If you want to live a healthy life, it all starts out with the food that you put into your body. You can’t just exercise and burn calories, then go back home and stuff your face with junk all night.
Want to know right now? I like the Omega Heavy Duty Juicer at Amazon.
And it’s not all about restricting the amount of food you eat either. It’s mostly about having a well-balanced diet. Eating the proper amount of meals each day and getting the proper amount of your macronutrients (carbs, fats, and proteins) is important.
Can you guess what you should be eating more of if you want to have a well-balanced diet?
Was the first thing that came to mind fruits and veggies?
Well, you’re right, fruits and vegetables are essential to having healthy diets, and therefore leading healthy lives. It is where we get the bulk of our nutrients from, and fruit allows us to indulge our sweet tooth without worrying about gaining pounds of unwanted weight. But do you know how much fruits and veggies you would have to eat in a day to meet dietary suggestions? A lot! Too much to carry around, and too much to be eating.
This is where juicing comes into play. Juicing lets you break down fruits and vegetables into juice form without losing too much of the nutrients they contain. Making it significantly easier to take in the recommended daily amounts of nutrients you need. Protein shakes are also part of a healthy lifestyle! Find the best blenders for those here.
But if you’ve ever tried juicing, you’re fully aware of how painfully inept most juicing machines are. The sales reps tout their juicers as the greatest thing since the invention of juice itself, saying their device will turn your orange into a glass of orange juice in just ten seconds, and best of all, there’s no cleanup needed.
Of course, these machines never live up to their claims, and you end up stuck with nothing more than a pulp factory. Well, we feel your pain, but we’ve also overcome the wild goose chase of finding the perfect juicer and came up with a few products that will actually yield results that will have you back on your juicing cleanse in no time.
Don’t forget to take a look at some mason jars to house your juice!
Let’s get started:
Best Budget Juicer: Breville BJE200XL Compact Juice Fountain
Breville Juicer is a wonderful entry-level juicer for those of you who want good results but likely won’t be juicing enough to warrant a several hundred dollar purchases. It has a strong 700-watt motor with a very respectable 14,000 RPM’s offering terrific juice extraction.
The feed tube (where you feed the fruits/veggies into) is a wide 3-inch diameter, making it good for almost any fruit there is. Obviously, you should be cutting your fruit before you feed it into the machine.
Pros of Breville:
- All parts (except the motor) are dishwasher safe
- Large feeding tube to accommodate larger items
- Stainless steel micro mesh filter
- Speedy motor with 14,000 revolutions per minute
- Safety feature that locks the machine if the lid is not properly secured
Cons of Breville:
- Cleanup can be a bit of a hassle, and that is an understatement
- Pulp is somewhat wet, meaning you’re not getting the maximum amount of juice possible
- Some of the contents tend to fly out of the machine while it is juicing
Verdict
Again, this is a great starter juicer. If you’ve been juicing for quite some time, you probably will be underwhelmed with this machine. But it works very well for the price it is listed at. If you aren’t interested in investing in an expensive model, this is an excellent alternative. Find it at Amazon.
Budget Slow Masticating Juicer: Mueller Slow Masticating Juicer Extractor
Slow masticating extractors can pull out more of the vitamins, enzymes, and the litany of other nutrients in fruits and veggies that we don’t have time to go into right now (not that we are even qualified to in the first place). They do this by going at much slower speeds, making a smoother, less oxidized, and less foamy juice than traditional machines.
This also gives you more juice volume than you would expect to get from juicers like the one we looked at previously. Find this juicer at Amazon.
Pros of the Mueller:
- More juice
- Less pulp
- Less clogging
- Silent
- German quality construction
Cons of the Mueller:
- The cost of masticating juicers can be fairly high
- Takes a very long time to extract the juice from your food
Verdict
Mueller is a quality brand and their reputation precedes them. They have made an excellent product with this juicer. Slow masticating juicers are much slower than their high-speed counterparts, but it offers more juice per item, leaving less pulp and resulting in a much easier cleaning process.
Best All Around Juicer: Omega VRT350 Heavy Duty
This is another slow masticating juicer that gives even better results than the Aicook juicer. It still offers the same excellence of a slow masticating juicer but has some extra bells and whistles and offers a bit more power, resulting in an even better-finished product. See the Omega at Amazon.
Pros of the Omega:
- Small footprint (great for smaller kitchens_
- Dual stage juicer (extracts juice from the fruit, then extracts the remaining juice from the pulp)
- Reverse option
- Over-sized spout
Cons of the Omega:
- Has a 10 year warranty, but many of the parts aren’t covered by it.
Verdict
If you are looking for a slow masticating juicer, and are willing to invest some money in it, then I see no reason to look any further than this Omega VRT35O at Amazon. It doesn’t lack in any area and excels in all the most important ones (like extracting the most juice for maximum nutrition retention).
Wrap – Up
Juicers are a great way to get the nutrients we need without having to eat handfuls of veggies at a time. And now that you’re armed with the knowledge needed to purchase a machine that actually works, you’ll be well on your way to living that healthy lifestyle you’ve meant to start living. Just remember to keep using it, otherwise, your investment will have been for nothing.
Looking to make smoothies instead? See my top blender picks.
Additional Resources:
- Juicer Fanatics – Best Juicer 2020
- Cheftalk – Juicing leafy green vegetables, which juicer is the best?
Image credit via Flickr Creative Commons: Beverly Y. T. and Barb D.
David learned to cook at an early age after his mother told him that he couldn't live on pizza forever, Dave uses his modest kitchen skills to recreate sorely-missed recipes from home and to occasionally make new favorite ones from places he is visiting.