If you have a food processor, why would you need a juicer? And, vice versa, if you have a juicer, why would you want to invest in a food processor? Though they can seem synonymous at first, it is soon apparent that each has specific jobs the other cannot do.
To quickly summarize their differences, a juicer smashes and separates foods, saving the juice and spitting out all the excess. A food processor, on the other hand, grinds, slices, chops, and grates foods-but does not separate foods.
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Juicer functions
Living true to its name, a juicer's only function is to squeeze the juice out of fruits and vegetables. There will be two finished products. The juice, which the juicer has squished out. And the pulp, which is the fleshy portion of the food leftover after the juice is taken out.
Many fruits and vegetables can be juiced with their skins still on, even watermelons. It is recommended, though, that foods with bitter outer layers, such as oranges, be grated down to remove the outer rind to improve the juice flavor.
Types of juicers
Juicers come in different models, depending on what specific juicing function you need. Some are extremely basic. For instance, the citrus juicer, which can even be plastic and is operated only by yourself. Set a sliced orange on the juicer point, twist and push down, and the juice is collected in a glass underneath.
Other juicers are more complex and, fortunately, use electricity to function. There are centrifugal, masticating, and triturating juicers. These fall under juice extractors. Extractors not only juice, as the little citrus juicer does, but they also separate the juice from the pulp.
A centrifugal juicer has blades which first cut up the food into tiny bits. Then it spins the remaining pulp around until all the juice is removed.
A masticating juicer crushes the food with "teeth" before pushing the juice through a screen. The screen allows the juice to flow easily through, leaving the pulp to be pushed out the opposite direction.
Finally, a triturating juicer uses gears to crush the food. The juice flows out holes designed for the purpose, while the fleshy matter gets pushed over the top of the gears. Typically, triturating juicers are the most effective-and most expensive-juicers available.
Food processor functions
Food processors, on the other hand, do not separate foods and do not work with liquid. While with a juicer, the food is divided, a food processor leaves its foods chopped-but still together.
Food processors have many functions. They chop, grind, grate, knead, slice, shave, puree, and crush-to mention a few. They can even have french fry slicers.
Types of food processors
The types of actual food processor are not as varied as juicers. There are hand-powered, usually for quick jobs, such as chopping up a small amount of onion. Most are powered by electricity, though. It is the blade attachments which makes a food processor. Of course, some processors are more powerful than others, and some do models do not have certain blades which others do not have. Overall, though, the significant differences in food processors lie in their blades.
The main blade which comes with a food process is an s-shaped blade, designed to do the basic functions of slicing. Additional blades or discs are used to knead various doughs, from pizza to bread. Some can whisk eggs for delectable meringues, while others finely grind up spices.