Hurom Slow Juicer

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am with the Hurom Slow Juicer. I literally have 4 other juicers in my cabinets right now: one vintage aluminum citrus press, one electric rotating citrus juicer, one super heavy duty Champion Wheatgrass juicer, and one Breville Juice Fountain. I actually adore the vintage aluminum citrus press, even though it takes a lot of arm strength when I am squeezing lots of lemons. If friends come over, they might chose to use the electric citrus juicer, but it’s too slow and awkward for my taste. The Champion was my Mom’s and I don’t think she has taken it out of the cabinet for over a decade- it’s just too heavy! The Breville came in handy before I really got serious about juicing, but it was always a mess to clean and left me with a glass of only half juice with a thick foamy layer over the top.

I’m proud to say that I have entered the new millennium of juicing. The Hurom Slow Juicer is the first of its kind: an upright masticating juicer. It presses the juice from the produce (like a mortar and pestle) rather that using centrifugal force to spin and chop the produce into minuscule pieces and then separate the juice from the pulp. You can see in the Demo Video how different it is from the typical high-speed juicer.

So here’s why I like it so much better. Firstly, it’s quiet. It’s kind of embarrassing to admit but I have always been scared by loud appliances (like vacuums for instance). It really does make a difference by lowering my state of agitation. Secondly, I don’t end up with a glass full of foam! I get well-integrated whole juice that looks and tastes better. Thirdly, it’s much easier to disassemble and clean than my Breville. And lastly, I can make any kind of juice- including citrus juices!

You may have inferred that I like my citrus juices (since I have 2 citrus juicers). The reason I have to have separate citrus juicers is that the Breville, or any similar centrifugal-force juicers, can’t juice citrus. Well, I guess it could, but you end up with chopped up bits of seeds making the juice very bitter. As long as you peel the citrus, the Hurom Slow Juicer is a whiz!

I haven’t tried it yet, but it can also make nut and soy milks, so for anyone who is lactose intolerant, this would be a huge benefit. And this is super cool: you can then take that natural soy milk and press it through a cheese-cloth to make tofu! How cool is that? The Hurom Slow Juicer is really like a multi-use kitchen appliance for making sauces, ketchup, marinates and whatever else you think of. I just made a marinade for baked tofu using primarily soy sauce and sesame oil, but for added flavor I juiced some ginger and onions, and for a gorgeous color I added fresh beet juice.

One of my most stunning discoveries is that the Hurom Slow Juicer can juice pulpy fruits like papaya and strawberries. The old Breville would make a total mess of papaya and it would gum up the juicer so much that it was a nightmare to clean. Also I could tell that it wasn’t really working because the pulp was so watery that very little juice was actually produced. Now with my Slow Juicer I can drink all the healthy digestive enzymes that a papaya has to offer.

This brings me to the next point that I really should have included in the why I like it so much. It’s not as tangible as my other points but it’s pretty significant. The Slow Juicer is so named because it uses far fewer RPMs than the Breville-style juicers. That means you save energy. Also, the produce doesn’t become heated (and thereby pasteurized) which kills important healthy enzymes. In nutritional tests, the Slow Juicer was statistically significantly higher in vitamins A and C. This also means that it’s the best juicer for raw foodists.

I’ll have to blog about my baked tofu once it’s actually baked (it is marinating overnight right now), but I would like to finish with a few of my all-time favorite healthy juice recipes:

1. Equal parts carrot and papaya (it’s really that simple and delicious!) In the photo I added beet juice to give it a lovely color.

2.

½ lb carrots

1 large Fuji apple

About ¼ cup beets for color

1 Tbs ginger

3.

1 Fuji apple

6 strawberries (you can leave the green top on!)

Whatever greens you have in the garden in about the same quantities as the strawberries

1 small peeled lemon

4.

¼ fennel bulb

1 Fuji apple

¼ lb carrots

5.

2 Meyer’s lemons (peeled)

2 Tbs agave syrup

2 oz Crown Royal whiskey

Serve over ice

…ok, maybe it’s not the most healthy recipe but what a great use of citrus!