Which juicer, cold press, centrifugal, or NutriBullet juicer, is best for you?
Slow juicers (also known as cold-press juicers) claim that the juice they create is more nutritious and remains fresher longer than juice produced by a high-speed centrifugal machine. Is this, however, correct?
How We Tested The Juicer Claims
We don’t believe in unsubstantiated hypotheses at CHOICE, so we put slow juicers up against centrifugal juicers (or quick juicers) in our experiment. How? We submitted samples of carrot, orange, and green juice from 15 juicers – nine slow and six centrifugal – to a lab for mineral analysis (calcium, iron, magnesium).
We also had our vitamin C levels checked in the CHOICE laboratories just after juicing.
Delicious and nutritious?
There isn’t a single juicer or juicer type that consistently extracts the most nutrients from each juice sampled. The Kuvings slow juicer, for example, extracts a high level of vitamin C from orange juice but one of the lowest amounts of calcium from green juice. Similarly, the Sunbeam Cold Press JE9000 has a high vitamin C content from orange juice but a low magnesium content from green juice.
While there are substantial differences in the amount of minerals and vitamins extracted by each juicer, they are minor in the grand scheme of things.
The recommended daily intake (RDI) of calcium for most adults is 1000mg, according to the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). The amount of this nutrient extracted from a glass of our green juice generated by the best performance is 60mg, which is only 6% of your daily requirement and only 15mg more than average.
On the other hand, an adult’s RDI for vitamin C is around 45mg, and the orange juice from most of these juicers gives roughly three times that amount in a glass. The caveat is that vitamin C degrades quickly, so you’ll only be able to obtain close to this amount if you drink the juice right away.
The other nutrients measured are fairly stable though, and will be present in similar quantities after a few days as when first juiced.
What About The Temperature?
Centrifugal juicers, according to some slow-juicer makers, heat up the juice and hence don’t contain as many nutrients or vitamins as slow juicers. Before and after juicing, we assessed the temperature of the fruits and vegetables, and there was no significant difference in temperature (with the exception of the juice from the NutriBullet).
Temperature rises, if any, were mainly under 1°C. Both slow and fast juicers had the same problem.
Does Slow Juicer or Fast Juicer Last Longer?
Juice from a slow juicer, according to previous CHOICE testing, remains fresher for longer. However, since centrifugal juicer designs have changed since we last looked at this, we compared the flavor, texture, and appearance of apple juice 48 hours after juicing once more.
All fluids had split into a frothy top, a murky or translucent green/brown liquid, and sediment on the bottom after five minutes. After 24 hours, all of the liquids had become brown and separated even more.
By 48 hours, the juice had separated into discrete layers, with some having a transparent pale amber liquid between the frothy top and the sediment on the bottom, while others had retained their hazy amber liquid.
Care was taken to remove the frothy top and to not disturb the sediment, so the amber liquid could be tasted.
Apart from minor differences in the amount of froth or sediment, and cloudy versus transparent liquid, we observed that all of the apple juices had a good taste after 48 hours.
It’s simply a matter of preference as to whether you want a clear or foggy juice. However, many manufacturers, particularly slow juicer makers, urge that the juice be eaten as soon as possible after juicing to maximize the amount and quality of nutrients consumed.
Although the juicer claims aren’t as strong as the manufacturers would like, we believe everyone can agree that fresh juice trumps store-bought any day of the week.
NutriBullet, Blenders and Super Blenders
Fruit juice is one way to acquire the nutrients from fruit, but blended fruit and vegetable smoothies are becoming more popular, and there are a variety of gadgets that claim to be the best at making a super-smoothie.
Other alternatives for blended drinks include blenders, super blenders, the Kambrook Blitz2Go, and even all-in-one kitchen appliances like the ever-popular Thermomix, however we did not provide nutritional analysis for these latter models.
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