Why drink wheatgrass juice?
Wheatgrass has been described as a superfood thanks to the abundance of healthy antioxidants and nutrients that it contains. However, you’re unlikely to munch on wheatgrass itself – so wheatgrass juice is the next best way to enjoy the health benefits of this plant. Juicing wheatgrass also has the advantage of preserving the nutrients in the plant while allowing you to mix it with other fruits and vegetables for more flavor. Wheatgrass has become a very popular superfood in the past few years, with many consumers looking for a glass of fresh wheatgrass juice. This has led to many advancements in technology, so all the best commercial juicers currently on the market have the ability to efficiently juice this vegetable.
What to look for in an ideal wheatgrass juicer?
Although wheatgrass juicers share much of their fundamental design, they also vary widely in key features that can affect how easy the juicer is to use – and in turn how likely you are to use your juicer. Here, we’ll cover some of the common features that differentiate wheatgrass juicers and help you decide what features you need most.
Type of juicer
Wheatgrass juicers can be either electric or manual. Electric juicers use a masticating design, essentially crushing the wheatgrass between one gear and a hard surface or between a pair of gears. Manual juicers operate similarly, but rather than have a motor, the gears are turned by a hand crank.
The obvious advantage to electric juicers is that they operate without manual labor, but they usually require more effort to clean, can be more prone to clogging than manual juicers, and are typically more expensive.
Juicing speed
Juicing speed is counterintuitive for wheatgrass juicers – slower is actually better than faster. This is because slow juicers do a better job of reducing oxidation and heat buildup during the juicing process, both of which can erode the nutritional content of the wheatgrass juice. As a result, there is a trade-off between faster juicing and nutritional benefits. Most wheatgrass juicers opt for a speed of around 80 RPM as a good compromise, but if you would rather have your juice produced more quickly – which can be important when you are making a lot of wheatgrass juice – then juicers like the one from Tribest above operate at faster speeds of 110 RPM or more.
Ease of cleaning
Cleaning is often the most labor-intensive part of operating a wheatgrass juicer. Electric juicers are typically designed to be disassembled so that only the parts that come in contact with the juice can be removed and cleaned either by hand or in the dishwasher. Consider whether these parts are dishwasher safe and how many individual parts need to be cleaned when choosing a juicer. Juicers that have quick-lock assemblies, like the one from Samson, can also make the process go faster. Manual juicers also require cleaning, but because there are no electric parts they are often simpler and faster to clean and are designed to be dishwasher safe either as a single piece (as for the Handy Pantry juicer above) or as a few easily disassembled pieces.
Build and durability
Metal parts, particularly stainless steel, are far more durable than plastic parts, which can be important when you plan to use your juicer frequently for years to come.
However, metal construction also tends to be far more expensive than plastic construction, so it may actually be more cost-effective in the long run to buy several inexpensive juicers than one expensive metal juicer.
Certification
Testing laboratories like the Underwriters Laboratory (UL) often test juicers, particularly electric juicers, for build quality and safety. UL and the comparable ETL listing can be good indicators that a product is trustworthy, especially since you will be operating the juicer in your home. Certifications from the FDA on specific parts can also be important, since the juice you will be drinking will have come into contact with the material from which the juicer was constructed and you do not want to be ingesting unexpected chemicals.
Price and warranty
A wheatgrass juicer is a significant investment, so you want to be sure that it will last. The warranties on juicers vary widely, but typically scale with price such that inexpensive, plastic juicers have the shortest warranties and expensive stainless steel juicers have the longest warranties. At the top end of wheatgrass juicers, warranties longer than 10 years are common.
