NC800HDS

I've been juicing for over 30 years, and this is my favorite juicer. Note that the NC800 & NC900 are the SAME except for color. I also own the Kuvings Whole Slow Juicer, and I feel that the Omega NC800 is much better. I've noticed that most of the rave reviews on the Kuvings are from people who are coming from a centrifugal juicer - well, any slow juicer will be a vast improvement over a centrifugal juicer, so I understand their enthusiasm. Cleaning - hands down, the Omega NC800 is easiest to clean! By far. It takes less than 90 seconds. The Kuvings is not simple to clean (although, again, much easier than any centrifugal juicer!). Kuvings has lots of parts with nooks and crannys, plus a huge screen, all of which require careful cleaning. Pre- Juice Prep - this might surprise you, but although the Kuvings has a huge chute, the juicer itself is not too great at handling fibrous things, so anything tough and fibrous (like celery, kale, wheatgrass) needs to be cut into very small pieces, so the idea of the huge chute is kind of misleading. The Omega on the other hand, has a much smaller chute, but takes abuse much better. You can cram whole pieces of celery, ginger, kale, whatever into the chute and it just chugs along. No, the omega won't fit an uncut apple, but an apple is far easier to chop into pieces quickly than greens and celery, etc. juice quality - The omega handily wins for greens, and "mixed juices" (like a morning juice of 1/2 apple, 1/2 cucumber, handful of greens, few stalks of celery, piece of ginger, turmeric, half a lemon, couple of baby carrots, handful of herbs). Very little pulp in the omega, and a very hassle-free prep and cleanup. Kuvings has lots of pulp, so be prepared to strain. I don't do much fruit juice (other than a bit of apple or citrus in a vegetable based juice). The kuvings would probably be better for just fruit juices like just pineapple or oranges (but really, you should be mixing more vegetables into your juices). Nut Butters - Kuvings DOES NOT DO NUT BUTTERS! Very annoyed by this, as that was one of the reasons I bought it. But when I got home, I looked at instructions and it says nothing about nut butters. I called Kuvings, and they confirmed, the machine is not designed to do nut butters. Ugh! The Omega does awesome nut butters, they're better when the nuts are lightly roasted (raw almonds for instance take about the same amount of time as in the Cuisinart). Raw brazil nut butter comes out really well In the Omega. Nut Milks, Coconut Milk & Butter - This is where the Kuvings excels. You have not tasted homemade coconut or almond milk until you've made it in a Kuving. OMG something about crushing the nuts/coconut makes the milk taste infinitely better than if you use the vitamix. And, the Kuvings makes it easy, since no need for nut milk bag, it sends the pulp out the ejector (save the pulp and use it for yummy treats!). And coconut butter from the Kuvings was an accidental surprise - I no longer purchase this very expensive product from the store. Sadly, the Omega doesn't do milks. So, my take away is that the Omega NC800 is just an amazing all around juicer. The key to juicing is actually taking the time to do it everyday - this machine makes that much easier to do. PS - I highly recommend watching John Kohler of discount juicers on YouTube before buying a juicer. His videos are very informative and kind of amusing in a Sean Penn from Fast Times at Ridgemont High sort of way (although most are way too long, but you can fast forward).

I spent a lot of time looking at the options before I bought this. I read hundreds of reviews of different juicers, and watched about 8 hours of videos comparing them in operation. Ultimately it came down to the NC800 or a vertical from another brand that also included a "homogenizing blank." I chose this one because it appeared easier to clean, and is better at roots like ginger and turmeric. I'm really really happy with this thing. It does an awesome job on ginger, turmeric, beets, celery, etc. People who say it isn't good at celery aren't following the typical instructions on cutting it up; you slice celery just the same as if you were going to stir-fry it, and this juices it right up with no problems at all. It also does way better at carrots than many reviews suggest; carrots are the most common thing I'm juicing, I'm doing that every day and it is working really well. I rarely have to push them at all, they just feed right down. I do slice them lengthwise first, not because the machine has trouble with them but because I'm trying to be gentle and kind to the machine. If you like to take good care of your appliances, and not try to shove the max amount through, you won't notice any problems with the foods that people say this isn't as good at. Except fresh fruit, it can't do fresh fruit other than very-crisp apples. However, it makes great sorbet from frozen fruit! Fruit I make into smoothies in a blender, so I didn't buy this wanting it to do fresh fruit. There really isn't a juicer that can "do it all," but this does everything-but-fruit really well. Broccoli works really well, including the stalks which I buy cheap at a store that sells their trimmings. Any juicer can juice a carrot, but carrots for juicing are really cheap. This thing does an amazing job at fresh veggies; kale is expensive, as are beets! The price of this machine will be made up over time by getting more juice out of the expensive ingredients; kale, ginger, turmeric, wheat grass, beets, etc. A glass of carrot juice costs me a few cents. I used to pay $3 or more to buy the juice. Same for wheat grass. And a ginger-turmeric tonic, I'd have to buy and drink 5 or 10 of them to get as much medicine, the ones they sell are just beverages, not tonic-strength. Now I can make it as strong as I want. And cleanup is as easy as it looked. I clean everything after each use, including using the brush on the metal screen, and it only takes me about 2 minutes normally, 3 after turmeric. :)

I've had the NC800 for five months now. I use it once a week to make carrot with beet juice and celery juice for the week. I have a Champion juicer and a Greenstar (Tribest) juicer, but the Champion clogs up on celery and the Greenstar requires cutting the carrots lengthwise and is way too hard to push carrots through, so I'd have two juicers to use and clean which is very inconvenient. I also wanted a juicer for occasional leafy greens, since my old Wheateena grass/leafy greens juicer finally died. The NC800 is excellent with only a couple acceptable weaknesses. It is inexpensive considering it can do all my juicing and even make nut butters very well like the Champion. This is the first juicer I've used that does a very good job of juicing leafy greens, so a dedicated expensive greens juicer is no longer required. It definitely sets a new standard for juicers. The juice is still cool with very high quality full flavor. It lasts a week in the frig, which says a lot about the quality of the juice extraction. There is only 1 or 2 tablespoons of foam on the top of a quart, which is very good. It's quiet with little vibration. Easy cleanup is very important. The Greenstar was a real pain to scrub and clean all the parts. The Champion was pretty easy. The NC800 is a little easier than the Champion. I'm lazy so I often let it sit for hours after juicing or between juicing different vegetables, usually 5 lbs of carrots, a beet, and 4 stalks of celery and it's still easy to clean. I use an Oxo bottle brush which reaches all the way into the juicer body and cleans it right out. Even the screen cleans easily without any scraping or scrubbing with a hard toothbrush. I almost exclusively juice one quart of carrots, one beet, and a separate two quarts of celery juice: Celery juices easily with dry fiber out and absolutely no clogging/backup, like you get with the Champion. Carrots are clunky to push through (it seems to break them into chunks first and then grinds them) and you only get 4 cups from 5 lbs of carrots instead of the usual 5 cups, which is the worst I've seen in a juicer but not that important to me. It takes all but monster size carrots. I can't remember having to cut a carrot lengthwise first but I think I have once or twice. Beet is a little clunky, like carrots, with the same inefficiency but the juice is very good, like every other juice. I have juiced some other fruits and vegetables just to get an idea of the overall capability of the NC800: Spinach juices very well with 1/5 foam at most, which is far better than other juicers like the Greenstar which claim to be able to juice leafy greens. There is a trick to juicing leafy greens. Don't bunch them up or try to push them through. Trickle them slowly through on their own. Mustard greens juice efficiently and better than spinach. Use the same method as spinach. Just cut them in half if necessary before dropping them through the juicer. Even a high quality $1000 grass/leafy greens juicer will only do a little better, and is completely unnecessary. Cucumber does backup but clears quickly when you use the reverse button. You do need to cut cucumbers in half lengthwise and there is a lot of pulp in the juice, which you may want to filter out. This is one of the few items where you do need to switch from the 5 setting to the 1 setting to get it to juice decently. It's good enough, but if you drink a lot of pure cucumber juice, this might not be the best juicer. Oranges juice like the Champion giving you an Orange Julius type juice, creamy and milky, which some people, like me, prefer. Grapes give hard fiber out but backup after only 2 cups, so it isn't usable unless you are only using a combination of some grapes with mostly other juices. The 1 setting, like cucumbers, definitely helps in the case of grapes. Apples backup after only 3 apples. You will have to cut medium size apples into quarters. You will get too much foam, too. This is definitely not a juicer for apple based juices, but you might get away with juicing 1 or 2. Pistachios make fine nut butter. I used raw pistachios and the nut butter was dry but that just depends on the nut. You can always just add a little oil. There is a trick to making nut butters. Like leafy greens, you need to just trickle the nuts in slowly with no filling up and pushing which will just clog it and make it very hard to push through. This is different, but just as good as the Champion for nut butters. The plastic pitcher doesn't pour very well and the plastic fiber out container is a pain to clean. I use my Greenstar glass pitcher and a glass bowl for the fiber which is easy to empty and clean. As others have mentioned, this NC800 HDS 5th generation is the same as the NC900 HDC 6th generation with the same big feed chute, except for the color, silver/gray vs chrome. I think the NC800 also comes in red. I'm very happy with my NC800, and it's a little cheaper. 25 Nov 2017 update: I get a cup of juice per pound on small carrots. If you use small carrots or slice them lengthwise as others have suggested and use very little pressure to mostly let them pull through on their own you'll get as much juice as almost any other juicer. You decide whether you want to juice faster or slower by slicing and patiently waiting in order to get more juice per carrot. 23 Dec 2018 update: I just got 3 oz of wheatgrass juice with a little less than a tablespoon of foam from 4 oz of wheatgrass, so it really does juice wheatgrass, too.

After 2 weeks of research and comparison, I settled on this juicer. It is VERY easy to clean (clean the juice screen before anything dries), juices everything I put in it handily (don't worry about squeaks-that's from spinach rubbing and nothing to worry about), easy to assemble and take apart and leaves pretty dry fiber as the remnant. I have not had to use reverse once and it never came close to bogging down. I occasionally did have to put some pressure on the "shover" to get things down and sometimes the last few crushed pieces don't go all the way thru but that's usually fruit and just a small amount. It does produce pulp in the juice but I like that. You want clean juice, buy a centrifugal juicer and waste more of the not-inexpensive produce & fruit or just strain it. As suggested, I cut everything up beforehand and tossed it into large bowls as I did so and then just fed the various hard/soft/fruit in as a mix and it ate it right up, green leaves being no problem at all. I cleaned it out after every individual juice and it does take some serious time, about 2 hours, to produce 4-24oz mason jars of juice this way but I'm ok with that given the results. You could do it faster without the cleaning and I doubt the flavor would be affected with a different juice but I have the time to clean it that way. Recipe books abound for juicing and I've found you can easily double an ingredient, add other things like garlic cloves, spices or ginger to just about any recipe and not ruin it. I won't use the pasta nozzle additions or make nut butters so you're on your own with those. At $340 it was mid-level for prices for horizontal juicers but with a rock-solid warranty and company behind it. I see no need to pay $500-$800 for the twin grinder models that I was also considering. They can't produce it faster or get much more juice out of it than the NC800HDS does. You won't be disappointed. Update: Still love it. Experience shows juicing gets faster, 3 hours now produces enough jars of juice for a week since I don't worry about the 3 days mentioned as the vitality span of the juice and I can't tell the difference. First, let the auger pull the stuff down and don't shove on it unless it stops dropping. I'd guess that's where some people break the auger and/or overload the motor. You don't need to do that much. Second, cut the pieces smaller than you need to just to get them in the chute. It only takes a couple of more knife slices and the auger can then more easily pull them in to crush. Third, I make 3-5 jars of the same juice I like at once so I run them all through without cleaning out the machine. I found that I didn't need to and it still worked great but clean between juice types or fruit vs vegetables. Also a 1/4 or so of water at the end of a juice type run tossed into the chute helps move out remaining stuff and doesn't affect the juice. Fourth, clean screens thoroughly when doing so. A little extra brush scrub makes sure you're getting ALL the juice you can. I also set the nozzle to 5, no matter what I'm juicing. Fifth, the recipes I've been using from a book actually fill a 24 oz mason jar almost exactly to the top. I expect most of them will. Last, experiment with your ingredients and don't think you must follow a recipe to the letter. Once you found those you like, toss out or add what you want and see how it tastes. I've found 2 that I've improved for my taste. Veggies and fruits are NOT cheap these days and it costs me close to what my meat & potatoes budget did to juice, if not a bit more. Still, I've lost 2 lbs a week for the past 6 weeks, while exercising of course, and have never felt hungry or deprived while having a juice in the morning, one in the afternoon and then a reasonable actual meal at dinnertime, fish or turkey and salad usually. I'm delighted I bought this and have actually used it. I hope you will be too.

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!

I purchased this juicer on May 30, 2016 and it arrived on June 6, 2016. I have juiced before with the Jack LaLane juicer. Very nice juicer but the downside was the cleaning. Took too long to clean and was a hassle, so because of that I stopped juicing and gave it away. When I first bought the Omega NC800, I was a little dubious about getting back into the juicing cycle again. Well, my doubts put to rest. This juicer is FANTASTIC. I've been using it for about a month now and it does an amazing job. It is relatively quiet, easy to use and the best part is that it cleans up quickly. About every 2-3 days I will juice a couple of containers, mostly kale (yuck) with strawberries, blueberries, lemon, pomegranate, apples or oranges (to hide the taste of the kale or chard). The pulp that extracts is pretty much dry, which means I'm getting most of the juice. This juicer has the wider tube, so you don't have to cut up your ingredients as small (good choice on the larger chute). FYI.....adding lemon to your ingredients extends the shelf life. It disassembles very easily for cleaning and is easy to put back together. $350 at first seemed very high, but after using it, the price is well worth it and comes with a 15 year warranty....WOW!!!! I haven't tried making peanut butter, salsa or sorbet yet, but have no doubts that this juicer will do nicely. I would recommend this juicer highly!!!!!

We researched for a while before getting a juicer. We've had Champion juicers, which were beasts--but produced juice that was half foam. We've had a Greenstar--which are wonderful, but have 20 pieces and take a ridiculous amount of time to juice anything. This juicer looked like a happy medium for a decent price. The results were a juicer that can chew up pretty much anything you can fit down (within reason), that makes a large amount of juice with very little foam (very little oxidation), that has 4 parts to the assembly that can be cleaned by dipping them in a bowl of water (and scrubbing the extruder a little bit with the brush they give you). The blades are really hard plastic, but the extruder has a metal plate that squeezes the vast majority of the juice out of the vegetables. It takes about a minute to assemble and break down, and maybe 2-3 minutes to clean. It is unbelievable how easy it is. The juicer body doesn't get dirty at all, so there's no chance of juice or pulp getting into the body of the juicer and causing mold. If you are juicing vegetables, there is nearly no pulp in the resulting juice. There's a bit more if you juice soft bodied fruit, but we didn't find this to be too significant. We haven't had to strain any of the juice yet, so it's drinkable right out of the machine. All in all, this juicer has been the best we've ever owned. Easy 5's across the board, and hopefully, you can see why.

I purchased this juicer a few years ago after doing a lot of research and wanted to try going vegan. Previously, I had a cheap centrifugal juicer from target that made juice that tasted awful, separated right away, and had a TON of gross foam. Worst of all it was SO loud it sounded like a lawn mower, and I lived in a campus apartment with 3 other girls and felt really awkward about using it and waking up the entire building. So I took a chance and got this juicer even though it was way above my budget and I do not regret it at all, years later. The main reason I love this juicer is because it makes juice that tastes REALLY good. I couldn't stomach the stuff from my old juicer, but I actually crave the green juice I make with this one and look forward to having it. The juice it makes is such high quality, it doesn't separate even using alot of different produce (unless you leave it in the fridge for a while, but you can shake it back together and it stays) and it makes very little foam if any. Sometimes there is a TINY bit of pulp in the juice which doesn't bother me. Also, the pulp comes out SUPER dry, which never happened with my older juicer, which makes me feel like I am not wasting my fruit and vegetables. I also love this thing because it is just so easy to use and clean, its really simple. I find it a lot simpler and easier to clean than the old centrifugal I had. I also love that it comes with the different plates/attachments. The frozen banana ice cream with the blank attachment is amazing, way better than when you just put one in the blender. The last reason I love this juicer is because it is SO quiet, I can run this any time of day/night and not have to worry about bothering anyone, the noise is so minimal, perfect for apartment living. My favorite juice recipe to make with this (in the picture) is kale, romaine, carrots, apple, and grapes. If you do not like the taste of kale/green juice, throw some grapes in and it makes it taste amazing (I saw this in a video once and it is the best tip).