The best raw food juicer, and other kitchen appliances

"If you can organize your kitchen, you can organize your life" Louis Parrisch

What's the best raw food juicer and what other kitchen appliances do you need if you're starting a raw food diet? With the best kitchen tools below, your (un)cooking will be oh-so easy.

You want your kitchen appliances to be:

• Simple;
• User friendly;
• Easy to clean;
• Not too big;
• Inexpensive;
• Practical and;
• Fun!

Selecting the best raw food juicer

These criteria will be our guide in selecting the best raw food juicer, blender, dehydrator and other helpful tools for a raw food kitchen. When it comes to getting your kitchen appliances together, it's all about : "will you actually use them?" Think about what kind of raw food recipes you're likely to make.

Now, with that picture in mind, let's choose the best raw food juicer, blender, dehydrator and other raw food kitchen tools:

If you want to get into raw food cooking there are some basic tools that will make preparing food a lot easier, quicker and fun. These are some kitchen appliances that you could use. Use a few of them or use them all, depending on your favorite recipes, available time and budget.

First, have a look at the summary:

Quick Overview of Raw Food Kitchen Tools

Next, read the full review

The easiest and most popular appliance is a high speed blender. This is to a raw foodist, what a stove is took a cook. You'll make smoothies, shakes and soups within minutes. And you'll use it many times a day. The two brands most used are the Vitamix and Blendtec blender.

The best raw food juicer, depends on what you expect to be juicing most. Carrots are easiest in a centrifuge juicer, whereas green leafy vegetables go best in a twin gear juicer. But if you have a juice bar around the corner, you may choose to buy your juice there instead. If you buy a centrifuge juicer, make sure you'll buy one where you can juice whole apples and carrots (so no pre-cutting). The best centrifuge juicers are Breville and Solis (same) and the most used twin gear is the Greenstar Juicer.

A dehydrator is a fun tool, but you can live without. The dehydrator often has to run for up to 24 hours for one batch of crackers (consider electricity cost and noise). The appliance is big and ugly and the smell attracts rodents... Alternatively, starters can use the sun or their your oven at 50F. Having said that, for intermediate to advanced raw foodists, the dehydrator can be a fun tool for makin "breads", cookies and travel snacks. The Excalibur dehydrator is the most popular.

A water purifier is a must and more economical than buying bottled water. Having your own well is best but most are not so lucky to have one. You can buy a good a tap filter (i.e. Pure Water), have a water system installed (Reverse Osmosis), or a buy a water distiller. Go here, if you'd like to read about the health benefit of water.

A food processor is fun, but not really necessary. It takes up quite some space in your kitchen and there's the cleaning time. I find that unless I prepare large quantities, it's just as easy to use a knife or the much cheaper and smaller mandoline. Cuisineart and Megamix are good food processor brands. So if you have space you might buy one, but it's not absolutely necessary in a raw food kitchen.

A coffee grinder is great for finely grinding nuts, seeds and cacao beans in smaller quantities. A grinder is small and relatively inexpensive. Not an absolute must to have in a raw food kitchen but I use it quite a lot. This way I don't have to clean the Blendtec or Vitamix blender for just grinding nuts. Cuisinart has a nice one with a cup you can remove for cleaning.

For people who love sprouts and grass, a sprouter is a fun tool. I don't eat much sprouts and I find it too much work to grow my own. Also, I'm just not good at it - I get too much mold and have a hard time finding good quality seeds and grains. Thus, I find it easier to pick wild grasses or go for a wheatgrass shot to a health store or juice bar...

I love the hand blender! To me, it's a simple and cheap version of the Vitamix/Blendec high speed blender. If you have the cuisinart hand blender with 700 Watt, it's more powerful than most cheaper blenders. You can use it where you'd use the high speed blenders. But of course your food won't be as smooth and it won't break the cell wand of your raw food for easy absorption (like the Vitamix & Blendtec blender do). However, it's great for traveling, for making quick pesto's, smaller amounts of apple sauce etc. I use my blender several times a day.

Other Great Tools

Once you have the basics, other fun tools to consider are:

• Knifes;
• Mandoline;
• Cutting Board;
• Spiralizer;
• Apple Slizer;
• Nut Milk Bag;
• Food Thermometer;
• Water Bottle;
• Cool Box;
• Ice Maker;
• Water Boiler 59 degrees;
• Fun & Beautiful China and Silverware;
• Other Fun Table Decorations Candles, Napkins;

How to decide what appliances to buy?

1. What kind of recipes would you like to make?

Juices, blends, crackers, pastas? Do you prefer quick and easy recipes such as smoothies, soups and juices or do you like gourmet food.
Simple raw food recipes: high speed blender, juicer, knifes, hand blender, water purifier.
Gourmet: dehydrator, ice-maker, mandoline, spiralizer, sprouter.

2. How much time do you have for cooking?

Little time: blender, centrifuge juicer, apple slicer, maybe dehydrator, cleaver, coffee grinder, hand blender, water purifier.
More time: mandoline, spiralizer, sprouter, nut milk bag, twin gear juicer, dehydrator, ice-maker, food processor.

3. How much space do you have in your kitchen?

Small kitchen: centrifuge juicer, (hand)blender, nut bag, apple slizer, food thermometer, high speed blender.
Large kitchen: twin gear juicer, dehydrator, water distiller, sprouter, water purifier.

4. Of course you must consider your budget.

How much do you want to spend on your new kitchen equipment? If you are on a tight budget, choose only what you need most. To save money, you might consider asking (money for) kitchen tools for X-mas or your birthday.
Low budget: blender, nut bag, water bottle, apple slicer, hand blender, food thermometer.

Summary of Raw Kitchen Tools

If you want to get into raw food cooking there are some basics tools that will make preparing raw food easy, quick and fun:

The Very Basics - Must Have:

High speed blender, hand blender, good knifes, cutting board, water purifier.

Intermediate:

Nut bag, juicer, food thermometer, nut bag/cheese cloth, apple slicer, twin gear juicer, centrifuge juicer, coffee grinder.

Advanced:

spiralizer, mandoline, sprouter, dehydrator, ice-maker, food processor, water boiler 59 degrees.

Related Articles

Get health secrets, recipes, blog and video updates by e-mail

This content on your website or in your E-zine? You can, as long as you include this: "Esme Stevens is the president of Raw Food Europe and has the number 1 website for starters of a raw food diet: thebestofrawfood.com."