The Best Juicer for Leafy Greens – The Winners & Losers

Leafy greens are probably the absolute best thing that you can put into your body. These dark veggies have everything that your body and metabolism needs. It is incredibly healthful and you can literally eat as much leafy greens as you like at any time.

Unfortunately for us, these aren’t always the easiest to eat. You don’t necessarily come home after a long day at work and think to yourself “jeez I cannot WAIT to get home and eat some steamed kale and spinach!”

If you do genuinely think that, TEACH US YOUR WAYS! What a frickin cool thing it would be to enjoy kale and spinach and other greens that much.

Unfortunately, that is not most people, and that is why we search for the best juicer for leafy greens. Juicing these ingredients make them a LOT easier to consume and will fill you up with nutritious healthful goodness.

Juicing these guys is a brilliant way to consume them in theory, but in reality they are some of the most difficult things to juice, because of their bulk and toughness. That is why different juicers are best for greens and perhaps not for citrus fruits, and vice versa. When you think about it, they are very different beasts for a machine to deal with. It would be very impressive if a juicer was equally as good at citrus fruits as it was at kale and spinach.

For complete and utter juicing nerds, it is not uncommon to have more than one juicer. That might sound INSANE to the ‘normal’ person, but my fellow fanatics can hear me preach I am sure. I have (I can’t believe I’m going to write this) three juicers. Three. I love them all but use them for very different things.

For the purposes of this article, we are going to talk about juicing greens. If you are planning on making a lot of juices from leafy green vegetables, then I think it is fair to say that you will NOT be looking for a centrifugal juicer.

You will read some websites online that have centrifugal juicers in their top juicers for greens articles, but this is NOT advisable.

Does the double capitalization of NOT bring the point home? We hope so!

But why, you ask? Well, let us tell you.

Why Masticating Juicers are the ONLY Typf of Juicer for Leafy Greens.

Centrifugal juicers work under the principle of putting the food down a chute and onto a very fast-moving blade which rips and shreds the fruit or vegetables to a juice. That is fine for lots of ingredients, but not so for leafy greens.

In order to get the goodness, enzymes and antioxidants out of spinach, kale, broccoli etc you need to really press and grind them out. Otherwise the leaves just get shredded and you don’t retrieve much of what makes them so healthy and good in the first place.

Grating the veg into tiny fragments and then whizzing them around at an incredibly high speed can work for lots of stuff, but the leaves just disintegrate and you won’t be left with much juice. Moreover, what is left will have less of the ‘good stuff’ that we all want to get the most of.

The reason that we recommend the pressing motion is that they are bulky but lightweight. The actually leaves are fragile full of health, but shredding it won’t do much good. The pressing motion also helps to do the juicing process in a slower (and therefore colder) manner. Centrifugal juicers gain heat as the blades move so fast, which bubbles up your juice (this process is called oxidation) which does a few things…

What does oxidation do to juice?

• It lowers it’s shelf-life. You will need to consume within a day or so.
• It lowers the enzyme level of the juice itself.
• It results in a warmer, more bubbly juice.

It isn’t going to cause you any harm at all, and drinking an oxidated juice is much better than no juice at all, but if you have the choice, always go for a cold press juicer (also known as a masticating juicer, twin gear juicer or slow juicer).

What constitutes as a leafy green?

When we talk about the terms ‘leafy greens’, ‘greens’, ‘green veggies’ etc we are essentially talking about green leaves.

A list of leafy greens:

• Spinach
• Kale
• Endive
• Lettuce
• Beet greens
• Chard
• Arugula
• Baby greens
• Rocket
• Collard
• Mustard greens
• Romaine

This list goes on and on, but there are some of the most popular.

Why are leafy greens so good for you?

They are AMAZING for your health for a myriad of factors. We will try to go through a few of them here for you.

• ​They are full to the brim with vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals
• They aid in lowering blood pressure
• They aid lowering of cholesterol
• The control blood sugar levels, as they slow the absorption of carbohydrates after eating.
• They contain loads of water, which is good for hydration
• Most are very rich in calcium, which as fantastic for bones, teeth and bone marrow and fights off arthritis and osteoporosis
• They contain vitamin C, zeaxanthin and lutein, which are all antioxidants
• Most are a great source of carotene, which helps the growth of the body's tissues and also aids in the repairing of these tissues
• They contain lots of vitamin E - makes you look younger for longer!
• They are incredibly rich in fibre, which aids weight loss and maintaining your weight, because they make you feel very full for longer.

This list could be bullet-points for days, so we will leave the benefits here, but you get the point that they are very VERY good for you and everyone should be trying to get a bit more greens into their diet.

Now that you’re fully schooled on how AMAZING leafy greens are to your health and how much they can improve your life in general, let’s move on to the actual juicers that make these seemingly bland and boring foods into tasty and easy to consume juices!

The Top Juicers for Leafy Greens in 2017 - Editor's Choice

1. Omega NC800

This is a wonderful machine and the best on the market for juicing leafy greens such as kale, spinach etc. It is a slight upgrade on the Omega 8004/8006 (remember that those two models are the exact same only in white and chrome).

It has a wider and larger chute for feeding in the foods, meaning it is a complete weapon when it comes to properly juicing the leafy veggies.

The thing that sets the NC800 apart as the absolute best in the business is the adjustable end cap. It’s incredible. It has 5 settings that allow you to control and monitor how much pressure is put on the pulp. You will get the best yield from the NC800, and we don’t say that lightly, as the 8004 has a crazy good yield also.

One thing that we will say about the NC800 is that the adjustable cap (which really gives you control over how the juice turns out) does have a learning curve. Lots of people want a fantastic juicer in their kitchen, but don’t want to spend a lot of time learning the ins and outs. If that’s the case, you’re better off going for the 8004 or 8006.

There is a downside to the Omega NC800 and that is the price. It isn’t as expensive as the absolute top of the line masticating juicers, but it will still set you back a princely sum of $300. That isn’t that much for something you will use various times throughout each week for years and years, but I do understand that it is quite an initial investment.

If you have $300 to spare and want the best juicer for leafy greens in your kitchen, pick up the NC800 on Amazon, where the best prices usually are.

2. Omega 8004/8006

This is the best-selling machine on Amazon these days, and a lot of the reasons why is that it is very easy to maintain and clean. It is one of the more affordable masticating juicers on the market these days, and it is a really a steal.

It can produce so much more yield than other similar juicers. I mean watch this (or just skip to the end) and see how much better the 8004 is to the VRT in the amount of juice it produces and how little foam comes out. It’s actually very very impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htFPKcxIdXE

This is the best-selling machine on Amazon these days, and a lot of the reasons why is that it is very easy to maintain and clean. It is one of the more affordable masticating juicers on the market these days, and it is a really a steal.

It can produce so much more yield than other similar juicers. I mean watch this (or just skip to the end) and see how much better the 8004 is to the VRT in the amount of juice it produces and how little foam comes out. It’s actually very very impressive.

It is also one of the most reliable models out there, made from GE Ultem which is able to withstand a HELL of a lot of wear and tear, and you almost definitely won’t need to take Omega up on their 15 year warranty (which in itself is a ridiculously long warranty time!).

As mentioned above, the NC800 can be a bit tricky to get a handle of, particularly the adjustable cap. If you want a ‘plug in and play’ juicer that’ll work straight off the bat. The settings are minimal, and the only thing you really need to worry about is not to overstuff the augur or it’ll be forced to stop and you’ll have to unclog it.

IF you are careless enough to overstuff (it happens to the best of us!) then the 8004 has a neat little reverse section button, which sets the system into reverse and is usually successful in unclogging. UNREAL!

Let’s get back to the foam levels. I mean it REALLY is great how little foam comes from the 8004 and that is because of its low speed and very complex masticating system. It’s just great if you want to preserve and store your juices for a while. Remember, the more foam, the more oxidated the juice is and this is NOT good for storage.

The chute is smaller than the NC800 but you still won’t need to cut any of the greens apart before it goes into the chute. The ease of use here is perfect. It’s an easier to maintain machine than the NC800 and it’s an absolute beast of a machine, so get yourself one of these bad boys if you intend on juicing a lot of leafy greens (which you should be).

3. Samson 9005

This is going to be a controversial enough choice, because you won’t see a Samson on every single shelf in stores like Omegas and Breville models, but that does not make it any less worthy of a spot on this list.

If you are looking for a juicer that is particularly handy at spinach, kale and other leafy greens, then the Samson 9005 is as good a choice as any.

It is particularly good for wheatgrass and greens because it has a larger screen area than most models. It has actually been shown to generate a larger yield than the 8004 in tests due to the presence of an adjustable cap (much like the NC800).

This is a cheaper alternative than the NC800. It retails at about $280 in stores (it’s almost always cheaper on Amazon, however), and it can also make pasta, nut butters and other cool things (pun intended) like sorbets.

I know. That was terrible.

The 160w motor is a powerful beast, and this also has a 15 year warranty, which is pretty sweet.

The downsides are that the feeder is smallish, but that’s the case with lots of cold press juicers, and that means that you’ll be pre-cutting lots of veggies. For the leafies though, you should be ok to throw in whole.

4. Tribest Green Star Elite GSE-5000

This would be 1 or 2 if you had the budget, but because most of our readers like to see cheaper models higher up, this is sitting at 4. It is a dual gear juicer and so is a big ol bertha of power. You won’t have to worry about a lack of it.

Again, the Green Star has a pressure cap that is adjustable. It is there in order to essentially squeeze out more juice than would normally be possible, and that is why this bad boy has one of the best yields in the industry.

As with those adjustable caps though, it will require a bit of trial and error, and patience to get it just the way you want it, but it’ll be worth it to the final yield. The yield is better than any other juicer when it comes to leafy greens, BUT it will produce a bit more foam than some. Although it does produce foam, tests have shown that juice from the Green Star has minimal nutritional loss and degradation for up to 3 days after juicing. That’s incredible stuff.

This juicer has no downsides really, but there are a lot of different parts that need to be assembled, although they’re not difficult to work out.

Also, the warranty is a MEASLY 12 years!!! We’re obviously joking, 12 years is great, but it is lower than its competitors. Still, 12 is still pretty damn good.

Finally, the price is a little steep, with it coming in at over $500, but if you’re looking for arguably the best juicer for EVERYTHING, then this will be right up there.

Remember, the Green Star can deal with salsa, pasta, nut butters, sorbets and many other things, and is a wonderful tool for incorporating more healthy raw foods into your diet.

5. Breville BJS600XL Fountain Crush Masticating Slow Juicer

The first thing you will be blown away by is how quiet this machine is. The 240w motor is a quiet hum and it’s an absolute dream to listen to. Although this obviously isn’t the most important part of a juicer, we’re incredibly impressed with that for a start.

The vertical design of the Breville means it is good for storage space in the kitchen, but it actually doesn’t particularly help when it comes to masticating leafy greens. It is still a fantastic juicer for leafy greens, but if it were a horizontal model, it could have gotten the top spot.

Again, this will work for nut butters, sorbets and other such things, and it actually works faster than most cold press juicers without producing a large amount of foam. It’s interesting as Breville work primarily with centrifugal juicers (at the time of writing this is their only masticating model), which is why this probably works faster than others. It also probably is the reason why it is vertical as opposed to the more traditional horizontal juicers.

Conclusion

So there you have it. We’ve been juicing leafy greens for a long time and these five juicers are the ones that get a whol-hearted recommendation from us all here at JuiceTheJuice Towers.

What you will find are that they are all masticating juicers (as pointed out above), they’re all extremely well built machines that can do much more than just juice, and they’re all made of the highest quality materials that enables them to get the absolute most out of leafy greens. These types of vegetables can be difficult to consume, and yet they are SO DAMN good for us. Consuming them in juice form is a great way to make sure that your health improves on an ongoing basis.

Happy juicing!

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