Juicers

Squeezing the juicers

Juicing is good for you. Or so we are told by the likes of Gillian McKeith. But is the juicer just the latest fad in kitchen accessories? Jane Turner sorts the pulp from the juice.

Juicers can generally be divided into two categories, the centrifugal juicer and the gear juicer. Centrifugal juicers spin at very high revolutions, which creates heat and can apparently result in “oxidation of the juice”, which reduces its shelf life.(2) They’re also not very good with greens and wheatgrass. The advantage is that they are relatively cheap and make high speed juice. The juicers that you can buy on the high street are usually centrifugal juicers and cost between £30-£100.(1)
Gear juicers slowly cold press the raw produce, so nutrients remain in their natural state. These also provide a juice with a longer shelf life. Generally these juicers are more expensive but they tend to come with longer warranties (see below). You pay for what you get.
Gear juicers come as single gear or twin gear with twin gear ones giving a higher juice yield but also being more expensive.
Single gear juicer brands on the table are: Go-Juice manual, Z Star manual, Easy Health manual, Easy Health Live Enzyme Juicer, L’Equip Visor, Oscar VitalMax, Oscar Living Juicer.
Twin gear juicer brands on the table are: Green Power Kempo, Green Star, Hippocrates Green Power, Samson Ultra.
This report does not cover citrus juicers. There are electric ones available but there are a wealth of manual presses, squeezers or reamer types for those who only want citrus juices.
There are a whole host of juicing websites and aficionados extolling the virtues of juicing and different types of juicers. A few of them are listed in the Links section below.

Elbow powered juicers
Most of the juicers on the market are electric ones but we have managed to track down three manual ones for this report – Go-Juice, Easy Health and Z Star. Mainly aimed at people that want to juice wheatgrass on the move, all these juicers nonetheless advertise themselves as being able to juice fruit and veg.
The Easy Health only costs £29.95 (from www.happyjuicer.com) but one site has stopped selling it because of complaints that it was only good for wheatgrass.(1)
The Z Star costs £89 (from www.happyjuicer.com or www.ukjuicers.com) but a review on www.happyjuicer.com did not recommend it if you juice a lot of fruit and veg every day.
The Go-Juice (from www.ethicaljuicers.co.uk) costs £40.

Why juice
Juicing has become a popular way to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The government tells us we must have our 5 portions of fruit and veg a day and that cooking reduces the nutrient level in our food. But why can’t we just eat raw fruit and veg and cut out the middleman?
According to one juicing website, juicing helps to release nutrients from the fibres which are not broken down well by the body.(2) And it’s no good just buying juice from the supermarket. The pasteurisation process that it will have undergone destroys many of its enzymes and vitamins.(3) Only fresh, raw juice will do the trick.
On the other hand, because juicing removes the fibre (pulp) from the fruit and veg, you will need to eat whole fruit and veg in addition to juices to get your fibre fix.
Juicing has also been hailed for its healing powers in restoring health through ‘detoxification’. For example, juices form part of the Gerson Therapy which is primarily geared towards cancer sufferers. As part of the treatment, the patient must consume 13 juices each day of combinations including orange, carrot and dark leafy greens.(2)

Links

• www.happyjuicer.com
• www.ukjuicers.com
• www.ethicaljuicers.co.uk
• Which? report, August 2006 on High Street centrifugal juicers (www.which.co.uk). It did not cover any of the gear or manual juicers.

References
1 Ethical Juicers website viewed March 2007 – www.ethicaljuicers.co.uk
2 www.happyjuicer.com website viewed March 2007
3 Which? August 2006
6 Nuclear Engineering International’s Buyer’s Guide www.neimagazine.com viewed on 10 January 2007
7 www.philips.com website viewed February 2007