My New Bella High Power Juicer Extractor

There are a multitude of small kitchen appliances on the market.  Some are fluff, single purpose appliances that may or may not save you money.  In general, if the small kitchen appliance is not gimmicky, at some level it will save you money along with time while enhancing what you can cook in some fashion.   Sam's Club has a limited selection of small kitchen appliances.  By limited, I mean there really are only a very few to choose from and not the common ones like toasters what some consider daily use small kitchen appliances.  You will definitely save on the purchase price, likely ending up with a higher end appliance than you could find elsewhere but at a lower cost.  I bought my Kitchen Aid Professional HD stand mixer there with a savings of almost $200.

I am very pragmatic when it comes to small kitchen appliances, especially those single use ones.  I have wanted a juice extractor for years but really couldn't justify another appliance to find space for if it wasn't going to save me money or enhance my cooking in some manner.  Well, we were at Sam's Club a couple of weeks ago and they had a Bella High Power Juice Extractor on sale for $49.98 so for that price I decided to buy one.

The Bella high power juice extractor has a 1,000 W motor for juicing hard vegetables fast. It has a wide feed tube for quick and easy juicing with easy to clean dishwasher safe parts.  The 1 L juice pitcher has a splash free lid and there are two speeds for hard or soft fruits and vegetables.

The juice extractor is extremely easy to use.  Simply set up as per instructions then wash the fruit or vegetable you want to juice.  Fruits with pits (eg. mangos, peaches, cherries) should be pitted.  Fruits other than citrus do not need to be peeled.  Fruits containing starch (eg. banana, papayas, avocados, figs and mangoes are not suitable for the juice extractor as the will not yield a clear juice.  Bananas will also clog the micro-mesh screen.

The juice goes into the pitcher or if making a smaller amount you can use any glass that will fit under the spout.  The pulp goes into the pulp basket.  Do not throw this pulp out as it can be dried then used to make fruit or vegetable powder helping you increase your cooking diversity.

For the most part, a juicer is a single use small appliance with the sole purpose of making juice.  While the waste pulp can be frozen or dried for other uses, the goal is making juice.  That is one reason I did not buy a juicer earlier.  At the same time, a juicer makes small quantities of juice at a time while being a fair amount of work to clean.  For those with small kitchens, a juicer will take up more room than a stand mixer on the counter.

A juice extractor does not save you money unless you grow your own or have access to a free source of some fruits or vegetables.  A juicer does result in a healthier product that has not been subjected to heat for preserving.  Nor has it had salt, sugar, artificial flavourings or colours, or harmful preservatives like sodium benzoate.  The enzymes are still active in freshly extracted juice (aka better for you).  You can juice just about any fruit or vegetable, even herbs so you can make something at home that you can't buy.  I've have recipes that called for cucumber juice.  The only way you can make that quickly is with a juicer although you could set up an old fashioned strainer if desired but it will take several hours to collect the juice.

Juicing allows you collect the juices then use them in cooking, baking and jelly making.  If I wanted to make a juice for jelly it could take a half of a day or more to collect the jelly but a juice extractor reduces that to just a few minutes.  You can easily make home-made versions of the new and popular fruit and vegetable combination juices.

Pictured are carrot, celery and pineapple juice.  Now, I did save money on the carrot juice because 3 lb of carrots that were on sale for 97¢ gave a yield of 1 L carrot juice (less than the cost of store bough) and carrot pulp for drying to be made into powder, a win:win deal.  The celery juice is really a speciality juice you would be hard pressed to find in grocery stores.  It can be used in baking, cooking, drank as is, blended with other fruit juices or froze into ice cubes to flavour drinks later.  The celery was $1.49 but I got a unique product that I would either make off season when celery is on sale or use in season local or home grown celery.  Pineapple juice is not a cost savings it is a quality savings.  I paid $1.99 for the pineapple so I know store bought pineapple juice is cheaper but it has been subjected to heat for preserving meaning enzymes have been killed and there is a flavour change.  The freshly extracted pineapple juice is far superior in flavour to store bought canned pineapple juice.  Use it in baking for a wonderful punch of flavour that can't be beat!