Juicing has become a real buzzword of late. Juiceries have popped up all over the show offering a range of freshly pressed or squeezed juices that you can either enjoy once off, or if you are more committed, can do a cleanse for a few days. For the uninitiated, when we talk juicing, we don’t mean buying a couple of boxes of fruit juice and living off that for a few days. Proper juicing entails getting a burst of high-quality nutrients, vitamins and minerals from a variety of fruits and vegetables that you otherwise would struggle to include in your diet every day. The benefits are numerous if you know what you are doing.

The quickest mistake would be to load up all your favourite fruits and have those three times a day – what you’ll be doing is taking in a lot of additional sugar, unprocessed fruit sugars yes, but still it can have a negative effect on your body if you are not utilising that energy.

The key is balance. If you’re someone that’s not a huge vegetable eater, this can be a way to ensure you’re getting everything you need.

I spent 24-hours with the Russell Hobbs RHJM05 Power Gear Super Juicer to see how easy juicing at home can be.

It’s the morning of having the Russell Hobbs juicer in my home, I’m surprised that it’s not nearly as cumbersome as I thought it might be, in fact, its design is quite sleek and neat. To kickstart my day I’m trying a citrus and beet juice, into the juicer goes peeled baby beetroot, green apples and grapefruit. I’m feeling a tad under the weather so I added a little ginger too. The machine is actually fairly quiet and works efficiently. The whole ingredients go in on one side and out the other side comes a perfect mixed juice. The taste is pretty spectacular; the balance of ginger, beetroot and citrus is really tasty (get the recipe).
I feel healthier already.

Come lunchtime, I decide to up my game a little with more greens. Depending on the style of juicer, different types will be better equipped to deal with different types of fruit and veggies.

The Russell Hobbs Power Gear Juicer is a masticating juicer which means it effectively mimics a chewing action, which extracts maximum juice from the pulp and does not generate any heat, keeping all those nutrients in tact.

The machine easily handles tougher ingredients such as kale, celery, carrots and lemon. Cleaning the machine is a cinch. Despite the fact that you can’t put it in the dishwasher, it really is ridiculously easy to clean. Each of the parts simply click out of place, and after a quick rinse in hot, soapy water, they fit back together without a problem. If I were to take up juicing seriously, I would definitely consider some kind of bokashi compost bin for the vegetable refuse, which could go into the garden of someone I know. There are also some handy recipes in the accompanying booklet that offer some tips for using up that leftover pulp.

I’m new to the idea of juicing, so I plan to work our way towards a full 3-day juice cleanse type of situation; I skip juicing for dinner and instead head out for a night on the town. On Sunday morning, I eyeball the juicer as a means to helping me clear a slight post-Saturday night fog – hair of the dog and all that. I’ve got tomatoes from the market, celery from my green juice and some Tabasco sauce. I juice the tomatoes and make fabulous brunch Bloody Mary’s. I could get used to this.

All in all, I found the Russell Hobbs juicer to be a really pleasant addition to our kitchen. I felt supremely healthy just purchasing all the fruits and veggies needed to juice, and even more supremely healthy when I made the juices.

Although it does take some effort to make these juices, the machine itself is not difficult to use or clean. The benefits are that you can mix and match flavours until you find exactly what it is that you like, and in the long run doing it yourself can be cheaper. You can ease yourself into it by starting out with fun fresh juices and slowly work towards more serious green juices with lots of superfoods added in.

If you are not a huge fruit and veggie eater, it really is a great way to get a good dose of everything you need in drink form. Plus there are obvious other benefits such as freshly made juices for… say cocktails. Our conclusion? Juicing, if you have the time, means and know-how to do it properly, can be immensely rewarding for your health and can take the pressure off feeling like every meal needs to be a meat-and-three-veg kind of affair. The Russell Hobbs Power Gear Juicer is a great place to kickstart your juicing career.
Retails at approx. R 2000.

Get the recipe for this Beetroot, Grapefruit, Apple and Ginger Juice HERE.

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