Juicing on the move with the Lexen healthy juicer

Some years ago Wade and I decided that if we were to live a happy, contented, and arthritis-free life we would need the following 3 things.

• Freedom to travel.
• An online income.
• The knowledge and tools to provide for our own good health.

These 3 things aren’t the easiest to combine especially when you’re out on the road, the websites and the freedom bit you can do relatively easily and kind of go hand in hand but keeping up with the discipline to exercise, live healthily and keep on juicing, that one required a little bit more effort.

Juicing on the move

We have friends around the world who are juice fanatics and we love nothing more than to pay them a visit but if we want to go somewhere new or different then we have to plan ahead.

Sometimes we have to visit places for longer periods of time to help RA sufferers or we have to go to places that don’t sell cheap juicers, sometimes the place we are visiting has little or no access to electricity, there’s really only one solution for a situation like this, take your juicer with you!

We needed a lightweight, portable, hand-powered juicer that’s small enough to fit in a small suitcase but powerful and robust enough to take with you and not get damaged, we found that in the Lexen healthy juicer.

This great little juicer is the first and last hand-powered juicer that we ever needed to buy.  Cheap, lightweight, portable, and beautifully designed, how could you ask for more from a £30 juicer?

The juice quality really is great, it’s not the cleanest as you will get some pulp in the juice, especially if you are juicing soft fruits and berries but with leafy green veg and especially Wheatgrass the pulp from the Lexen is ultra dry and the juice super clean.

Traveling on a budget

One of the big problems with traveling is of course budget, yes you can set a personal budget and sometimes you even stick to it but usually, you stray from the path, splurging on things that are either convenience driven or just plain dumb. One way of keeping yourself grounded while you travel is to incorporate some of your habits from back home into your daily travel routine and juicing is the perfect travel companion to keep you on the straight and narrow.

How close to Nature can you get?

You know, there’s something very satisfying and primitive about pulling green stuff out of the ground, juicing it right there by hand, and drinking it on the spot. It’s so natural and refreshing, the produce couldn’t be fresher and well, how close to nature can you get?

Travel to anywhere in the world with a warm climate or anywhere in Spring, Summer, or Autumn and the chances are that the earth, trees, and hedgerows will be brimming with fruits, roots, and shoots that you can easily pick, clean, and juice whilst on the move, helping you not only save money but giving you the fantastic organic nutrients your body requires

The great thing about the Lexen juicer is you can use it virtually anywhere that you can find a flat surface. You can use it on marble or melamine countertops as it has a suction cup base, you can attach it to a table or other flat surface as it comes with a handy fixing clamp.

This machine is a breeze to operate, with its well-thought-out design, robust parts, and long winding handle, it doesn’t even seem that much of a chore cranking the handle, really it couldn’t be simpler.

This is one of the cheapest juicers on the market right now but don’t let the price fool you, this is a serious piece of kit and something that should last a very long time indeed if used with care and respect.

This fantastic little juicer is endorsed and promoted by none other than Michael Bergonzi, the former greenhouse keeper at the world-famous Hippocrates health institute, the world leader in Wheatgrass therapy for the treatment of serious and life-threatening illnesses like cancer.

A closer look at the Lexen healthy juicer

Upon opening the box of this juicing marvel you’ll no doubt be completely confused by what you are presented with, you’ll find a range of odd-looking plastic components that seem to resemble nothing you’ve ever seen before but don’t let this put you off.

If you’re like me and think the instruction booklet is only to be used in extreme circumstances, save yourself the hassle and just familiarise yourself with the basic parts before you get started, I took ages trying to figure it out but in the end, had to give in and read the instructions!

To give you a head start I’ve put together some helpful setup advice that you can use to either help decide if this juicer is for you or to get an idea of the juicer’s assembly ahead of getting your own Lexen healthy juicer.

Box contents

Assembly

So how do all these pieces fit together?

Fixing the Juicer to any surface

As you’ve probably realized by now, cranking that long handle is going to produce quite a bit of force so the juicer will need to be firmly held in place while under operation, you can do this in a couple of different ways or combine the two for added security.

If you have a flat surface like a marble countertop or a melamine surface you can secure the juicer very easily with the built-in suction cup base, this base is very strong so it requires a special tool to operate it (number 11 in the infographic above), there’s a black, three-pronged knob on the side of the juicer that you need to turn, this turning motion is what creates the suction below the juicer but it is almost impossible to operate solely by hand, especially if you suffer from RA. The large white handle provided is very easy to use and won’t slip from your grasp while in use.

If the surface you are trying to fix the juicer to is porous or uneven then you will need to use the second fixing method, this method utilizes the Stainless steel clamp that is provided and marked as number 13 in the image above. If you take a look at the base of the juicer you will see it has a hole in it, this hole is to receive the end of the screw clamp (part 13) slide the metal clamp into the hole, open the clamp as wide as you need and tighten it down to secure the juicer to the work surface

 What’s it like to use?

The straight answer to that is very simple, once you have the thing assembled and fixed down you just put the produce in the chute at the top and turn the handle.

One thing that is different about the design of this juicer to that of others we have used is that the juice doesn’t come out of the front but exits to the rear of the juicer, this really confused me when I first started using the juicer as I couldn’t figure out how the juice container could catch the juice but the container wraps around the back of the juicer to catch the juice.

Best produce to use

All juicers are made differently and as such have different qualities, whether that be the size of the holes in the juicing screen or the method of juice extraction they all make juice slightly differently and the results can vary dramatically.

One of the easiest ways to get the best from your juicer is to choose products that fit your juicer type, some fruits and vegetables just don’t work in some juicers so here’s a list of the good and the bad when it comes to the Lexen healthy juicer.

This isn’t an exhaustive list just some of the stuff we’ve tried.

The good

• Apples
• Oranges
• Grapes
• Cucumber
• lemons
• Limes
• Wheatgrass
• Kale and other Leafy green vegetables

The bad

• Cherries and Berries
• Mango
• Beetroot
• Carrot
• Passion fruit

One great feature of this juicer that I have yet to see on any other juicer is the addition of a separate sieve that sits above the juice collection tub, this sieve helps to catch any un-juiced produce that may fall into the juice container, which is very useful when juicing wheatgrass as it stops you having to fish out any stray pieces of grass that fall into your juice.

You may want to remove this tray when juicing softer fruits as the syrupy juice tends to block the holes in the mesh and not let the juice through, just remove the tray and you get lovely thick juice something like a smoothie but much fruitier.

The Lexen experience

There’s something uniquely different about using the Lexen healthy juicer. It’s almost as though you’ve been transported back to a time before electricity, a simpler more basic, and calming way of life.  As you hand feed your fruits and vegetables into the chute and turn the handle you begin of appreciate the food more and the process becomes more about making a juice that is specifically for you, a juice that has a purpose, a juice that will restore and nurture your health in a totally natural way.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the convenience of a motorized juicer but the act of juicing by hand is far more satisfying, it does take a bit of winding to make a lot of juice but if you’re only making small batches of juice for one or two people then it’s really not a problem.

How much juice?

We haven’t really taken the time to measure the lexens juice output against our other juicing machines, maybe we will do that in a future article but it’s fair to say that the volume of juice produced by the Lexen is comparable to that of another single auger electrically powered juicers we have previously owned.

This juicer provides a great juice yield and the quality of the juice is fantastic with very little foaming and minimal heat to damage the juice. The juice produced by the Lexen looks and tastes amazing.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a low-cost, low-impact, portable juicer with an excellent juice yield and robust build quality, you’ll have to look very hard to find something that comes close to matching the Lexen healthy juicer.