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 wil be oh-so easy.
You want your kitchen apliances to be:
Simple
User friendly
Easy to clean
Not too big
Inexpensive
Practical and
Fun!
These words 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 recipes you're likely to make most.
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.
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. They're equally good. The Blendec is more economic outside of the US.
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 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 precutting). 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 (electricity cost). The appliance is big and ugly and the smell attracts rodents... Alternatively, starters can use the sun or their your oven at 70F. Having said that, for intermediate to advanced raw foodists, the dehydrator is a fun tool to make "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. For more info on the health benefit of water click here.
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 just as easy to get my wheatgrass shot at the 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 cuisineart 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 absorbtion (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
Ozonator
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 will you be making most? 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.
This article on your website or e-zine? Sure, as long as you include this: “By Esme Stevens, the the founder of Raw Food Europe and Raw Food Netherlands. She has a great website for starters of a raw food diet: bestofrawfood.com."
