At Seoul they juice them slow

SEOUL, South Korea — Every time I hear the mechanical roar of a traditional juicer, I remember this scene from How I Met Your Mother where, at the exact moment one of them is supposed to reveal a juicy secret, someone turns on a blender and the audience is excluded from the secret forever. My takeaway: blenders are a menace to society. They are noisy, they make a mess, and they produce less than fine product — chunky milk shakes, gritty juices, lumpy gravy.

Now imagine a juicer, a machine created specifically for squeezing the juice out of fruits and vegetables, with, instead of a traditional blade, an Ultem helix-shaped screw — a thermoplastic qualified for use in aerospace applications, as in a spaceship. What is a sophisticated material like this doing inside a juicer?

A whole lot of things — for starters, it’s revolutionizing the way the world makes juice, starting with our Korean friends, who were the first to benefit from the product, the Hurom Slow Juicer, from South Korea-based company Hurom. The brand has been making juicers since 2005 and has since perfected the machine.

A group of journalists, including myself, visited a museum of juicers that documents this evolution firsthand at the Hurom factory in Busan, where Hurom Co. CEO Jeong Young Doo and Hurom L.S. Co. CEO Song Hae Bok told us more about the mystery blade and the product it is built into.

The blade is at the core of Hurom’s Low Speed Technology System (LSTS), which meant ditching the sharp blades of a traditional juicer in favor of a new blade that presses and squeezes ingredients ever so slowly. Frictional heat produced by traditional juicers destroys nutrient-bearing cells in fruits and vegetables. Their high speeds cause oxidation, resulting in air bubbles. Hurom’s low-speed juicing technology eliminates that, so that the integrity of the fruit’s color, nutrients and minerals are maintained. This results in a nutritionally upright beverage — so upright, in fact, that one blend can hold its form on top of another. The absence of air bubbles makes this happen, and this can’t be achieved with a high-speed traditional juicer, according Hurom managing director, R&D division, Hong DongChul, who has been developing recipes for the brand.

The Hurom R&D team demonstrated this for us — creating three different and delicious drinks: a pineapple smoothie made with frozen pineapples and room temperature pineapples; a grape and tomato smoothie; and the J&J, made with orange, mango, grape and raspberry. Each drink was presented in double layers that never mixed unless shaken or stirred, much like oil and water — only they did not contain anything but fruits. Hong explained, “To achieve the double layer, put the sweeter fruits like pineapple and green grapes at the bottom.”

The latest Hurom Slow Juicer from the HH series, winner of the Reddot Design Award and recognized at the 2013 International Design Excellence Awards, features a new lever system that allows the user more control, as well as an upgraded strainer system that can go from producing a smoothie to a very clear juice without having to disassemble the juicer. It is made of simple, easy-to-assemble and easy-to-clean parts; you can even just run water through the juicer for a quick rinse in between uses.

Aside from having a machine with intergalactic capacities in your kitchen, what are the perks of having a Hurom juicer? Well, for starters, it means not having to travel to the Hurom Café in Seoul for a taste of a Hurom-made beverage. Hurom Café has four branches in South Korea and two branches in China, where another Hurom factory is located. We visited Hurom Café at the Hurom Seoul office in Ganam-gu, its second branch, and enjoyed a sampling of juices. KD Bae, Hurom managing director, and Jake Lee, sales manager for overseas sales, explained the benefits of juicing.

Fruits and vegetables are the most effective sources of vitamins, minerals and fiber, which aid in the prevention of cancer, combats obesity and many other diseases. “But their absorption rate is four times higher in juice form — and the skin and seeds that are usually thrown away also have additional nutrients,” said KD. That’s just how the human body works — it can take in a higher number of fruits and vegetables in juice form than in their original state. The removal of isoluble fiber — the almost dry, papery pulp that is left after a Hurom juicer is done with a piece of fruit — ensures the maximum absorption of vitamins and minerals and allows us to digest it in just 10 to 15 minutes, as opposed to three to five hours of digesting solid fruit. Plus, Hurom juice is pretty. “Most of the juices we’ve been drinking are full of additives like sugar and artificial ingredients that extend their shelf life,” added Hong. Hurom Juice, on the other hand, comes in vibrant colors and with intoxicating, all-natural aromas. “People are amazed that our juices don’t have any sugar and are feeling healthier through Hurom juice,” he said.

Two glasses of juice a day is enough to make one a lot healthier. Incorporating juices into one’s diet won’t be easy, but it’s a worthy New Year’s resolution to make. Save your traditional blenders, though. You’ll need noisemakers to ring in 2014.

Warning: A juice-only diet may cause crankiness, frequent trips to the comfort room, and impromptu incoherent public monologues. Don’t drink and juice.  Bottoms up!

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The Hurom Slow Juicer is manufactured by Hurom Co., Ltd. In the Philippines, Hurom is available at Rustan’s Department Store, S&R, Landmark, Truevalue, SM Department Store, SM Appliance, Fair and Square, Western Marketing, Abenson, Pioneer Supermarket or through Worldwide Marketing,  0917- 810-8822. For information, visit www.hurom-slowjuicer.com.