The term “juice fountain” typically describes an electric juicer machine that individuals can use to make homemade juice drinks. A juice fountain converts fruits and vegetables into ready-to-drink juice. The juice is typically dispensed out of a small spout, giving rise to the “fountain” name. A juice fountain can be any of a variety of electric juicers, from small personal juicers to large-capacity juicing machines, but the term typically only applies to juicers designed for home use.
The distinguishing characteristic of any juice fountain is that it produces a variety of juices with often no more than the push of a button. This is often known as power juicing. A user loads the juicing chamber with the desired fruits and vegetables, then waits for the resulting juice to pour forth. How the juice fountain makes that juice is where differences occur.
Different juice fountains create juice in different ways. A masticating juicer, for instance, crushes, or chews, the fruits and vegetables in order to force the release of juice. A centrifugal juicer also works by crushing the target produce, but extracts juice not through pulverization but through a high-speed spinning motion that oxygenates the fruit particles and removes the juices by centrifugal force.
Most juicers will automatically separate out cores, stems, and seeds during the juicing process. Sometimes the juicer will spit these unusable parts into a waste chamber, while other times the waste will be filtered inside of the juicing compartment. It all depends on the model.
Some juice fountains are designed to accept whole fruits or vegetables, while others require pre-peeling, slicing, or coring. Much of this depends on the size and capabilities of the juice fountain. A small, personal-size juice fountain typically requires a bit of preparatory work at the front end because its chamber is much smaller. A home juicer can typically elect to put a whole fruit in and clean the filter ever few minutes, or just do some of the leg work before beginning. Most larger juice fountains and have more filter capacity, and can create more juice between cleanings.
It is the juicer’s ability to filter out waste that distinguishes it from other juicing-type tools like blenders. A power blender will pulverize and liquefy a fruit or a vegetable, but it lacks the capability to distinguish between juice-worthy flesh and trash-worthy excesses. A juice fountain’s end result may look like something from a blender, but the components — and usually also the taste — are quite different.
Juice fountains allow for more creativity in juicing than is typically available in store-bought juices, and the product is always fresher. Many juicers believe that home juicing maintains more of a fruit or vegetable’s nutrients than does commercial juicing, and is done without chemicals or preservatives in any event. The health benefits of home juicing can, of course, also be realized with the use of a manual juicer, where juice is extracted by hand. The benefit of the juice fountain is the speed, efficiency, and accuracy a machine can lend to the juice-making art.
