Juicing is an excellent way to help add more nutrition to our diets. A while back my husband and I decided to purchase a juicer using a centrifugal system, extracting juice from produce while separating the pulp, to make a thin juice full of vitamins and minerals. We tried two different extractor juicers: Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juice Extractor 67650, $49 at Amazon, and Breville Juice Fountain Plus JE98XL, $145.38 at Amazon. These are the best prices we have found of the two machines. In this post I will compare these two juicers to each other, and conclude whether we thought it was worth the extra money to get the Breville rather than Hamilton Beach. Breville versus Hamilton Beach juicers: Which one is better? Cost: Cost wise, the Breville machine is more expensive by about $100, so we were expecting much better results as well. The results of testing both machines side by side, however, had us surprised! We found the best prices of either machine at Amazon. Sometimes items can be found cheaper on e-Bay, but my experience is that their new items often go for full price, especially if you add shipping. It can be worth looking into, though. Design: The Breville machine is beautiful, with a sleek and expensive look to it. It comes in an attractive box, even! It is taller and wider than Hamilton Beach, requiring a bit more storage space. At the […] Read more »

  Recently I blogged about using a powerful blender to make whole juices (“Making Whole Juice: Vegetables, Fruits, Berries. Recipes“), and comparing blenders like Blendtec, to the extractor juicers Hamilton Beach and Breville (“Juicing: Comparing Blenders to Extractors.”) In my post “Juicers: Comparing Breville to Hamilton Beach,” I  do a comparison of these two extractor juicers. But first I’d like to point out, regarding our decision to purchase a new blender, why Blendtec was the winner for our household. Our old blender could not keep up with crushing ice or other hard items, so we knew we needed something far more powerful. Blendtec and Vitamix seem very similar to me, though Blendtec has a couple of additional features that we love, and has proven itself more than capable of meeting our needs. Both machines are great options for making whole juices, smoothies, and other foods such as hot soup or ice cream (OK, I don’t know for a fact that you can use a Vitamix to make ice cream, but it seems like you could. You can in the Blendtec.) My husband actually purchased our Blendtec as a surprise, and I couldn’t be happier with his choice!! (And no, this is NOT meant to be an advertisement, and I don’t get as much as a penny for writing this blog entry. I simply love my blender, that’s all.) The best price I have found of the model we own of […] Read more »