Omega 8006 Juicer – A Review

Sorry I didn’t come back last night after the cookie post. Things came up that I had to attend to, as usual. Nothing bad, just time consuming.

This morning we had the same breakfast as yesterday with the oatmeal and green juice. We are both really enjoying the green juice. It has such a nice flavor and oddly seems to give me a burst of energy like I used to get from my morning shot of espresso. The increase in energy isn’t as dramatic as the espresso but it is noticeable. I had read about the energy from green drinks on other blogs and thought it was in their heads. Much to my surprise fresh juice does give me energy too.

Speaking of juicing, I never expected to become a juice person. I was one of those people that thought juicing was a little silly since you were throwing away the pulp. However, now that I have found the pulp has so many uses, juicing makes sense to me. By obliterating the food you are destroying the cells walls and extracting all the potential nutrition from the food so you can consume a lot of vegetables and fruit quickly.

Since I have been using the juicer quite a bit lately I wanted to share the research I did before buying it and why I choose the model that I did. I also wanted to let you know what we like and don’t like about the juicer. To be clear, this is something that we purchased. It was not given to me to review.

There are two basic types of juicers, centrifugal and masticating. My first juicer (about 10 years ago) was centrifugal. I found it to be very cumbersome to clean and much larger and more difficult to store. Additionally centrifugal juicers are generally not recommended for wheat grass. Since I thought we might get into that soon centrifugal juicers were out for us.

This left masticating juicers which I had no experience with. I had no idea where to start researching. Thankfully Jordan at explorave pointed me in the right direction. Thanks again Jordan! According to my research masticating juicers are better than centrifugal for two reasons, higher juicer extraction (drier pulp) and they heat the juice less retaining more nutrition.

For those of you that are considering a juicer here is what I like and don’t like about the juicer we purchased.

Pros:

• Extremely easy to use, right out of the box. The machine is very intuitive. Not being very mechanical I appreciate this aspect.

• Quiet. Unlike my dehydrator, this machine is much quieter than I expected.

• Easy to take apart and clean. My original centrifugal juicer was a pain to clean. It was so cumbersome it was the primary reason it didn’t get used often. The machine is exactly the opposite. It comes about in under a minute and is 95% clean from a quick trip to the sink.

• Dry pulp. When the pulp comes out of the machine it is very dry. This makes me feel as though we are getting most of the vitamins and minerals from the food.

• Cold juice. I have been processing cold vegetables and fruit and the juice the machine produces is still cold. This is a positive and should result in less nutrient loss.

• Compact size. This is an easy machine to store since it has both a compare size and built in handle. It also doesn’t take up much room on the counter for those of you with a small kitchen, like me.

• Doesn’t require much strength to use. While this may not seem important but some of the other reviews I read complained that the juicers required more strength than the person had. Since none of us are getting any younger, I am happy this juicer does most of the work thus not requiring much strength.

• Can handle wheat grass juice which is on my short list of things to do.

• Makes a great banana soft serve without straining the machine. Banana soft serve has become our new favorite desserts of choice.

• Pasta extrusion attachments. If you don’t have the pasta plate for your Kitchen Aid mixer, this machine will extrude pasta. I have not tried this functionality yet, but it comes with the accessories standard.

• Flour Grinder. I have not tried this yet since I use my Vitamix to make flour, but the paperwork says it will grind flour. This is something I will try the next time I need flour.

• 15 year warranty. Nice long warranty, as high as or higher than most I saw when researching machines. Given the work it has to do I was happy to have a long warranty period.

Cons:

• Body is chrome covered plastic. It looks pretty now, but I am a little worried about how this it hold up. Only time will tell. I would have paid more to get a chrome or stainless body.

• Placement of the on/off switch. I am not crazy about the switch being in the back of the machine where you can’t easily see it. This morning I reached for the button and accidently reversed the direction. It was an easy mistake to see since the juice wasn’t coming out. But if the button were located in a place where you could see it more easily I think that would be an improvement.

• Little pricey. I think it is worth the price, but wish it were a more accessible price point.

Overall:

Both my hubby and I are enjoying juicing much more than we expected to. I can definitely say we will be continuing to drink fresh juice with our breakfast and dinner. The machine is very easy to use and clean and that makes juicing something you can do without much prep.

There is another machine that we considered by Green Star, but it is almost twice the price. I think this juicer is more than enough for us.

If anyone has any specific questions that I didn’t cover please feel free to ask. We purchased this from coolshinystuff.com (the same place we bought the dehydrator). The on-line vendor shipped the product very quickly. We would purchase from them again.

Unrelated notes:

My hubby has gone downtown to work today. Bummer. However, this gives me a little time to cross some things off my to-do list.  Although I would rather be spending time with my hubby.

I should be back later tonight with a dinner recipe. At this moment, I have no idea what I am making, but I will come up with something. Dan has requested tofu chocolate mousse for dessert tonight. There are many variations of this on the blog if you are interested. Some with less sugar and one with a peanut mousse component that is particularly tasty.

I hope you are all having a great day. The sun is out here and the snow is gradually melting. With a little luck we will be able to see the grass in another week or so. ;)