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 »

  After watching the online documentary movie “Hungry For Change“, we decided to start juicing. We figured juicing would be an easy and convenient way to add more nutrition to our family’s diet. Originally we started juicing by using an extractor juicer. Later we went over to a high performance Blendtec blender instead of the extractor juicer, and have found this to be a much better fit for our family. In my previous post, Making Whole Juice: Vegetables, Fruits, Berries, Recipes, I showed how to use a powerful blender to make whole juices or smoothies from fruits, veggies, berries, and more, and how you can easily come up with your own recipes, or make the drinks different every time by using whatever you have on hand. We tried two different models of juicers: Breville and Hamilton Beach. In my post Juicers: Comparing Breville to Hamilton Beach , I write about our experience with these two juicers. And in my post Which is Better; Blendtec or Vitamix? Why We Chose Blendtec ,” I compare the two popular and powerful blenders Blendtec, and Vitamix. In this post, I will compare our experiences with extractor juicers to our blender, and explain why we prefer our Blendtec blender over extractors. On the bottom of this post, you will also find the results of an experiment I did to compare the machines side by side, making juice of carrots and apples. Here’s my Blendtec, an […] Read more »