I decided I had to have a juicer when Trader Joe’s was out of my pineapple juice for weeks, with no shipment for another month, when I asked about it. I had gotten used to skipping coffee and having a can of their not-from-concentrate pineapple juice from Trader Joe’s. (And I can highly recommend that too!) That was just not okay with me so I thought, just considered, buying a juicer for myself. I had never owned or used one before. It just seemed like a juicer was something other people—special people—had. Then, going without my pineapple juice, buying some cold pressed pineapple juice, then some of that wonderful watermelon-ginger juice from Whole Foods that is another favorite—and both are splurge items— I started to do some research. Martha Stewart was my first stop in researching. She’s one of those “special people” I mentioned, and if anyone would know, it would be Martha, I figured. Well, all I remember of Martha’s comments about juicers is that you’ve got to get a “really good one,”an expensive one. For Martha, a good juicer is probably the $2200 model. The cheaper juicers? Probably the. $399 ones you can buy at Bed Bath & Beyond. I knew I needed good pineapple juice in my life. I also wanted very much to cut out the use of so much plastic. Both the cold pressed pineapple juice from TJ’s and the watermelon-ginger juice from WF are in plastic bottles. I’m so tired of all the plastic! My conscience was bothering me. So then I started looking at juicers here on Amazon. I was not going to invest $400 or even $200 in a juicer unless I knew I’d really use it. I came across a model very similar to this one for about the same once. There were some good reviews, but a few also mentioned the motor burning out and having to deal with returns. I hate returns. They just put a damper on my while day (though I have now seen that I can send things back via WF, which is good to know—but I still don’t want to be bothered with returns). Someone reviewing that other brand (and I cannot recall which one it was) said they’d returned that one and bought a Hamilton Beach juicer because they trusted the brand, since it’s been around such a long time. So I looked at a couple of Hamilton Branch models. I do not recall what made me choose this one, but I’m glad I did. I have gotten so much use out if this! I was skeptical about such an inexpensive jucer, but I figured even if it’s just mediocre, maybe it will last a couple months, and it’ll be just okay. So that’s all I was looking for—just okay. Well, this juicer has far surpassed just okay I use it almost every day. I thought I had to have pineapple juice every morning. But it’s the mandarin orange and clementine juices that have got me addicted! I can’t believe how much I love this. I grew up near an orange grove so I long ago lost my taste for store bought OJ. It tastes bitter and just awful to me. I had forgotten how good truly fresh OJ is. It takes me all of ten minutes, at the most, to peel enough clementines or mandarins to fill up the shoot. Then it takes all of 40 seconds or so for the juicer to churn out about 6 oz of the best OJ I think I’ve ever had—unless I was right there at the orange grove when they were making the juice. You just cannot beat squeezed on the spot orange juice. It’s the nectar of the gods Good grief, it’s so good. I’ve also made lots of watermelon juice blends. I’ve even stuck the rind in the juicer, since there are nutrients in that too. This juicer handles it well. I tried Strawberries but they’re not really meant for this type of juicer—but I just took the pulp out of the bucket and ran it through again. Let me just say—watermelon strawberry juice is divine too. So is the pineapple juice. Pineapple-ginger, pineapple orange, all kinds of blends. Oh yes I forgot, watermelon cucumber juice too—wonderful. And it’s fresh, it’s got no sugar added. Why add sugar to watermelon or pineapple juice, anyway? They’re loaded with fruit sugar and are so sweet anyway.if you’re making it yourself, you have control over this. I had seen watermelon cucumber juice at the store, but it was loaded with sugar. Not mine. I remembered one night that I’d had fresh passion fruit juice in South America once and it was so good. I couldn’t find any fresh passion fruit near me, but WF had frozen chunks of passion fruit. Off to the races again—I was adding passion fruit to all kinds of juice. Passion fruit is wonderful, just heavenly—but it is one fruit that does need a sweetener, so I add just a bit to pineapple or citrus juices, and wow, what a flavor explosion. I’ve gone a little overboard with the passion fruit (so me—moderation is one of my challenges in life). Don’t do that, unless you love grapefruit (and I don’t—at all). It was way too tart and sour, tasted a lot like grapefruit. So I’ve scaled back on the passion fruit chunks, and I’ve made some delightful blends. This juicer has been a great addition to my kitchen. I use it so often that I just leave it on the counter. Sure, it’s a little bulky, but for as much as I use it, it stays on the counter. From reading reviews of lots of juicers, I figured cleaning it was going to be a real hassle. I’ve been nicely surprised about that. As long as you clean it pretty soon after using it, it’s not hard to clean at all. I don’t even use much soap, if any, with certain juices because there’s just need. There’s a nice stiff brush fir cleaning the basket, and it works surprisingly well. All of the other pieces are easy enough to clean. If you do leave it, say for a day (or worse, overnight), yuck, it smells like you’re fermenting fruit to make your own cheap wine. Don’t do that. If nothing else, at least rinse it and clean later. It’s not hard to clean. It’s pretty simple. I’ve not been bothered by the sound of it, and from reading reviews of lots of juicers, they seem to be very loud, too loud. I would not call this quiet, but my dog doesn’t run like she does if I turn in a hair dryer or a vacuum cleaner. It’s really not that bad. It’s just not whisper quiet, but also done so quickly, so it’s a non issue for me. I gave it 4 stars as opposed to 5 stars for just one reason: I suspect that a higher quality juicer (One that Martha Stewart would approve of, definitely) would extract more juice than this one. I think I might be wasting some juice/food with this, and that does bother me, if for no other reason than that I wish we’d all waste less food (and use less plastic). That is my only complaint. I am very happy with this jucer. It’s made a terrific addition to my kitchen and my life. I’m so glad I took a chance on this. It has far exceeded my expectations. Whoever it does wear out, I’ll look into a “really good one,” but this one is great for my needs now. Great value, lots of creativity in the kitchen, all around one of the best things I’ve ever bought for myself.
