Juicer Reviews

I'm a newbie, stay-at-home mom on a very strict budget, mmmmmkay?
I don't got tons of Benjamin's, yo!
Money doesn't grow on trees around here, if you catch my drift.

When watching Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, they said that on average, to do an organic juice, it would cost about $30 a day. I added that up for both my husband and I, looked at our normal food bill, took into account that we have three smaller mouths to feed, and we laughed. No. It was not an option. So we only buy organic when we can, we shop around, we make our juices based on what's available and what's on sale.....we make it work.

If you want to read more about how we came love Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juicer (centrifugal juicer), click here.

Oh man. Love at first juice. This was my main squeeze. Okay. Okay. But seriously, I fell in love. For someone not looking to spend a ton of money (I think originally mine was around $60), this is a good juicer to start off with.

Our family got the juicer and started using it RIGHT AWAY! We made juices everyday. Multiple times a day. Then my husband and I started our juicing fast on February 13. We consumed all meals through our little Hamilton Beach.

I see guys (sorry, its usually males) on review boards saying how hard it is to clean a juicer *gasp* two or more!!!! times a day and I just laugh like a crazy woman. Maybe everything is relative but...duh! Guess what? Cleaning isn't easy! And the person who prepares the meals for the entire family???? they have to....get this...clean up! They don't think that cleaning is easy, either! Haha haha hahah haha

Sorry. Anyway. Do you have to actually take apart your juicer and use some elbow grease to clean it between uses? Yup. Do I enjoy cleaning? Bwahahaha not even a little bit but the way I see it, you have to clean up after yourself when you eat, so pick something else to complain about. The Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juicer is very easy to disassemble and clean. I also love the little brush they include.

My only complaint is that sometimes the pulp is still wet. And you are thinking, "big deal!!" and trust me, I hear ya. I thought the same thing. And for MOST people, this is not a big deal, especially for the low price of the Hamilton Beach.....but if you are going on a long term juice fast/reboot/cleanse, you will start to hate that your juicer is wasting ANY of that precious juice, because you will want to yield every single last ounce of nutrient from that piece if kale, darn it!!!!

This is a good juicer to get if you aren't sure if juicing is for you or not.I wouldn't expect it to last during a long term juice fast/reboot.

Why didn't I stop at the Hamilton Beach?

I woke up on Thursday February 20 (Day 9) feeling like I'd claw the face off of someone if they looked at me sideways (sorry, TMI ALERT!!!!! Mother Monthly had come and paid me a visit). I got on the scale....after fighting off some very nasty cravings from the night before....and there was a GAIN! A freakin GAIN!!!!!!!

Frustrated does NOT begin to describe how I felt. Livid. Pissed the &€%@? OFF!!!! It's a good thing I'm not a breakfast girl, because I was ready to just EAT ALL OF EVERYTHING!!!!! And so...I begin to cry (yes, literally. I cried like my 20 month old baby after you tell him he can't have candy for breakfast). I gather all of my stuff for my juice, I put some fresh washed kale in the juicer, turn it on, start juicing....and it dies. The motor burnt out at 5:30 am while I was standing in my kitchen having a pity party.

Seriously.

I emailed my friend, told her to see if they would somehow let us return the juicer, but I couldn't wait for them to replace it, right? I felt like this would be a lame excuse to give in (and if you haven't yet noticed, I can be slightly stubborn at times) so I took some leftover juice from the night before (we store our juice in Mason jars) and mixed it with what small amount of the kale juice I had just made and I drank my breakfast.

I took my older kids to school and my youngest and I set out to find our next juicer...


I found The Dash(centrifugal juicer) at Target and it looked a lot like the juicer Joe Cross uses in the movie....and it was only $100. It's got to be better than the Hamilton Beach, right? I mean, it's nearly double the cost!

Wrong! I HATED that juicer. The directions say to not leave the juicer running for more than 5 minutes continuously. Duh. We turn the juicer off between putting each fruit or vegetable in there, usually. At the very least, we turn it off when all the food has been juiced and we are adding more. It was probably the second apple we juiced and the motor just stopped. The same thing happened time and time again. The motor would just randomly shut off and then sometimes we couldn't get it to start working again for 5+ minutes! And when you are less than 2 weeks into a juice fast and you want your juice, you want it NOW, not in 20 minutes when your juicer decides it's feeling like it might finish the job for you. I hated this juicer from the first time I used it and my husband could tell. He gave me permission to buy my baby....which is what we used to get through the rest of the 40 day fast.....We bought the Breville Ikon BJE510XL 900 Watts Juicer (centrifugal juicer).

When I brought this baby home, it was like a whole new world! It had a digital readout that told you what speed to use for different fruits and vegetables. It had a nice BIG juice pitcher that came with it. I'll admit, because it looked so similar to the Dash, I was nervous. I've used the juicer (almost exclusively) every single day since we got it almost 2 months ago and I've not had one problem with the juicer. It's never randomly shut off like the Dash. It never needs a "break" like the dash. It is a very nice, heavy duty juicer. My only complaint is that it sometimes makes a mess by spilling some of the juice out of the spout, even when the juice pitcher is flat up against it so sometimes a little bit of juice will run down the side of the juicer and onto my counter and the spout is difficult to really clean. It's not a big deal, but it can get annoying.

My Breville worked perfectly, no problems. But I kept hearing all of these Omega owners who were once Breville owners but who made the switch.....

And I saved and saved and I finally got my first Omega 8006 Nutrition Center (masticating juicer).

Oh my word! This baby is the King of Kings when it comes to juicers. You get the absolute most amount of juice from each piece of produce with this juicer. It is also very quiet and while they  look massive, they don't take up any more counter space than my Breville did.
This juicer is a masticating juicer, meaning that it actually crunches the produce up to get the juice and it leaves the pulp about as dry as you can get. There are more parts to this juicer than to the centrifugal (fast spinning) Breville juicer, but it's simple to assemble and very easy to clean.
The downside to this juicer is that you do have to cut your produce rather small so it will fit down the chute and the actual juicing process takes a bit longer. With this model, you need to alternate your citrus with harder vegetables or it tends to get clogged but it does the best job, in my opinion, of juicing your leafy greens. It takes some playing around with to figure it out, but it does an amazing job at juicing and making nut butters. We've also made frozen banana and cherry sorbet. The kids LOVED it! It makes pastas and all kinds of cool stuff I'll probably never make! haha
This juicer is absolutely amazing and worth every single penny for the person who is serious about healthy living. I think it could be a bit intimidating and frustrating for a beginner at first, and it might not be the best fit for someone who is extremely busy and who doesn't have much time.

My most recent addition is the Omega Vert (vertical).

I was shocked to love this juicer as much as I do! I was given this as a gift and it's amazing! It did take me a little bit longer to figure out how to assemble, but that's because I go at it all cave-woman style (who needs directions?). Once you give in, read the directions and figure out that the little red dots align, it becomes very easy to assemble/disassemble. It is easier to clean than the centrifugal juicers, but not as easy to clean as the 8006 (more info below). It's also very quiet compared to the centrifugal juicers. It does take up less space on the counter, or so it seems to me.

The Omega Vert, compared to the Omega 8006 seems to handle the citrus better. I can leave the chunks of grapefruit twice as big with the Vert and it doesn't clog like the 8006. The chute for inserting the produce into the Vert also seems slightly bigger. However, the 8006 seems to juice the kale and other leafy greens better. The chute where the pulp comes out on the Vert is smaller, gets clogged (whereas the 8006 does not), and it is harder to clean than the Omega 8006.

****Also, generally, if you are storing your juice properly, when using a centrifugal juicer, you can keep them in the fridge for up to 48 hours. With a masticating juicer, when the juice is stored properly, it can stay good for up to 72 hours in the fridge.****

I hope this helps some! If you have any questions or want to add your own comments, feel free to leave them below. I love, love, love comments from my readers!

And as always, if you are interested in me giving an honest review of a juicer, recipe or book, please email me at thejuiceathomemom@gmail.com. Thanks so much!

Stay strong and juice on!
Teela Juicing Herman