Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juice Extractor

I love my nutribullet so much that I decided to try juicing next.  The nutribullet is wonderful, but sometimes i want a juice rather than a smoothie. 

It was my birthday on the 19th, and my parents gave me money in lieu of a gift and told me to buy whatever I wanted.  I chose this juicer, by Hamilton Beach.

I researched before buying, and it had the best ratings out of the lower cost juicers...5 stars at best buy, and 4.2stars on Amazon.  Which is pretty good considering over 900 people rated it there.

I watched Joe Cross's documentary, Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead on Netflix, and it really made me want to try a juice fast.  I don't think I could do a 60 day fast like Joe did, but I'd like to try the 3 or 5 day fast.  I bought a bunch of fresh fruits and veggies and some mason jars, and made 4 different juices tonight.

My new juicer

I tried carrot juice first, because I like carrot juice but don't like it in the nutribullet.  I also don't like it when it's too thick.  I was really impressed with my new juicer; that's three carrots worth of juice in the photo above; impressive, and  big improvement over the old juicer I had back in the 1980's.  6 carrots made a big glass of juice, and it was delicious!  So sweet and good!

For my next juice, I tried some cantaloup and pineapple that I had already cut up in the fridge; left over from my birthday dinner.  Oh, my gosh; it was so yummy!  That little bit of fruit made half a mason jar full of juice, and it was so good I drank it right down.

My camera died, but I also experimented with Joe Cross's Mean Green Recipe, which I halved because I didn't want two servings. It's basically cucumber, celery, kale, lemon (I used lime), and ginger.  It was very good right out of the juicer, but I read that it tastes better cold so I put it in the fridge or an hour and I liked it a lot better right out of the juicer.  It tastes much stronger to me now.

I tried a beet based juice from a recipe I found on Joe's website. It's called Anti Aging Beet Grape Juice, and it's got a nice sweet, beet-y flavor.  I like it, or I did fresh out of the juicer.  It's in the fridge cooling and I"m hoping the taste didn't change too much.

I made another jar of juice similar to the Mean Green, but minus the ginger, with the addition of a tomato, fresh basil, and a carrot.  It tastes a lot nicer than the mean green.

I couldn't take any more photos because my camera battery lost the charge, but if you imagine a row of mason jars holding orange, green, and a pinky-purple juice lining my fridge shelf, you'll have an idea of what I ended up with.

I think it's a great way to get nutrients I wouldn't usually eat into my system.
So far though, I'm not convinced that leafy greens belong in smoothies or juices.  I much prefer them in salads :-).