Improving your diet is the easiest way to get started on your journey to better health. A majority of health professionals consider a meal consisting of lots of fruit and vegetables as the healthiest. That is because most fruit and vegetables contain the essential nutrients needed for good health, without any of the unhealthy components contained in other foods. The more vegetables and fruits you consume, the healthier you are likely to be. To help ensure that you absorb as many fruit nutrients as you can within a day, you should consider getting into juicing. Juicing allows you to absorb all the goodness of the fruits and vegetables you use, without taking in the carbs and fibres of the fruits.
To start juicing, you will need to invest in a juicer. There are a few different juicers based on the principle of operation used to extract juice from the fruit. Your budget and the types of fruit which you intend to use should determine your choice. You can also consider factors such as ease of cleaning, feed chute size, and power consumption, among many others. Some of the types of juicers to consider are highlighted below.
Centrifugal Juicer
Centrifugal juicers use a principal which is almost similar to that employed in washing machines. You feed fruit through the chute, and it gets shredded up by a fast-spinning blade. The pulp catcher and the shredder are usually in the same area. This means that the basket will fill up quite fast when making a lot of juice, as it cannot hold much pulp. You will have to keep emptying the basket from time to time.
The good thing about this juicer is that it works impressively fast, does not take up too much space, and works well for hard vegetables such as celery. It is suitable for individuals who prepare fruit juices only for themselves. On the flip side, a centrifugal juicer does not extract a lot from leafy greens, is very noisy, and oxidizes the juice quite fast. Oxidization means that the juice has to be consumed as soon as it is produced.
Centrifugal Ejection Juicer
Actually, the centrifugal ejection juicer works almost similar to the centrifugal juicer, with the main difference being that it can catch more pulp because it has a separate container for that. The separate container for catching pulp is what brings about the term ejection. The feature allows you to make a lot more juice at one go before you have to empty the pulp container.
The pros of the centrifugal ejection juicer are it saves more time, requires no pre-cut for preparation, works for hard vegetables such as celery and carrots, and has a shallow learning curve. Like centrifugal juices, it also oxidizes juice quite fast, does not work well for leafy greens, takes up more space, and is very noisy.
Masticating Juicer
Masticating juicers crush vegetables and fruits using a slow rotating auger that presses the fruit against a steel mesh screen. The slow speeds ensure that oxidization takes place. Juice from the fruit flows through the filter while the pulp is pushed through another exit.
Masticating juicers are quieter and extract more juice. However, they are more expensive and take more time to extract the juice. They also produce a pulpy juice, which means that you may have to use a sieve afterwards.