This incredibly versatile machine can make nut butters, pâté, sorbet, sauces, and more, in addition to delicious fruit and veggie juice. The Greenstar Elite was designed to handle leafy greens and wheatgrass better than the competition, so if you're a fan of green juice, this could be for you. It needs a lot of room on the counter to house all that functionality, so it's best for people with a lot of kitchen space or who like to make juice on a regular basis.

Consuming raw plants is the closest you can get to getting energy directly from the sun. When it comes to juice vs smoothies, the debate should be turned away from “Which is better?” into “Which do I need right now?” Everyone is different, including our dietary needs and lifestyles. (You can even try making juice with a blender.)We found the best juicer machines are a breeze to use, with wide chutes to put whole apples and oranges down. Flash Freeze: Grab a few baking trays and tip the mixed fruit onto the trays, trying to spread it out so they’re not touching. Place into the freezer for a few hours.

The only downside to this juicer is that there was a little bit of wobbling and squeaking while it was in use, but not enough to be bothersome. Prepare a huge bowl of fruit, mix it up and then portion it into individual bags with one bag being enough fruit for one smoothie. You can then grab a bag, add some liquid and blitz for a smoothie.This juicer's design is sleek and space-efficient, with a mess-free spout. The pieces come apart easily for cleaning, but the strainer needs a lot of scrubbing, and the included cleaning brush could be coarser to get food particles out more easily. The juicer doesn't come with many extra features but can handle wheatgrass as well as nuts for making plant-based milk. The setup was very easy, other than one piece that wasn't mentioned in the manual and remained a mystery to our Lab testers. Our home tester agreed that the process of setup, use, cleaning, and storage was simple and that this model is a winner for casual juicers and those with space or budget constraints. The best juicers typically get 15% more juice out of the fruit and veg compared to the worst on test. Many smoothies have a dairy base. So, you need to be careful with how long you store it. If stored in a Ziploc bag, smoothies will have a one-month shelf life roughly. Large feed chutes Some of the easiest juicers to use have extra-large feeding tubes that you can fit whole apples and oranges down. This saves time, as you don't have to pre-chop all your ingredients.

Smoothness: As we were looking to juice a variety of fruit and veg, it was important the juicers could handle everything we threw their way. The juice produced needed to be a strong, deep and rich colour to indicate that a high level of vitamins and minerals had been extracted. We looked for smooth, clear and vibrant juice. After all, the point of making smoothies is to get an easy way to consume lots of nutrients and vitamins. If you’ve made a smoothie and want to try something different then consider decanting it into a lolly mould. They make delicious and nutritious ice lollies without the nasties.

RAW DEFENCE

If you're a serious juicer who wants a versatile machine that produces top-quality juice with minimal froth, go with the Nama Cold Press Juicer, which performed solidly in all our tests. For a more basic model, the AMZCHEF Slow Juicer Extractor is affordable, high-performing, and easy to use. How We Tested If your goal is consume as much nutrient-dense juice as possible, juicing is certainly the way to go. Since most of the insoluble fiber has been remove, you can actually consume more raw produce than if you were consuming the full plant. Personally I love having a mostly fruit (and some greens) smoothie for breakfast, and cold-pressed juice after my workout or later in the day. I don’t know why exactly, but my body tells me to do it that way. It might be that after 12+ hours of no calorie intake that’s what my body needs. It might just be because I’m hungry.

Lab testers noted that they did need to cut ingredients like oranges and apples to fit into the small feed tube, but that it could handle most whole carrots and celery stalks. Apples and berries needed to be pushed through more aggressively, but other ingredients, including greens, went through with no problem. The juices all came out very well, though the carrot-orange juice had a tiny bit of pulp in the finished product. The shredded material coming out the other end of the machine was also fairly damp, indicating that it didn't extract as much juice as it could have.Cold-pressing makes juice that tastes very smooth, but all fruit and vegetable juices are composed of tiny particles suspended in liquid. When the liquid sits in the fridge for a few hours, the particles settle to the bottom. It's a natural process for cold-pressed (or any) juice to separate, and separation doesn't mean the juice has gone bad. Just give it a shake and enjoy.