This $499 slow juicer is worth the price - it makes fresh juice comparable to $7 store-bought juices and lots more

• The Hurom H101 juicer allows you to make smoothies, ice cream, or pulp-free liquid juice out of anything from beets to berries.
• Most components of the juicer can be cleaned using nothing more than running water and air drying.
• While expensive at $499, the Hurom H101 extracts so much of the liquid (and nutrients) found in your favorite fresh foods that it will pay for itself over time compared to inferior options.

If you'd asked me a few years ago if I was into juicing, I would have said no. But if you'd looked in my fridge, you would consistently see almond milk, tomato juice, orange juice, and various other store-bought beverages that, as it turns out, you can easily make at home. You just need a good juicer.

Or you could go for a great one instead. That's what I did when I got a Hurom H101 Easy Clean Slow Juicer.

And with apologies to those $7 impulse-buy fancy juices stationed near the Whole Foods checkout, now my wife and I can make better juices than one can find in a store as well as staples (for us, anyway) like almond milk and orange juice.

What are the benefits of juicing? First and foremost, it makes it remarkably easy to get the vitamins, minerals, and nutrients packed in all sorts of fresh produce, from fruits to veggies to nuts and beyond. If you don't care for chomping down on those daily 10 servings of fruits and vegetables, juicing is a great way to get the goods anyway. Second, juicing makes it much easier for your body to absorb the aforementioned nutrients. And third, you can create some truly delicious beverages with a juicer. Through trial and error, you'll find the perfect custom blend of this berry, that vegetable, and this lemon grass (or whatnot) for your taste buds.

Using the Hurom H101 Easy Clean Slow Juicer

As with any slow juicer, you will need to be a bit patient when working with this piece of hardware. You have to chop down larger fruits and veggies into strips or chunks small enough to fit into the chute up top. Once you have your foodstuffs ready, choose the strainer that suits the juice to be made - finer for a smooth, minimally pulpy juice, larger slots for a more smoothie-like consistency - and start feeding in celery, nuts, chunks of lemon, whatever you want. You use a push rod to keep the ingredients moving downward, feeding ingredients slowly and steadily. And you can remove pulp during the process.

After letting the H101's auger squeeze away for a couple minutes, a process that's remarkably quiet compared to other juicers, open up the pour spout and out comes smooth, even, perfectly mixed juice. All of the juice comes out, thanks to the downward angle of the spout.

Oh, and when you use the ice cream strainer and feed in frozen ingredients, you can make a gelato-like frozen desert too.

After the juicing or gelato-making is done, you are about 45 seconds from finishing cleanup. Just take apart all of the components (other than the base) and rinse them under a strong stream of water then air dry. With the exception of digging some pulp out of the pulp outlet, I never have to use anything but water and my fingers to get this juicer completely clean.

What sets the Hurom H101 apart from the rest

The proof is in the pulp. That's the dry pulp, to be precise. Whether you feed in a cup of almonds, a bunch of carrot sticks, celery stalks, or hunks of citrus fruit, almost every drop of juice is extracted from that fibrous mass that comes out the other side. That means maximum cost effectiveness, which is good especially with pricier foods like a pomegranate, and it also means tastier juice.

The slow 43 rpm revolution of the auger rotating within this juicer mimics a hand's steady squeezing, albeit with precision and without fatigue. Each squeeze works deeper and deeper into the pulp until eventually all of the juice is released. Compare the pulp left over by the H101 to that of a cheaper juicer to understand why this machine is pricier. And of course, there's the easy cleaning.

The cons of the Hurom H101 Easy Clean Slow Juicer

As with any slow juicer, you need to chop many ingredients down to pretty small size to feed them into the H101's loading tube. And as the name suggests, the juicing process can be… slow. If you're coming from the world of blenders, like I was, both of these aspects are an initial annoyance, but you'll get used to it. They're not unique to this juicer, either.

While cleaning the main nozzle (where the juice comes out) and the strainers is quite easy, the spout where the pulp is ejected takes a bit more effort to clean. A toothbrush helps.

If you do get big into juicing, make sure you are still getting plenty of fiber somewhere else, because while a juicer does give you a nutrient-packed beverage, there's good stuff that gets lost in that pulp. The natural sugars in fresh foods are sugars nonetheless, so don't think drinking fresh juice all day is healthy - water should still be your go-to beverage.

Final con? Price.

Another option to consider

The Cuisinart CJE-1000 Die-Cast Juice Extractor ($108.99) is about twice the size of the H101, so if storage space is an issue, that's one knock. It's also much louder than the H101. And the CJE-1000 is a lot harder to clean.

All that said, it costs about $375 less than the Hurom H101 and has garnered great reviews from customers who love its large feed chute, its efficient operation, and the volume of juice it produces in a short period of time.

So is the Hurom H101 really worth your money?

If you have never owned a juicer before and you're not sure juicing is for you, I recommend you consider a cheaper option first. That way, if juicing turns out to be a passing fad in your household, you won't be out too much cash. If it catches on, then you'll likely want to spend the extra cash on a top-quality machine.

On the other hand, if you already know you are all about the juice and this thing isn't going to sit unused on a pantry shelf, by all means go for it. You will extract more juice from less produce, spend less time cleaning, and have more control over the type of juice you create than with any of the cheaper options.

Pros: extracts almost every drop of juice, can be used for smoothies and gelato, most components very easy to clean, quiet operation

Cons: quite expensive, pulp nozzle annoying to clean

Get the Hurom H101 Easy Clean Slow Juicer, $499, at Amazon