Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

What can I say - it made juicing fun! I have always used a centrifugal juicer and fought with the loud noise, involved cleaning and reduced type of things to juice. The Omega changed all this, and most importantly - it made juicing easy and tasty! (the latter is one of the most important aspects for me) Let's dissect it for a second. The Omega is a slow juicer. It will definitely take longer to do the same juice as with the centrifugal one. BUT, this is better! Less oxidation, but most importantly, the juice has much much better taste! We did a test: we juiced the same quantity in both and compared the result. We juiced same quantity of carrots, red cabbage and apples. The centrifugal juicer produced a juice that smelled very powerful of cabbage, with a watery feel to it. The Omega made a tad less juice (not by much) but the quality of the juice was amazing - more homogenized, better color (!), and the we could taste every ingredient perfectly, with the finished product showcasing a symbiotic relationship between all the ingredients, no harsh taste from the cabbage whatsoever. It was so good that my 7 and 5 year old kids drank it all, while they didn't like the one made with the centrifugal juicer. The feeding mouth is smaller on the Omega. We cannot just dump large quantities in the juicer anymore. But that's not so bad. The finished product is definitely worth it. I have no problem cutting carrots length-wise, or the red beet in pieces, or apples in slices. Guess what, with my kids helping, this is actually not bad - we do the cutting, while my kids feed them in the Omega. That's fine. I like this juicer so much the I actually take the time to cut even smaller items that would probably work whole, just to reduce the load on the machine. But that's just me. The collecting bin is small. And the discharge system poorly designed. Yes it fits well under the machine, but if you are juicing larger quantities you have to unload the bin (the height of the machine does not lend itself to using taller pitchers under it) and while unloading the juice still drips even if the machine is off. So after unloading you have to wipe under the bin and be fast to replace it or there will be a mess under it. Some vertical juicers have a stopper, and it would have been nice to have one on this one as well. Well, it is what it is and we learned to deal with it... The cleaning process is much better with the Omega. The frickin centrifugal one would take a long time to clean. Not with this one. It comes apart easy, and each part can be cleaned fairly fast. I juice and drink the juice immediately, never store it, and I juice twice a day (morning and lunch) and I do not mind cleaning it. This aspect encouraged us to juice more often! Juicing soft fruits can be a problem with the Omega. Even tomatoes. The mush will just stay in the masticating chamber. Yest it can be a problem, but we learned to deal with it. Take for example a favorite juice of mine: tomato, red cabbage, red beet, celery root, carrot, garlic, and parsley and lovage stems. I need to start with the tomato, and then follow with something a little more dry as cabbage, and always finish with the carrot as it will push everything through. Now, the main advantage is that we can juice things that we couldn't with the centrifugal one. Leafy greens are the Omega's best friend. But what I really like is that now I don't throw away anything - we keep all stems from parsley, dill, beets, etc. and juice them along with other veggies. The flavor from these stems is amazing. Add them a bit a lime or lemon and ginger in your green juice and it will be amazing! Why four stars then? Well, we got the first one, and when running dry the whole masticating chamber would wobble like crazy, and the motor made an accompanying rhythmic noise. We thought is is defective, so got a replacement. The replacement did the same. So I can only infer that the auger shaft is not perfectly straight. And all those plastic parts! Even if this thing is warrantied for a decade, it will most certainly need replacement for some if not all the plastic parts. (remember the printer-cartridge combo anyone?) I would pay double to have this made with stainless steel parts! I guess time will tell if this juicer will last. For now, it brought back the fun in juicing, and the final product is so drinkable, so delicious! UPDATE: Almost 4 months later and we still love this juicer. It has changed our morning habits completely! We use it so often we never store this away, and it became a staple on our counter. The morning juice became a ritual for the entire family. After waking up I start preparing the juice - we do not use fruits almost at all (except pomegranate occasionally - they are superb). Even though it is not needed, I dice everything I put in it as it doesn't take more than an extra minute or so. As such, the juicer becomes 100% self feeding and it make it easier for the juicer too. My kids are now so used to the morning juice on an empty stomach (micro-nutrient shoot to the vein) that if we are late one morning they ask for it - "Daddy, I am getting hungry soon so can I have my juice now?" Remember, there's no fruit! Creatures of habit these kids! The nice part is that we have no waste anymore - we juice EVERYTHING! We cook cauliflower the day before, well, now we have the leaves and stems from them; we prepared a red beet salad, now we have all the stems to juice (we make soup from the leaves); etc. etc. And you get to do a vegetable stock from all the shredded veggies! It comes great even though they were juiced! But the best part is how good we feel! My kids haven't had a cold since we started juicing (Coincidence? Maybe, but the school started during this period and usually they would bring something home. Not this time. Again, it might be a coincidence.) But wait, there's more! We are trying to be a Paleo family (I am 100%, the rest of the family about 75% or so). I started my Paleo lifestyle 3 months before we got this juicer (so 6 months ago). When I got the juicer I decided to replace 2 meals a day with juice. So I have a pretty large juice in the morning (again, only veggies, and mostly avoiding root vegetables) and one at lunch (I work very close to home and I can go and make a fresh juice during lunch). Since I started Paleo I lost 45 pounds, 35 since i bought this juicer! I have so much freaking energy too! I never believed we would get so enthused about this juicer. Granted, this is not the best juicer out there, but it makes great tasting juice. But I would till keep this one at 4 stars. SO MUCH PLASTIC! Again, I would pay double to have all stainless steel! We dumped the plastic-fantastic containers (a pain to truly clean) and juice directly in glass containers. Also, cleaning the mixing chamber is a pain - what you see in the youtube videos is just rinsing - do that a few times and you'll have a nasty looking juicer in a few days. You really need to brush the inside thoroughly to get rid of all stains. And the locking mechanism get hard to use in time - when my kids "help" they press too hard on the tamper, so some juice comes out through the back pass the plastic o-ring. If that doesn't get cleaned, the locking wheel will be "sticky" the next day or so. I had to take the entire wheel off a few time already (a Phillips screwdriver will do the trick in a few seconds). So it's not all perfect, but I will forgive these flaws for the major impact it had on our lives. UPDATE: It is now 8 months later and this juicer is still going strong. One more issue surfaced though - more than often we put in our juice a combination of kale, celery, bok choy, bell pepper, beet greens, parsley stems, collard greens, cauliflower leaves, cabbage, spinach, cucumber, and towards the end red beets and carrots (I try not too drink too much root veggies juice, so the last two we always juice at the end after I get some of the juice - the carrots also push through everything left in the juicing chamber). Almost every time I get to the red beet, I have some juice leaking between the transparent body and the black retaining nut, so that gasket is not sealing very well anymore. Always with the red beet. As mentioned above, we got rid of the plastic containers that came with the juicer. I use two glass cups for the juice, and when one is full I slide the other one under and dump the juice in a stainless shaker (I use the Dozenegg or the Winco, whichever is closer). The pulp we used to have it come out in a smaller mixing bowl, and either throw it away or use it for making broth. When we throw it away, we used to put it in one of those flimsy bags that came with the veggies (the pulp will stink up your trash very fast otherwise), but now we found an even better solution: dog poop bags! I use one and get it to stay on the juicer with one of those thick rubber bands that came with the veggies - see the uploaded picture. So now everything dumps directly in the bag, no mess to clean, no smell in the trash!