Product Reviews & Consumer Advice

Jack Lalanne’s JLSS Power Juicer Deluxe Stainless-Steel Electric Juicer The Power Juicer Deluxe has all the best selling qualities of our classic juicer. Its new stainless finish and updated features add elegance to any kitchen.

Jack LaLanne’s PJEB Power Juicer Express, Black Fast, healthy, fresh juice in seconds. With the new sleek compact design, this juicer is attractive while being functional producing up to 30-percent more juice then other juicers.

Jack LaLanne Power Juicer Turn fresh fruits and veggies into healthy drinks with the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer, and SAVE BIG! As seen on TV! Fitness guru Jack LaLanne once swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf.

The healthy practice of making your own fruit and vegetable juices at home has become considerably popular over the past 10 years. It sure has come a long way from the days when it was mostly associated with food or fitness fanatics and as something a little ‘out there’. So what changed? Well to cut a long story short – the Jack LaLanne power juicer infomercials (most likely coupled with a general shift in humanity in the direction of healthy living).

About 10 years ago the famous Jack LaLanne power juicer informercials flooded our TV screens and they are still going strong. You can almost be certain that at any time of the day on one shopping channel or another the infomercial is being aired. At 84 years of age Jack LaLanne dances and sings his way around the screen displaying a youth, energy and vitality beyond that of most people half his age. Today Jack LaLanne is 95 and still in good shape – he works out two hours a day! One and half hours lifting weights and thirty minutes of swimming!

Besides exercising and general healthy eating, Jack LaLanne attributes part of his health and well being to juicing. He has been drinking fresh fruit and vegetable juices for decades. He explains that juicing provides us with a sheer concentration and diversity of very easily digested vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, enzymes and other health promoting plant chemicals. This offers great protection to our cells from free radical damage that speeds up the aging process and contributes to the development of diseases like heart disease and cancer. The living enzymes in juices help in the breaking down of food and are used for vital metabolic functions that are essential for providing energy in our cells and for creating every part of us. The health benefits of juicing are almost endless!

So the dazzling infomercial definitely put juicing on the map for many people and of course made the Jack LaLanne power juicer line of juicing machines the most well known and successfully marketed of juicers. So as amazing as Jack LaLanne is, how well does his power juicer machines hold up in reality?

I have owned a Jack LaLanne power juicer classic (the cheapest model) for close to two years now and here is my honest review of the pros and cons I have discovered through regular use.

The Pros
One of the main marketed features of all the power juicer machines is how quietly they operate. The website and the infomercials claim that the juicers are “whisper quiet”. The truth of the matter is that they really do live up to this claim. For the fast speed and strength of the motor there is no quieter juicing machine. This is great because when I make fresh juice in the morning it doesn’t wake the rest of the household up! Some juicing machines can actually sound like someone set up a building site in your kitchen! So I can attest to the “whisper quiet” claim.

Another main marketing feature of the power juicers is the extra wide feeding chute. At 3″ wide the chute really is one of the biggest chutes you will find on a juicing machine. Even though this does cut down on prep time considerably compared to other juicing machines with a smaller chute it is not quite as amazing as it is displayed on the infomercial. Don’t get me wrong, the wide chute is great so this why I am writing about this in the “Pros” section of this article. It is just that the marketing is a little exaggerated. For example the infomercial says that you can fit in apples whole, but this only applies to small apples. The average sized apples that we get at the store will not fit in without halving the apples first, which is still better than many juicers which will require quartering or more.Large carrots are too long to fit in whole because they are longer than the chute, so they need to be cut (or snapped) in half length ways. The great thing is once you have cut the carrots in half the actual width of the chute lets you put several of them in at the same time.

Besides these examples lots of other fruits and vegetables fit in whole no problem such as kiwis, berries, grapes, strawberries, small oranges, celery stalks, small bell peppers, small beets. If there are any that don’t fit whole then halving usually takes care of it. Pineapples and melons, of course, are an exception and will require much prepping for any juicer machine. All said and done, the Jack LaLanne power juicers definitely speed up prep time – extensively.

The ease of use is also a great feature and this partly ties into the reduced prep time of the extra wide chute, the other part being the strong motor and style of blade. The power juicers are centrifugal ejection juicers and these kind of juicers allow for continual juicing without needing to stop and clean the machine because it doesn’t get clogged up.

So how do they work? When we put produce down the chute it comes in contact with the flat side of the surgical quality stainless steel disc. This disc is the blade and looks very much like a Parmesan cheese greater, therefore consisting of lots of tiny sharp blades with holes. This blade finely shreds up the produce releasing the juice. The centrifugal (meaning ‘to move away from the center’) action created by the high speed of the spinning blade sends the juice outwards to a wire mesh filter that surrounds the spinning disc style blade. The filtered juice then makes it way to the spout and pours into a container of your choice. The pulp (which cannot get past the wire mesh filter) is ejected to a large container at the back of the machine.

The combination of the 3600RPM motor, the grating style blade and the wides chute really make light work of produce. Softer produce goes through a power juicer with next to zero pressure needing to applied with the pusher. Tougher vegetables like carrots and beets need a slightly firmer push but nothing unmanageable by any means. Compared to many other juicers, the power juicers make light work of tough vegetables. You can juice continually for a considerable period of time without needing to empty the pulp container that attaches to the back of the juicer; and even when it is full you just empty into the trash (or a storage container if you want to keep it for cooking) and replace it. Just takes a minute! So ease of use is definitely a major singing point of a Jack LaLanne juicer classic.

Assembling and disassembling the power juicer classic might just sit somewhere between a pro and a con. I have read other peoples reviews to see what they think and it seems that half are ok with it and half list it as a negative. Personally I don’t find it a big deal but I can see how some people may find it a little tricky initially. On the up side the power juicer classic is pre-assembled in the box when you buy it. It is easier to figure out how to take something apart initially than it is to assemble it right off the bat as you already know how it should look. There are seven individual parts and the juicer also comes with a special handle/key that you use to unscrew the blade so you don’t cut yourself. So for most it will take a few shots at assembling and disassembling before it becomes natural.

Because you need to disassemble the power juicer after each use to clean it then ‘ease of clean up’ also falls somewhere between a pro and a con also. Most of the parts clean off fine with a rinse but the actual blade and the wire mesh filter will require a little scrubbing (I recommend a toothbrush for this). All in all, once you get familiar with it, the clean up process will take 5 minutes maximum by hand. The parts are also dish washer safe but the wire mesh filter and the blade will need a pre-scrub by hand for the dish washer to be effective. For this reason I find washing by hand is actually quicker in the end.

The juice yield of the power juicer is impressive. The infomercial and website claim that their juicers extract up to 30% more juice than other juicing machines. I have no hardcore results for you but the result is great. The left over pulp is pretty dry which is also evidence that a lot of the juice has, indeed, been extracted from the fruits and vegetables.

Cons
Nothing is perfect and the Jack LaLanne Power Juicer classic is no exception. So here are the main sticking points I have found over the past 2 years.

The thing that bugs me the most about the power juicer classic is the dripping spout and the longer I have owned it the more annoying it gets (a bit like Chinese water torture). The spout is in a static position so when you remove your glass or cup away from the spout it just keeps on dripping onto your kitchen counter. So to remedy this you either need to put another container under the spout to capture the excess, put down some paper towel or simply let it drip and clean it up afterwards. This annoying feature is remedied in more expensive power juicer models; they sport a hinged spout that can be angled upwards.

The other main thin I find annoying is that the pusher can get stuck in the chute. Even though this only happens once in a blue moon when I am not focusing it can be tough to get back out. So how does this happen? The chute and the pusher are not perfectly round. They are almost round with one small flat edge. The problem is if you put the pusher in the chute without the flat edge matching the flat edge of the chute it can get stuck. It can go in so far without you noticing and depending on how hard you pushed it will either come back out fairly easy or it might be a bit of a wrestle.

If you like ‘clear juice’ the power juicer classic is not for you. The power juicer produces a slightly grainy juice because very small particles of the pulp make it into the juice. The juice is still pretty tasty and is actually more nutritious the less ‘clear’ it is. So it depend what you are looking for.

There are some fruits and vegetables that the power juicer classic is not the best option to use for juicing regularly. If you are looking to juice leafy greens, wheat grass or berries more often than not then you might want to look for a masticating juicing machine and not a centrifugal juicer. Leafy greens and wheat grass do a lot better with slower moving juicers that can extract more juice from them. The power juicers don’t give them ‘the time’ they need to squeeze out the juice. The almost butter like softness of the berries don’t work so great for the same reason. So effectively, really soft produce (berries and so)and very thin produce (leafy greens etc.) are a weak point for this juicer. Bigger more sold produce like apples, carrots, celery and beets, to name a few are really were this juicer excels.

Conclusion
All in all, I believe the Jack LaLanne power juicer classic is a great ‘all around’ ‘middle of the market’ juicing machine for the great price of $100 or less. It serves my needs well and I don’t think you will find a better juicer for the price. However if you aim is to make a lot of ‘green juice’ you might be better served buying a more expensive masticating juicing machine.

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