Ellie left a comment on the blog asking me ‘What do you use to juice your veggies?’ and I thought I’d share my answer in a blog post for you to read easily too.

Hiya Ellie! I did a lot of research before finally choosing my juicer.  I bought it ooh way back in ummm 2005 I think it was and it was the best investment ever.  In fact, a few months ago I hauled it down to my friend Maggie’s in Devon with me and she was so impressed with it, she bought one too! *lol*

It’s a masticating juicer called an Oscar Vitalmax and you can buy them off Amazon – here’s my affiliate link if you want to go take a look – http://bit.ly/4oAcbB.

Why did I buy the Oscar Vitalmax?

• Well its motor is guaranteed for 10 years so it meant it was sturdy – handy as frequently I’m juicing 4 or 5 times a day.
• It juices wheatgrass.
• Because it masticates i.e ‘chews’ the vegetables slowly instead of being whizzed round at high speed like a centrifugal juicer does, it doesn’t heat the fruits and veggies up therefore your juice has a lot more of the nutrients in it.  If you get a chance to see – take a look at the colour of juice from a centrifugal juicer next to one from a masticating juicer, it’s startling how much brighter the masticated juice is.
• I find the juice from the Oscar is also a lot less frothy and it stays ‘good’ to drink for a lot longer because it hasn’t been heated – definitely 24 hrs if kept in a fridge or if you pour it into a thermos that has been chilled beforehand.  This is great if you need to go out for the day or weekend and are doing a juice feast – just make a huge batch and bung some ice cubes in the thermos and take your meals with you!

Any negatives?

• The chute isn’t very wide, so you do have to spend some time cutting your fruit and veg to fit but that doesn’t take long.  I spend heaps longer prepping and cooking a ‘normal’ meal for my kids than doing a juice for me
• It does struggle if you’re doing a lot of soft fruit or veg – pineapple I find challenging as the fibres clog the filter.  To help get round this, when I push the fruit and veg through the juicer, I alternate it all so i have some soft then hard to help push the mushy ones through.  Otherwise, I do have to stop it and give the filter a scrub with the brush to get it all moving again.

Would I buy the Oscar Vitalmax juicer again? Yes! Why?

• I like the way it looks *lol*  I have it in chrome but I think it comes in other colours and am happy to have it sat on the worktop all the time
• I find it easy to clean – alllll the time I hear people moaning about how time consuming or hard it is to clean their juicers.  This machine is made up of about 5 parts that slot together, the only ‘fiddly’ bit to clean is the filter and they give you a sturdy brush to clean it.  *TOP TIP* always, always, always, clean your juicer STRAIGHT AWAY.  If you can’t wait the two minutes it takes to clean it before drinking your juice, put the bits in a sink or bowl of water to soak in until you do it.  When I clean the filter, I do it with the brush under some running water.
• The juice it produces is excellent quality and the pulp comes out nearly dry and apparently can be used in raw recipes but I’ve not done that yet
• It’s not too noisy and very easy to use

There are a lot more juicers on the market now but please remember, any juicer is better than no juicer, so just buy the best you can afford now.  It may also be worth trawling classified ads for those people who had good intentions then never used their juicer and are selling them!  Always bargains around

If you have specific questions you need help with on getting started with either juicing or eating more raw, please let me know and I’ll do my best to answer.