The Juicero is an impressive piece of over engineered hardware

But will it tell me if I’m reaching my vitamin C target and the number of calories I’ve expended by pulling the lever? Will it order grapefruits for me? Psssht.

Now that I have seen the disassembly I want to buy one.
Really nicely engineered and manufactured. Almost like an Apple product.

It is real shame that they sell super overpriced bags with pulped fruit for the machine. From the initial description when they were funding I was under impression that they sell large pieces of pre-cut [please note NOT pre-pulped] fruit in those bags that needed this super high pressure to juice.

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On a smaller scale, the BAe 146:

“Sounds like 1 engine, actually 4, needs 6”

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Will it mix in an appropriate ratio of vodka?

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I guess if you like your Rube Goldberg machines to be completely obscured behind a plastic shell it’s well built.

While we’re on the subject of aviation humor…

A military pilot called for a priority landing because his single-engine jet fighter was running “a bit peaked.” Air Traffic Control told the fighter pilot that he was number two, behind a B-52 that had one engine shut down.

“Ah,” the fighter pilot remarked, “The dreaded seven-engine approach.

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I’m surprised they didnt also mention that the Juicero has Bluetooth.

I find it very convenient for when I want to check the status of my Juicero without getting up from my breakfast nook.

(Uh, also, the Juicero seemed to need access to my iPhone’s Photos, Contacts and Location Services, but I’m sure it had a good reason!)

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Yeah, I should have known it was on someone’s radar.

The problem is the thing is suffering feature creep and is delayed another 8-12 months according to the project creators, so add another 25-100% to that. The Juicero might just work as-is.

Then again, a regular hand operated press works just fine. Bonus: it probably would work on the Juicero refills too.

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No one is advocating eating that much cauliflower.

You’re right that a lot of smoothies and juices out there are junk, full of too much sugar and/or having ridiculous amounts of something we don’t need very much of.

But it is possible to juice in a truly healthy way. And people may do it for different reasons.

Let’s say we juiced one carrot, a big handful of kale, a big handful of spinach, two ribs of celery, a cucumber, some fresh lime or lemon, and a little mint. Maybe throw in an apple, too. You have to admit, that would be a pretty nutrient-laden beverage, yes?

Let’s say I’m super-duper busy. I might not have time to sit down and eat all my recommended daily servings of fruits and vegetables. But if I could drink those fruits and vegetables on the go in the morning, I would feel better about having to settle for a convenient granola bar for a meal, later in the day.

Let’s say I have a medical condition that affects my GI tract. (Or maybe just makes me feel crummy.) I might not be able to easily digest (or eat) all my recommended daily fruits and vegetables in whole form. But if I could drink those fruits and vegetables, I’d still be providing my body with the nutrition it needs.

Let’s say I have sensory issues, and I don’t like crunchy stuff, or slimy stuff, or the smells or appearance of a lot of food. This might be so unpleasant that it’s difficult to make myself eat the recommended daily servings of fruit and vegetables. But if I could drink those fruits and vegetables (and maybe doctor it up so that the flavor, smell, texture and color are acceptable) I’ll be getting the benefits of eating them without it being a miserable experience.

Different strokes.

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Compared to not eating fruits and veggies at all, juicing is a healthier option. However, if your argument is that juicing is just as healthy as eating whole fruits and vegetables then you are unequivocally wrong.

Yes, you get the same nutrient density with juice as with whole fruits but that’s only half the story. Juicing removes fiber which contributes to digestive health, feelings of fullness and also forces your body to burn more calories than drinking the juice by itself. Removing the fiber also means you are left with mostly just the sugar (sucrose and fructose) of the foods which your body absorbs into the bloodstream far more quickly than when having to deal with digesting the pulp. This can spike your insulin levels and actually contribute to insulin resistance over time. So while you are getting the same vitamins and nutrients, it’s not any healthier.

If you ate that carrot, kale, spinach, celery, cucumber and apple in whole form, that would be a pretty big meal. You would feel full for a long time and you would end up digesting all of this food slowly over many hours afterwards. Juicing it probably produces around 8-10 oz of liquid which you quickly gulp down. You would probably feel hungry again in an hour or two because you haven’t really satiated your appetite. You intake the same overall calories but chances are you will consume more calories in short order because you’re still hungry with just the juice.

Most people are calorie-rich and not nutrient-deficient so you’re not solving the real problem with juicing. Yes, it can contribute to a healthier diet than not eating fruits or vegetables at all - but it does not take the place of whole foods. Not by a long shot, sorry.

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That is NOT my argument, and I think I agree with everything you’d said here.

You raise an excellent point about the juice not keeping you full. I’m thinking like a walking breakfast of juice and a bagel or something. Finding healthy-ish snacks/meals throughout the day may be difficult, but we do the best we can.

Fiber is super good for you, I’m totally with you. Whole foods are better than juice, no doubt. But in certain situations when eating those whole foods wouldn’t be feasible, juice is better than not eating fruits/veg at all.

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Man, this Rube Goldberg machine has custom designed hamster in a custom designed hamster wheel! I mean, what’s Rubegoldberesque about it? To me this is polar opposite of Rube Goldberg machine.

The engineering effort that went into making this thing might be misguided overkill but at least it isn’t shabby. Think about it, if this was a bonafide juicer designed to squeeze actual juice from actual fruit, in stead of some kind of goo out of a plastic bag, in all probability we would be praising it’s design here.

Ttheir business model isn’t too different from K-Cups and Keurig machines. The machine is just an excuse to tie a customer into their product ecosystem. don’t think they would’ve ever wanted to make a really good juicer because there’s no easy way they can force the consumer to only buy produce from them.

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Yup, they aimed for exactly that business model and failed spectacularly. No doubt the allure of that precise business model was what got the investors hooked on their pitch. That is why I find this so amusing. They failed it on at least two fronts. That model involves a two pronged approach. First a sizeable downpayment on a device that (presumably provides a company with a nice profit margin in itself). Second an infinite loop of purchasing of capsules/bags of actual product, that locks a customer to their eco system. On the end customer would need both the device and the consumables.

The whole debacle with people being able to squeeze juice our of the bags with their bare hands has shown that the whole loop idea is not working in their case. Now it also seems they ended up with devices that seem expensive to produce, thus they most likely didn’t make any money on them.

OMG OMG OMG

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http://snltranscripts.jt.org/93/93tsavers.phtml

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[quote=“stanestane, post:97, topic:99776”]
Yup, they aimed for exactly that business model and failed spectacularly… The whole debacle with people being able to squeeze juice our of the bags with their bare hands has shown that the whole loop idea is not working in their case. Now it also seems they ended up with devices that seem expensive to produce, thus they most likely didn’t make any money on them.[/quote]
What exactly would you consider good engineering to be, because you were defending this two posts ago…

I was never defending bad business model, just good engineering as in quality of craftmenship. At this day and age seeing anything custom made especially in a startup product is getting more and more rare.

Don’t mix the business model and product, or even product and actual physical device.

Cool. Didn’t mean to come across as preachy. My hackles get raised when I hear or see comments about so-called “healthy” alternatives to just plain ol’ boring food.

There’s a lot of misinformation out there and things like this stupid Juicero perpetuates the myth that because it’s fresh or natural that it automatically means it’s healthy. That’s marketing - not science.

It may be health-ier but that’s a pretty low bar considering most of the crap we eat these days.

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Engineers are as much craftsmen as they are train drivers.

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