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UPDATE: I've split this from the table that shows the yield of different fruit and vegetables, since I think it stands on its own, and will fit better in a separate "article". Also changed title to better reflect the contents.
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 site I mentioned is https://www.eujuicers.com/ (MozArchive). At first glance, they appear thorough and unbiased - they have a guide (archive) (MozArchive) for 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 much all over their site (archive) (MozArchive) - so it's clear that's the one they want to sell you. In that case, let's check it out.
Click here (archive) (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) (MozArchive) or the Philips Viva HR1889 (archive) (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 out 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.
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 size. A G21 Gracioso juicer costs about 60% of the Sana 707 and has:
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.
Same as with MP3 players - 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.
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...).