Juicer comparisons plus their marketing
Juicer comparisons plus their marketing
Introduction
My old, cheap vertical juicer recently broke. I knew I need to get another one
quickly, because it's such an important device - especially for someone with
digestive issues. With a juicer, you can eat an amount of fruit and vegetables
that you'd never be able to otherwise - all in a glass of juice. They're also
faster and easier to assimilate. You could write an entire article about the
benefits of juicing, but this isn't what I want to talk about today. Instead, I
want to review the machine that I ended up buying - the Sana 707. Since I
had some money, I knew I don't want yet another cheap one that will break on me
soon. I couldn't get the Champion juicer in my country (and those have a
reputation for being sturdy), so I had to settle for the second best option.
Which at the time I thought is the Sana 707, because I relied too much on
the description from a site that sells juicers (and again, the availability of
juicers in this country is somewhat restricted). This was a huge mistake that
we'll explore right now.
The juicer selling site
The site I mentioned is <https://www.eujuicers.com/>
(MozArchive). At first
choosing the best juicer - and they even mention the pros and cons of different
types! Their YouTube channel has a bunch of educational
videos, including juicer face
offs. However, it seems it's all an
illusion and they're really shills for Omega (the company that makes
Sana juicers). To support this claim, just check out their offer of single
auger juicers (archive) (MozArchive) - it's
almost all Omega or Sana. Really the only ones that aren't are the
Kuvings EVO820 Evolution (which isn't even available), the Champion
(also not available) and the Santos Nutrisantos N65 - which no one is going
to buy for that price. On their about
page (archive)
(MozArchive), they say that
they've tested a lot of juicers that didn't meet their standards - and they're
not going to sell such devices. Let me ask, then, what is wrong with top
brands such as Hurom? Maybe it's because their devices - such as the Hurom
DU - offer the same quality for significantly lesser price? Anyway, if you
want to buy from Eujuicers, you're pretty much limited to the Sana brand
- and their most popular / best juicer is the Sana 707. They have it pretty
(MozArchive) - so it's
clear that's the one they want to sell you. In that case, let's check it out.
Their review of Sana 707, and my response
(MozArchive) for
Eujuicers' review of the machine in question. I will quote and reply to
specific claims, in a manner similar to the
E-mail and Search
engine reports. Without further
ado...
It comes with two types of juicing screens. Most horizontal juicers only
have one juicing screen, plus sometimes a blank homogenizing screen. The
Sana EUJ-707 includes both the standard fine juicing screen which makes very
fine, clear juice, as well as a coarse juicing screen which makes a denser
juice with more pulp.
It's great that it has those two screens, but it's not that important. For
anyone that's juicing for health reasons (especially digestive problems), the
juice needs to have as little pulp in it as possible - this makes absorption
faster and less resource demanding. For all my usage of this juicer, the coarse
screen has been rotting in the cupboard. Also, even really cheap vertical
juicers have it - so if an additional screen is important to someone, they can
get a vertical. Again, nice feature, but nothing to write home about.
It has an extra-large feed opening, which means less chopping and preparing
of produce.
And here we encounter the first absolute lie on the seller's part. In no way
can the feed chute be called extra large - when every other juicer has a
similar one or bigger. The size in this one is 4.5cm x 4cm - which is comparable
to, for example, the BioChef Axis (archive)
(MozArchive) and much
smaller than the G21
Gracioso
[(archive)ttps://web.archive.org/web/20210423033814/https://www.g21-vitality.c
z/odstavnovac-g21-gracioso-horizontal.html]
(MozArchive) or the
(MozArchive). The latter
two can easily fit a whole orange; now, whether the auger can grab it after that
is another matter entirely. In the Sana, you need to cut your oranges into
at least halves - and likely thirds. It's one of the biggest issues of this
juicer; calling the feed chute extra large is pure mockery.
In addition, the pusher has a silicone ring attached, which means everything
you put in the tube goes into the juicer easily, with no splash-back.
I can confirm this - the Sana 707 pretty much does not clog up - unlike
my two cheap verticals (R.I.P). Though you could say that about many of the
currently produced horizontal juicers, it's still a huge + for Sana.
Its powerful 200 watt motor is very quiet
I agree, it is. But again, most of the horizontal, masticating juicers are
pretty silent as well - even ones within a much lower price range.
yet provides ample power to process many fruits, vegetables, and herbs
including
Yeah, it juices everything well. Really though - as long as the device uses the
same technology (in this case, horizontal, masticating, single-auger) - the
juicing performance will be extremely similar. It is hard to find direct
comparisons between different juicers, but I found two. Here's Sana 707
versus G21 Gracioso and
versus Byzoo Rhino. Both had
extremely similar yields, as expected. Warning: foreign languages! But you can
see the amounts of juice, at least.
We received higher juice yields with the 707 than any other horizontal
juicer, except for twin-gear models like the Angel juicer.
Now this is just another mockery - if I had some juice in my mouth right now,
I'd spit it all over the keyboard. The Angel juicer uses a completely
different technology - dual gears, all steel, much longer, and with more bumps
on them. Its yield blows away anything a single auger can produce. Of course,
that comes with disadvantages too - longer juicing, cleaning and assembly time.
But the only time you could say that the Sana 707 comes even close to the
Angel's performance is during April Fools. Click
here for a juice-off between
the Angel and another Omega juicer.
The gentle 75 rpm juicing without using metal blades allows the highest
amount of nutrition to be extracted from produce.
Great - except every masticating juicer can say this - even an extremely
cheap Chinese Aicok. If someone's not in the know, they might get the
impression that the Sana 707 is somehow special.
Laboratory tests found the Sana 707 yielded the highest amounts of folic
acid of all single-gear juicers tested, and nearly matched the twin-gear
Angel juicer in efficiency.
This again? Seriously?
The Sana 707 was designed to be as user-friendly as possible. It has few
parts, no hard corners, or hard-to-reach places. Cleaning the machine after
juicing takes only 2-3 minutes.
I agree, it is in fact very easy to assemble and clean - certainly much better
than my earlier verticals. The small filter surface area really helps; just a
few swipes of the brush cleans it right out. However, it isn't really any
different than the Byzoo Rhino and most other modern horizontal single auger
juicers.
using the included homogenizing screen, the Sana 707 is able to make such
things as [insert huge list of stuff]
Yawn, most juicers can do those these days. Besides, I bought the device only
for juicing.
Every juicer we've seen comes with plastic juicing bowls and pulp
containers. The Sana 707 comes with a heavy-duty glass juice bowl with a
custom strainer top, as well as a stainless steel pulp container.
Who cares - everyone has a hundred containers in their kitchen that they can
substitute if they don't like the default ones. There are also big problems with
both of the ones Sana 707 uses. The juicing bowl goes way too high,
almost touching the juice outlet. This means you have to lift up the device to
pull it out - annoyingly bad design. You could easily fix it by making the main
body just 2cm higher. Then, the pulp outlet doesn't go far enough, so the pulp
all ends up in the front part of the container, eventually falling out on the
counter (or worse, into your juice!). Again, a 2cm longer pulp outlet would fix
this. No one would notice the slightly bigger size, but the practical advantages
would be immeasurable.
All materials used in the Sana 707 are BPA-free and certified by the FDA.
Literally every juicer can boast this now (even my last two cheap verticals were
BPA free). The vast majority of them are made of either Tritan, a proven
hormone disruptor (archive)
(MozArchive) - or Ultem
(AFAIK, completely untested for safety!). This is nothing more than an empty
marketing claim.
My view of the Sana 707
The Eujuicers review of the Sana was pretty deceptive, and clearly
aimed at increasing sales. But how is the device itself? Suprisingly, it's
pretty nice; overall I'd rate it about a 7 out of 10. It juices everything
well and is fast to assemble and clean - which are the most important criteria
for rating juicers (there's also the durability, but you'd need years of heavy
usage to say anything about that). Really, the most important issue is that the
price does not justify the quality. See, for that kind of money, the small
issues (that I'd otherwise ignore) rise in importance. A G21 Gracioso juicer
costs about 60% of the Sana 707 and has:
A truly wide feed chute (Sana requires cutting produce into really small
pieces)
Anti-drip (Sana will leak stuff onto the counter)
A pulp outlet that goes further (Sana will concentrate the pulp in the
front part of the container, unless you manually move it)
A ceramic auger! This is massive - in my opinion, the only safe material
Similar juice yield and quality
Similar amount of noise (as in, not much)
No annoying huge hopper (seriously, who even uses it?)
Keep in mind I haven't used this juicer - this is just from what I can see
in pictures, videos, and specification. It could turn out to be quite frail, and
then all the other advantages stop mattering. Still, I can find even cheaper
juicers that have other features that the Sana doesn't, such as speed or
pressure adjustments, etc. So, how can the Sana charge so much? Again, it's
all about the impression you create in the customers' minds. A known brand name
and good marketing presence can make a product seem much more quality than it
actually is, and more deserving of a high price. You're also paying for the
so-called premium accessories, like the containers and additional attachments
(can you say bloat?). As far as I'm concerned, juicers might as well come
without containers, brushes or strainers, since everyone has those at home
already. If it's not your first juicer, then the additional equipment will just
annoyingly take up space in your cupboards. For a 50% price increase, you can
get Omega's newest model (Sana 727) which adds anti-drip (even cheap
Chinese knockoffs have that) and speed adjustments - but keeps the small feed
chute.
Concluding thoughts
If you're not shitting money, you might want to think about the price to
quality ratio when buying juicers. Unfortunately, I don't think most machines
out there do well in this department, but the Sana 707 is one of the worst
offenders. Another thing I'd watch for is false advertising; I'd even
settle for a slightly worse product if I'm not being conned in the process. See,
juicers are pretty simple - orange comes in, magic drink comes out one way,
sawdust the other. But the big corpos are as usual trying to blind customers
with a bunch of gimmicks (like pasta attachments that will be used once a year,
if that), vague assurances of being leaders in the business or a seven step
extraction process, or outright nonsense claims like bio-ceramic & magnetic
technology - while skimping on the basics such as durability and safety of
materials (I'd avoid such products, of course). I think the G21 Gracioso
satisfies both criteria - and if I was buying a juicer again, that is probably
the one I'd go for. If money isn't an issue, I might get an Angel; extremely
high price, but this time you're actually paying for quality.
UPDATE March 2024: tbh, I don't really see the point to an Angel juicer
anymore. Because, if you juice the pulp again twice in a regular juicer, you get
the same yield as an Angel (this doesn't excuse Eujuicers' pretending that you
can come close to achieving that feat in a single run). For proof, in this
vid (27:00), an Angel juicer gave
469ml of juice per 658g of red cabbage, or 71ml per 100g. In my Sana tests, red
cabbage gave 40-47 ml of juice per 100g, so let's consider a middle value of 44.
This would result in a yield of 290ml from 658g of produce. Second run gives
between 42-45% additional juice, which increases the yield to 416ml (using a
middle value of 43.5%). Adding the third run's 12.5% leaves the final result as
468ml, basically the same as the Angel. Keep in mind I've picked middle values,
which might not necessarily be the most common ones, so the results might easily
be higher in practice. And of course, Angels are extremely expensive, probably
way beyond the average person's capabilities. Most importantly, though, they
are made by an unethical company as shown in a comment
here by DiscountJuicers (removed
irrelevant parts):
[...] I do not recommend or promote the Angel Juicer due to my
experience with the Angel Company 20 years ago. I sent them a $3K check for
prepayment of juicers. They cashed the check, never sent me the juicers.
They went out of business. Later they re-emerged from bankruptcy, and I made
a video sharing my experience. Instead of sending me the juicers they owed
me, they sent a lawyer after me to make me take my video down or face a
lawsuit. I do not agree with those business practices. I hope people would
not support a company that operates in that manner. [...]
Before any purchase, read the reviews of others who have actually bought and
used the device in question. Sometimes, you will see claims like I put a piece
of celery in there and the motor stopped, never to run again (or similar).
Obviously, you don't want such products; but also, take note of the ratio of
good to bad reviews; if one person out of 50 had a bad experience, it's not the
end of the world - they might have abused the juicer just as well. But if it's a
regular occurence, avoid such products. I don't recommend really cheap juicers
(say, under 150 EUR) - they will work, and the yield might not be too different
from an expensive one (to support this claim, check out this
juice-off between Omega
and Aicok juicers) - but they will break fast, clog up and their weak motors
might force them to stop every 10 minutes or so. Still, it all depends on the
specific model; sometimes, you might find a gem for peanuts. And, for the love
of God, don't get a centrifugal - their only advantage is being lightning
fast. Otherwise, they're loud, make a mess, and the juice quality and amount
is much lower. If you want to buy a
vertical, take note of the size of the pulp outlet - if it's small (as it is in
most devices), it will easily clog up (especially if you juice stuff with "hair"
like celery or rhubarb), and you'll have to disassemble the machine during
juicing (there's nothing worse than this). Anyway, watch this space, because I
might be getting more juicers to review soon (if I had more money, I'd expose
all the frauds, but alas...).