My lovely friend Cat let me borrow her amazing Breville Juicer so I could conduct a little in-home experiment comparing the same ingredients in a Juicer VS a Blender to see what my family prefers. First on the menu today was oranges and spinach!
The plan was to use 3 oranges and one cup spinach for each device and compare the results. As you can see, my oranges were pretty small, so in order to make enough juice for all 4 of us to taste test I had to add a total of 5 oranges to this one large cup of loosely packed spinach for the Juicer. I prepared the ingredients exactly the same way for each device: peeled and seeded the oranges, washed and dried the spinach in a salad spinner. Below is one large glass of GREEN ORANGE JUICE with a few ice cubes to keep it cold. This glass holds 16 ounces of liquid.
Next up was the Blender with 3 oranges and one cup spinach. My blender is not a super-duper blender, but it can handle most items. It is a Waring Pro with hi and lo speeds. Same size glass. So the blender produced more final product from only 3 oranges because there is no waste from what you put in the blender.
Now, on to the taste testing! The juicer definitely won in the taste testing reviews as the blended version still has plenty of orange pulp and an occasional small piece of orange skin from the middle or between sections (all of which you would probably eat had you peeled and eaten an orange alone). Flavor was about the same, the spinach was not any stronger in the blender version even though it had 2 fewer oranges in it.
Everyone was fascinated watching the juicer do it’s work, and my kids left for school talking about what they wanted to try next! Of course, they are mostly interested in all-fruit combinations (they had to try an orange, apple and grapefruit before we left for school…that received a thumbs up from them both). So we will try a few more recipes over the next couple days, and if I can continue to snap up pictures before they drink it up I will post!
As an added bonus to this experiment….my composting worms will have a blast with all this fruit pulp and skins!
Please share your experiences with juicers or blender smoothies and which you prefer.
