What?
The Philips Avance juicer (Amazon, £170.87) is a bicameral centrifuge, divided by serrated sieve. Shreds fruit and greens, siphons fluid.
Why?
Want to increase your moral fibre? Try talking about wheatgrass first thing in the morning and never shutting up.
Well?
Juice People are everywhere, agonising over the merits of their machines as if choosing between grails. “You have to get on the juice train for the health benefits,” they preach, sounding like toddlers, while discussing enzyme retention like gene therapists.
The whole notion of juicing is alien to my people: you may know us as The Lazy. (We have our own beliefs and culture, sadly dying out.) I cannot be bothered with the mulchy faff, the soaking and scraping and unclogging that juicers demand. Which is why I’m drawn to Philips’ new model, boasting a one-minute self-clean mode. Clicking on the 1200W centrifuge feels like starting up the Large Hadron Collider. (Speed means heat, so enzyme purists will check out here, likewise anyone who wants wheatgrass shots, only liberated by slower, cold-press machines.) The wide chute swallows entire cucumbers. Apple halves dance on the lethal floor before losing their footing and disappearing with a shriek. Spinach leaves are instantly obliterated, splattering the walls with their juice. It’s horrific, but impressive. There are settings for clear or thick results.
As for the quick-clean mode, it’s hypnotic; water sluicing through the spinning mechanism like a violent colonic. Don’t imagine robot-butler nirvana though. Scooping the pulp trap is like emptying a lawnmower’s grass bag, while the sieve’s holes retain tiny green hairs so it starts to resemble an immediately pre-metamorphic Hulk buttock, only harder to clean. After drinking an entire cucumber, two apples and a bag of spinach in two minutes, I’m not converted. It’s too much work, and I’m too centri-frugal to splurge my money on quantities of fruit and veg that would keep a greengrocer busy for a week. For once, I feel the device is judging me. I choose to be a bit less healthy so I can be a lot more lazy. So what? Let my people go.
Any downside?
The product has its own “Healthy Drinks App”, three of the most ennui-laden words I have ever seen.
Counter, drawer, back of the cupboard?
Hulk Smash! No, maybe Hulk unfair. Hulk try it, see if he like it. 3/5
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