Great multitasking juicer, cleanup is my only drawback

It should be noted that this juicer is now known as the Green Star Gold. The name changed in January 2005. The juicer is exactly the same.

Choosing a juicer
I have never owned a juicer before and I took a long time to study and read about the types of juicers out there. I learned that centrifugal juicers are bad and you get what you pay for. If you want a good juicer, you'll have to shell out a couple hundred at least. Of course, there's the top dollar Norwalk that'll give you every last drop of juice and provide you with veggie particle board squares to tile your counter, but who has two grand to spare on a unitasking juicer? The happy middle ground is in the masticating juicer. Masticating juicers slowly chew the food. The slow mechanical breakdown of the raw material prevents too much heat and oxidation from ruining your juice. One concern about most masticating juicers is the amount of wet pulp left over. If the juice and enzymes are in the pulp, they're not in your glass.

Choosing the Green Star
I read several reviews of the Green Star product line. Not only does it solve the issue of wet pulp with the adjustable pulp knob, but it can do so much more than just make juice. The manufacturer's site explains the difference in the four models (and there is not much of a difference at all). I decided to pay a little extra and get the Gold version because of the ability to make pasta, breadsticks, etc. I could go into more detail about the capability of the juicer, but that's not my review. Instead, you can go to greenstar.com to read more about the Green Star juicers from the source.

Initial thoughts
Intuitive is the first word I would use to describe the juicer and parts that come with it. There really is no guessing about where anything goes. The one and only critical part that you must get right is the alignment of the gears. Even this is very simple and easily explained in the documentation. You line up the gears so that the single dot on one gear falls between the two dots on the other gear. That's it. The manual that comes with the book fully explains machine disassembly, cleanup, reassembly (including assembly using the alternative parts for pasta) and troubleshooting.

Disspelling complaints
I have read reviews that complain about the plastic parts staining and the amount of force needed to push food into the machine. Yes, the plastic parts will stain - you're dealing with natural pigments from the likes of carrots and beets. Anything short of stainless steel will inherit these colors. But then, who cares? It's a juicer, get over it. As for the difficulty pushing the raw food into the machine, I only encountered that one time when I overloaded the chute with a handful of grapes. The bottom ones roll along the gears and the upper ones simply squish instead of transmit the force down to the bottom of the pile. My mistake. Ordinary use does not require a lot of force. I've sent full carrots down that chute without slicing them at all. Yes, you have to press them with the plunger, but the amount of force needed is by no means excessive. Other complaints I've read include pulp in the juice and problems with wet foods not processing through. Pulp is controlled by the user, the machine simply works the way you set it up. You have a choice between a fine screen or a coarse screen. The coarse screen definitely allows pulp through - as designed! The amount of juice left in the ejected pulp is also controlled by the user via the pulp adjustment knob. This adjustment knob comes into play more when you have very juicy foods like peaches or pineapple. The masticating gears don't put pressure on the juice (remember, folks, pressure equals heat and heat is bad). The juice comes out when pulp is forced out of the pulp ejection chute. If the adjustment knob is too tight for the tiny amount of pulp you get from juicy fruits you can either loosen the adjustment knob or put something with more bulk behind it (like a carrot). The best method of juicing "wet" items is to feed them in first and follow them with harder "dry" items that will push the pulp through.

Overall thoughts
Okay, enough complaining about unjustified bad reviews. My impression of the juicer is that it works great. I got every bit of my expectations out of it and more. Even if I had not read the manual (which is quite helpful), I still would not have a problem using this machine. As I said before, the design is very intuitive. The feed chute is slightly narrow, but that's to be expected from a masticating juicer. The 190 watt motor is very powerful and capable of getting the job done. It even has a reverse pulse feature. Continuous use for several minutes does not heat up the unit (though the manufacturer does suggest stopping every 30 minutes). The pulp is quite dry, and the only way you'd get more juice from it is with a 2000 lb hydraulic press. I juiced six carrots and one apple to get approximately 16 oz. of juice. Naturally, this machine is for people serious about juicing for their health. If you are an occasional juice drinker, I wouldn't expect you to consider dropping $450 for this machine. Though, I will say that the great quality of the juice yielded by the Green Star might even turn a casual juice drinker into a serious fanatic. The machine occupies about as much counter space as a good multi-purpose food processor / mixer.

Room for improvement
If I were to offer some suggestions to the manufacturer, they would include a stainless steel upgrade (though, the parts would be extremely heavy - which may be why they are plastic to begin with). I would also ask that they provide a neat storage rack for the parts. When not in use, the multiple extra parts clutter up a drawer fast. I would like to see the juice pitcher come with more than just cc measurement increments (cups or ounces would be handy). Each of these are not a real problem, only suggestions for improvement.

Drawbacks
I'm sure you've noticed by now that I haven't mentioned cleanup. Who likes to clean, anyway? It has been noted that cleanup will deter some people from ever juicing and even stop some people after spending a bundle on a perfectly good juicer. Well, the job isn't exactly fun with the Green Star, but not overwhelming either. Typical juicing use means you have the gear housing, gears, screen, pulp chute, adjusting knob, feed chute, feed tray, drip tray, strainer, and pitcher to clean - every time. Oh, and you'll have to wipe down the faceplate of the unit where the motor shaft is. You can't let the machine sit and come back to it later to clean up (well, you could, but you'd need a chisel or something). This means that, in addition to food prep before juicing, you should make sure the sink is empty because all of these parts will fill it up. You have to rinse the pulp from the gear housing, gears, screen, and pulp chute before you fill the sink with water, unless you like all that stuff floating around while you try to clean. Most of the parts are simple to clean, requiring only water and the included cleaning brush. I will say that the brush needs to be redesigned because it can't completely get to the spaces in the pulp chute. The only parts that are difficult to clean are the screen and the motor shaft area of the unit itself. Everything else is nearly just a matter of rinsing and setting aside to dry - there's just a lot of it. Hopefully you don't mind stains, because these parts will collect pigment from the very first use. The included instruction manual does suggest a soaking method to get rid of stains if they bother you. These parts are not meant for the dishwasher. Then again, plastic usually isn't safe in a dishwasher anyway. That being said, I would imagine that you could safely top-rack them and get away with it.

Multitasking
I have not yet used the Green Star for other things such as pasta, nut butter, or breadsticks. When I do, I'll update this review if there is anything to note.