Juicer Reviews: Which Is Preferable - Manual Or Electric?
A vegetable juicer or fruit juicer is a conical-shaped kitchen appliance used for squeezing, or removing, juice from different foods, particularly fruit and veggies, for the purpose of drinking or adding flavor to other foods. The juicer is simple to use, although because of the possible risks involved, must be handled with care, caution, and expertise.
Two types of juicers exist - a manual, or hand-operated, model and a power model.
Manual/Hand-Held Juicer
Juicing involves placing fruit wedges or vegetable pieces cut side-down in the center of the juicer and then pressing down to squeeze the foodstuff and moving it back and forth so the fruit or veggie juice will run out of the rind and away from the pulp. The actual pulp and seeds are gathered along the edges of the juicer, and the rind is then tossed.
Power Juicer
A power or electric juicer mechanically extracts juice from fruits, veggies, herbs, etc. A suitable operation involves placing the article of food within and depressing the button. The juicer then mechanically squeezes juice out of the food. Due to its mechanical characteristics, electric juicers tend to be far more hazardous than manual types, and so it is important that users be coached the way to correctly use them.
Two varieties of electric juicers are available on the market:
Centrifugal juicers - these contain a blade and sieve to separate liquid and pulp from rinds or external shells or casings. Centrifugal juicers are not able to break fibers in food, so their use is reduced.
Masticating juicers - these "grind up" the entire piece of food before, or so as to, squeeze juice from the inside. When the food becomes mangled, the liquid naturally flows out. Masticating juicers can break fibers in food, so they really have a significantly wider use when compared with centrifugal juicers.
By the way, electric powered juicers and blenders are different in function and purpose. Power (masticating) juicers can easily separate juice from fibers, whereas blenders, like centrifugal and manually operated juicers, cannot.
The principle is that because fast-moving mechanical components of an electrical juicer blow air into the food, triggering greater and speedier oxidation to important nutrients, electric juicers, especially those having variable rates of speed, are considered to be of higher quality than manual juicers. This has not been verified, although it's a widespread belief.