Customer Reviews

Omega J8005 Nutrition Center Single-Gear Commercial Masticating Juicer, Chrome and Black

5 star:		(140)
4 star:		(37)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I used to have an ACME centrifugal juicer. I thought I would never like any juicer better than the ACME because it made good juice and was very easy to clean. The only drawback to a centrifugal juicer is it won't extract much juice from leafy green vegetables and won't juice wheatgrass.
I got this Omega 8005 juicer because I wanted to be able to juice greens and wheat grass as well as root vegetables. I read on a forum that this new Omega juicer is the best there is for under $400. This Omega juicer is even easier to clean than the ACME, which is a big issue because in the long run you won't use a juicer if its a hassle to clean. And it squeezes all the juice out of anything I put in it. The pulp comes out very dry. It is super quiet too and the ACME was loud.
The Omega runs at a low rpm so it doesn't kill enzymes and stuff like that, so its supposed to make healthier juice than a Champion or centrifugal juicer.
Its a pleasure to use. I make juice every day now. I love getting all the nutrients that I need regularly. It helps my body recover from surfing everyday.
The juicer is very well built and very simple. It seems like it will last a long time and it has a very long warranty.
You can tell that I love this juicer, eh?

Edit: It's now 2009 and I've had this juicer almost five years. I still use it just about every day. I still love it. The juicing screen started to wear out a few months ago. I emailed Omega and they sent me a new one for free. They certainly stand by their 10 year warranty. I am comforted to know that if anything else should happen, I still have five more years of no questions asked replacement.

What I Think

I started thinking about juicing a couple of years ago. Over time I did a little reading on the internet but never thought passed the idea of juicing more than fruit (I'll get to why this important a little later). The cost was also a little more than scary - I always thought I could find a better way to spend $300 or $400 (the price of the "better" fruit juicers).

I'm not a health nut, but after a short hospital stay I decided I should take better care of myself. About a month ago I finally bought the Omega 8005 Juicer. Why did I choose this model? Review after review extolled its virtues and the closest competitor, the Green Star Juice Extractor, was more expensive.

This is one kitchen appliance that is well worth the expense.


Why Would You Buy This

If you are only concerned with juicing fruit this isn't the best model for you. It isn't so much cost, a good centrifugal juicer will cost about the same, or more. The issue lies in the straining screen. Pulpy fruits like nectarines clog the screen and you have to take the unit apart to clean it before you can continue juicing (I know this from experience). It can be done and in small quantities isn't that big a deal. But if you never plan to juice leafy vegetables or grasses I'd look elsewhere.

If you want to juice leafy vegetables or grasses, then you need something like a gear juicer. The Omega fits the bill and is actually less expensive than some fruit juicers. There is also the issue of heat. Some juicers can heat the vegetables because they juice at high-speeds - thus reducing the nutritional value. Here again the Omega fits the bill because it's gear mechanism turns a low rate and is actually less expensive than many other similar units. The Omega can also make nut butters, pasta, and whole host of other things; have I mentioned that the Omega is less expensive than many of its competitors ;).

More importantly, though, a glass of juice from the Omega contains more delicious vegetable nutrition than I have ever had in a single serving before.


Use/Convenience

I was a little concerned about having to chop up the vegetables and the reports of "lengthy" cleaning. Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Depending on how much you juice at one time it takes 30-40 minutes, from washing and cutting up the vegetables to finishing up cleaning the last piece of the juicing mechanism (not much more effort than cooking the darn things in my opinion - and I still do a lot of that for dinner).

If you can clean a blender, the Omega is just as easy. I always take apart my blender to clean it, so cleaning the Omega wasn't that big a deal - maybe 2 or 3 minutes longer.


Tips/Tricks

First and foremost, do some research. The internet is chock-full of recipes and tips. Here are a few I picked up either through research or experimentation:

1. Use bitter or pungent vegetables and fruits in moderation - unless you just love chewing on a hunk of ginger, then go for it. Roots like ginger add a nice zing, but can overpower anything else if not used sparingly. Limes add a surprising amount of flavor; I add one-quarter of a small lime - anymore is just too much for me.

2. Peel oranges and grapefruits, but leave the white "skin" just under the surface. The rinds can be very bitter to taste and apparently contain minute traces of toxins. Grapefruits fall into the "pungent" category for me. When mixing in other fruits I only use 1 grapefruit.

3. If you want to sweeten a drink, use an apple instead of sugar, even in vegetable juice. It works. Trust me.

4. Use pulpy fruit in moderation. This is mostly a cleaning issue with me. I find that I have to take apart the juicing mechanism and rinse it off for *each* piece of pulpy fruit and this gets a little cumbersome when trying to make juice in the morning.

5. It can take a surprising amount of vegetables to make 24 oz of juice. But on the flipside one glass sets you up for the recommended daily allowance for the next day or so.

6. Start your juicing regime slowly. I found out the hard way that it can have an...uh...interesting affect on your digestive tract if you go whole hog too quickly.

7. Experiment. Some mixes are better than others, but in all honestly I haven't found one I didn't at least like.

I never expected that a juicer could become my favorite kitchen appliance, but here it is! Omega performs beautifully. Here's what I've tested it with:

1) leafy greens (dill, cilantro, parsley, dandelion, kale, parsnip etc.): extracts lots of dark green juice; leaves very dry pulp. I haven't tested Omega with wheatgrass yet, but given its performance with other similar-texture greens it should do fine.

2) carrots, beets: approximately half of the volume comes out as juice; pulp is pretty dry.

3) berries (strawberries, raspberries etc.): most of the volume is juice, but pulp is rather wet. I had to finish off with carrots to push the soft pulp of the berries through the juicer. It may be a better idea to blend berries rather than juice them.

4) hard green apples, oranges: lots of juice, dry pulp.

5) yellow (softer) apples, grapes: lots of juice, dry pulp, but have to use something hard/fibery at the end (carrots or beets) to push the remaining pulp out.

6) almond butter, walnut butter: these came out somewhat dry/crumbly, not as smooth as peanut butter; had to add oil.

Additional features that I like:

1) very quiet, can't even compare to centrifugal models.
2) masticator rotates slowly, so the juice doesn't get heated, hence less nutrients are supposed to get destroyed.
3) Omega squeezes produce cells instead of crushing them at high speed; this preserves more of the larger molecules (amino acids, vitamins etc.) thus making the juice more nutricious.
4) Omega doesn't produce fine-crushed pulp requiring a fine mesh filter (as is the case with centrifugal models), so it's much easier to wash. There's no fine mesh to clean, which makes the difference between a juicer that ends up used once a year (as was the case with my old centrifugal juicer) and several times each day (as is the case with my Omega). It's also very satisfying to see that the bulk of the produce is turned into juice and is not lost in soggy pulp.

If you accept that a masticating juicer gives better quality juice than a centrifical, but you do not want a heavy, awkward machine that takes a long time to set up and longer to clean, then this is a great choice. Omega hit the sweet spot with this product. It is light, relatively small, quiet, and cleans rather quickly (the mesh screen is small and does not seem to hold on to the food), while producing fine juice from a variety of plants. (Impressive on celery and spinach; quite good enough on carrots) The result is a masticating juicer that actually gets used, rather than a (perhaps) theoretically superior juicer that is just too much of a hassle to take out. I have a 31 year-old Champion which I really like; I just never use it except when I am fasting, and sometimes not even then.
One thing should be mentioned. Many single gear juicer ads boast that a slow-turning auger damages the juice less than, say, a Champion because its fast rotation heats the juice and deactivates enzymes and other molecules. Truth is, when I run cold carrots through a Champion, I get cold carrot juice; when I run cold carrots through an Omega 8005, the juice is not warm, but it is definitely not cold. Clearly, if there is less rotation, then the heavy mechanical compression at a certain point produces heat to a greater extent than Champion's rapid rotation does. (I have read one review of another single auger juicer that said its juiced carrots actually came out hot.) Personally, I do not think either type machine actually hurts the juice's chemistry, but Champion should call its single auger competititors on their deceptive claim.
Summary: If you want knock-your-socks off cold carrot juice, get a Champion (although the Omega will still give you a carrot juice high, and, for all I know, its juice will taste just as good if you chill it). If you want bragging rights about the amount of nutrients in your juice, get a Green machine (at almost twice the price, twice the weight, and a long time to clean up). If you want a juicer that probably gives better quality and variety of juices than a centrifical juicer with less noise and no greater cleanup time, get this one. You will actually use it even if you don't have the counter space for it.

This is my first juicer. I love it. It came without directions, but was easy to figure out. (Omega promptly responded to my email and sent the directions.) It makes great juice. Tastes great, nice consistency, gives a raw food "jolt." I do not notice any change in temperature at all. I get cold in, cold out; room temperature in, room temperature out. So easy to clean, which makes it easy to use. Seeing what happens to whole carrots makes me respect the power of that motor and auger! I got a hand press juicer for citrus, because it was a hassle to peel oranges before juicing them in the Omega, and oranges are way too bitter and acidic when juiced with the rinds. Leafy veggies juice very well in the Omega. What has not juiced well are pomegranites (because I sent a bunch of rind through and it's too much hassle to separate out the seeds; I also got juice all over cutting up the fruit), bananas and figs (both are all pulp). Melon, apple, pears, carrots, celery, lettuce, kale, spinach, parsley, bok choy, garlic all juice very well. I let it send the pulp into the sink and send it down the garbage disposal when I am done juicing. The included "toothbrush" is helpful for cleaning the tiny screens. It can make applesauce and peanut butter, but the peanuts have to be shelled, so I only tried that once. I am very, very happy with it and use it every day. It juices as fast as I can cut things up for it.

Note - After a year of almost daily use, I still love it.

July '08 update - I do not use it daily any more; a few times a week now. I still love it, no problems, easy to use, even for just a bit of ginger juice (for a half gallon of lemonade), still easy to clean. Consider a VitaMix, too. Maybe buy both and keep one. (I don't have a VitaMix yet, but it is on my wish list.)

Don't "drink the koolaid" of the negative reviewers of this juicer such as S. Shrivastava. Do you want a design with blades (such as the Breville 800JEXL) that will dull with time or one that uses a tough dual stage single gear (that's easy to clean)?

I bought my Omega Juicer 8005 2 months ago off of Ebay for $140.00 (used only a few times).

I juice carrots mainly (mixed in with apples, oranges, and grapes). I play basketball every week and the energy boost I get from the carrot juice is tremendous.

The juicer is EXTREMELY EASY to clean. I can clean all the parts in less than 3 minutes. Anyone claiming it's hard to clean is lazy or works for a competing brand (or both).

Yes, you do have to cut the vegetables but so what? I knew that when I bought it. I buy the largest carrots and after cutting them up the Omega Juicer handles the pieces very easily. I have NEVER clogged up my juicer.

It is recommended that when juicing more than one kind of fruits and vegetables that you should feed half of the carrots first and then feed in whatever other vegetables or fruits and then finish with the last half of carrots to help get everything out.

The juicer comes with two plastic catch basins, one for the juice and one for the pulp. And yes the basins will stain over time but so what? I don't leave them out on the counter anyway. And yes if you are making more than about 24 oz of juice you will have to empty the catch basin of pulp before your finished. I think I can handle a few steps to the trash can to empty this out.

I also juice for my wife and 3 of my kids. And I don't find it difficult at all. The negative reviews are completely baseless and quite absurd.

I also have never tipped the juicer when utilizing the plunger to feed the vegetable parts. The one reviewer who says they do obviously hasn't read the instructions or is exaggerating beyond belief.

And contrary to the distortions of one reviewer the juice does not come out warm, especially if your vegetables are kept in the refrigerator before use. Think about it! How can a juicer that rotates at about 3,600 rpm (Omega) warm something compared to a juicer that rotates at 13,000 (Breville) rpms?

Again, don't "drink the koolaid" of the negative reviewers. They have no clue what they are talking about!

Buy this juicer with confidence!

After many years of using centrifugal juicers, I purchased an Omega 8003 (exactly the same as the 8005 but in it's color-white). I am concerned not so much whether the centrifugal juicers heat up the juice with their high spin rates, but with the oxidation of the juice. The 8003 only turms at 90-110 rpm and the material gets masticated slowly in a tapering auger inside a fairly tight-fitting outside cone; it appears to me intuitively to cause much less oxidaton and give a higher quality juice. I have so far juiced kale, spinach, carrots, apples, lemon and oranges, ground up peanuts, and have, for the most part, been pleased with the results. Wheatgrass will be ready in about 8 days, and other reviewers have uniformly praised this unit for juicing wheatgrass. You do have to cut hard fruits and vegetables but this is not too time consuming with a good chef's knife. The machines that take larger pieces of fruit are also themselves larger, for the most part. The Omega 8003 takes up very little counterspace. I prefer to cut carrots lengthwise and then crosswise, remove apple seeds. Apples and carrots give a good juice yield and the greens have done well too. The surpise (pleasant) was oranges. I juiced two med-large navel oranges, removing the rind only, and was delighted to have almost 11 oz of juice, fresh, raw tasting and substantial without being overly pulpy.
Cleaning is very easy especially with the supplied brush. You turn the locking wheel on the motor housing (which remains untouched with juice), transport the 5-piece assembly to your kitchen sink, a few simple movements to take apart the 5 pieces and rinse, apply sudsy sponge, and use the supplied brush for the small screens which cleans easily. The whole process takes 2-3 minutes.
While some of the machines like the Breville may make a large quantity of juice faster, the time to chop the fruits, offset by the shorter cleaning time, makes this the better machine, especially since you can juice just about everything with it. If you are going to juice something pulpy, like blueberries or ripe peaches (I eat these whole), then finishing the juicing with an appple or carrot will move the pulpy remnant in the drum right through and extract that last bit of juice. With a few little tricks like that, juicing proves very satisfactory. This well built quiet machine which takes up little counter space, is easy to clean (a very big deal), juices just about everything, reasonable in cost (under $200 including shipping, if you know how to search the web), while perhaps a little slower than some machines costing much more, is best for the typical family. It comes with a 10 year warranty (the longest) and the manual states it is suitable for home and commercial use too.

If I were to do it all again, I would only buy the Omega 8005 juicer. I recently purchased both the Omega 8005 and the Breville 800JEXL. Initially, I read raving reviews on the Breville 800JEXL, and thought it was best. I also did not feel I would want to make my own wheatgrass juice. I was buying it at Lassen's healthfood store or at Wholefoods. They'll make it for you right there. After making daily trips to one of the stores - well, it got old. I realized that it would be a lot easier to make my own wheatgrass at home. So, I bought the Omega 8005, as well, and buy a flat of wheatgrass, as needed, from the market. (by the way, I'm keeping the wheatgrass flat in the refrigerator. That's how they store it at the market to prevent it from molding.)

After juicing with the Omega 8005 (carrots, celery, beets, parsley, cucumber), including wheatgrass juice, I realized that I should have bought this juicer from the start. I was more than pleased and prefer it over the Breville Juicer. The Breville juicer is faster, but you need to turn on/off the juicer each time you add more vegetables or it will spray up all over the place. It's also very loud. The sound is similiar to an airplane taking off. The quickness of the juicer is lost by having to turn on/off all the time. Plus, I feel the Omega juicer has a higher juice yield and leaves a little bit of texture/pulp in the juice, as you find at juices made fresh at Healthfood stores. (you can filter it, if you want, they provide a filter, but I like it) The juice from the Breville juicer is completely smooth. No texture/pulp. Perhaps, the Omega yields more juice by leaving just a wee-bit of pulp. It's leaving just a little behind. Whereas, the Breville leaves absolutely no pulp. The Omega juicer produces little to no foam. The Breville juicer has a little more, even on its lowest speed, and a lot more foam on the highest speed. The Omega juicer has 10 year warranty and was $40 less (if not more, depending on whether you purchase Omega 8003 or 8005. They're both the same. The 8005 model is Chrome. The 8003 model is white.) The Breville warranty is somewhere around 1 year. -- you got the picture... The Omega juicer is extremely quiet. It wouldn't wake anyone sleeping, even in the same room. For me, I prefer having a quieter juicer that yields more juice, is super easy to clean up, makes wheatgrass juice, and takes up less counter space. We'll hold onto the Breville for a little while, just to be sure, but otherwise will sell. The Breville does have easy clean-up, but you need to be extra careful when washing the Mesh Filter/Teeth Plate as you could easily snag your finger on one of the blades. The Omega 8005 has no sharp parts for me to worry about and is even easier to clean. The Omega juicer is so much quieter and easier to use. And, sooo much more juice, too! Hands down - I prefer the Omega 8005 juicer.

I wanted to buy this juicer but after reading some of the negative reviews, I almost changed my mind and bought something different which would have cost me way more money. I am sooooo glad that I didn't because I LOVE THIS JUICER!

My father bought a less expensive juicer a few years back. After only using the thing a few times when he first bought it, he stopped using it because the clean up was so time consuming. The juicer ended up just taking up space on his shelf. Later, I started getting interested in healthy foods and so he gave the thing to me. I was so excited to start but found that cleaning the thing took sooo long that it wasn't worth it. It was depressing from day one and so I sold it at a garage sale.

A few years later, I thought I would give it another try so I bought a different model juicer. I guess I forgot how long cleaning took so the same thing happened. I found myself always standing over the kitchen sink with a little scrubber trying to get all of those tiny little fibers from food out of the straining screen which was very tiring. Also, shortly after purchasing that juicer, I learned about the value of juicing green leafy vegetables. I tried juicing them but they just sat on the bottom of the screen and clogged up the juicer.

Now again, a few years later I thought I would give it one more shot. They say that the 3rd time is a charm and they are right! This time I thought I would do it right and spend a little more money. You get what you pay for right? When I read on Mercola.com that Dr. Mercola recommended this juicer I knew I had found what I was looking for. Still, I thought I would read the reviews on Amazon.com to see what other people thought of the juicer.

I was a little hesitant and wondered if I should buy it because of some of the negative reviews about the small feeding tube and it being time consuming. My mom had already bought one and loved it so I took a chance and bought it anyway.

I can't say enough about this juicer! It is amazing! Yes, it has a smaller feeding tube but you can put celery and regular sized carrots in easily. Things bigger such as apples need to be cut into smaller pieces but big deal!

My 7 and 9 year old kids love helping make their green lemonade because it is fun to watch. They didn't like the juice from the other juicers because it was too pulpy for them but THEY LOVE DRINKING THIS JUICE! This comes out with VERY LITTLE PULP just like the juice bar at the health food stores. You can juice green leafy veggies such as cilantro, spinach, kale which are all sooo very good for you!

The clean up is simple and easy!!! From my experience if it isn't easy to clean you won't be doing much juicing. The straining screen is itty bitty. Maybe a kiwi cut in half would be about how big the screen is compared to a cantalope which was the size of my last one. EASY TO CLEAN MEANS HEALTHY, FRESH, GREEN VEGETABLE JUICES FOR EACH ONE OF MY FAMILY MEMBERS EVERY DAY!

A good recipe my kids love is this:

1 head romaine lettuce or celery
5 to 6 stalks kale (any type)
1 to 2 apples (as needed for sweetness - organic Fuji recommended)
1 whole organic lemon (you don't have to peel it)
1 to 2 tbsp fresh ginger (optional)

My juicer (Omega J8005) arrived today from Amazon.

Here are my first impressions: [will update after I have used it for a few days]

*Made in Korea

*ALL PLASTIC! No chrome anywhere! It is chrome colored PLASTIC. There is no way this could be a commercial juicer.

*It started squeaking while making juice after 30 minutes of operation.

*Pretty quiet for a juicer.

*Great with wheat grass, apples and carrots.

*Worthless with strawberries and mangoes.

*The Auger fits very loosely into the machine which creates a wobble while operating. Makes the drum flex and gives the impression that it will break off.

*WARRANTY of 10 years is worthless! It only covers "defect of workmanship". If you wear it out--tough luck.

*I'm going to try it for a few more days, but I'm really leaning towards sending it back.
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Day 3: I have given this Juicer 1 more star. (from 2 stars, to 3 stars)

*Very easy assemble and un-assemble for easy cleaning.

*It is actually a lot of fun making juice.

*The pulp is amazingly dry which means that this juicer is very efficient.(with the exception of mangoes, strawberries and other mushy fruit which really shouldn't be juiced at all)

*Still concerned about this juicer being made of plastic. Even the AUGER is plastic.

*This juicer is growing on me. I think I will keep it. The main reason being--the fact that this juicer is so simple and easy to clean. This makes me far less hesitant to use it every day. I love the juice it makes and the unlimited creative juicing possibilities.

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Day 27:

I have been using this juicer almost every day since purchasing it.

Conclusion: This is a good juicer. It's a keeper.