelf life. Twin gear augers (and some electric single gear augers) can also do some food processing and make other foods such as pasta and sauces.

Power

The more power supplied to a centrifugal or masticating unit, the louder it will be and more heat it will produce. However, especially with single gear juicers, the less power the motor has the more likely it is to burn out. These are typical ranges for juicers:

• * up to 149 Watts
• * 150 Watts – 299 Watts
• * 300 Watts – 399 Watts
• * 500 Watts and more

Other Features:

Some come with juice containers, pulp containers, cleaning brushes, large feed chutes, extra augers and screens for produce specific juicing. Consider ease of cleaning, noise and motor and parts warranty. If the motor burns out quickly you will likely have to replace your juicer more often than you prefer. Some juicers have dishwasher safe parts. Others have easy to clean augers that are rinsed in warm soapy water. Don’t forget locking lids which is one of the important safety features.

Commercial Juicers

• Fruits and vegetables tend to be centrifugal. They are more likely than home juicers to have pulp ejection. The pulp is flung down a platform into a container. Look for safety cut-outs, locking lids and self cleaning blades.

• Wheat Grass tends to be the same or more rugged versions of single auger manual or twin auger electric juicers.

• Citrus press tend to be electric and stainless steel. Commercial semi-automatics are often domestic crossovers. Automatic juicers take whole oranges and peel them. Consider hospital grade coating, blade material and number of oranges juiced per minute.