Archives for April 2015

Evolution’s Announcement, HPP (Or Not) And You

April 21, 2015 By Jen Chase

HPP ain’t the way to bee (for The Juice Standard) but many juiceries use the process. We don’t judge…but we do have opinions. Read below and decide for yourself what’s best for your WHealth™.

True: All that cucumbery goodness would keep in an HPP bottle for up to six weeks, but where’s the honest-to-goodness freshness in that? We don’t judge companies that use HPP…but we won’t.

Did you see today’s news about how Evolution Fresh (makers of cold-pressed juices and smoothies) is adding a bevvy of fruit and veggie juices to its already gargantuan lineup? (It’s not long. You can read it here.) This spring, five new flavors of its cold-pressed juice—plus a current flavor already in its repertoire—will join Evolution’s 42 others…but they’ll be available in smaller bottles (11 ounces vs. the 15.2 ounce-bottles they make now).

As always, juicy news of any variety gives us reason for pause because there isn’t a company on the planet that doesn’t get a little antsy when someone does something different. But instead of useless hand wringing, Evolution’s announcement gives us a perfect podium for talking about something major we think sets The Juice Standard from the rest:

We’re committed to sourcing organic, and we don’t use the process called HPP.

What’s HPP, you wonder? “High pressure processing.” It’s a technique that lets juice producers extend the shelf life of their product by up to six weeks. Now, that’s rad for sales…but honestly, TJS beelieves that juice is pretty much dead by then. And since we’ve built our biz around the premise that juice should in fact be super fresh, vital, and rich with the enzymes Mother Effen Nature intended, we’d never dream of using HPP to bottle our juice. ‘Cause like our name says…we gots standards.

In our bumblebee-humblebee opinion, HPP is something to avoid. But to be fair—because around here we beelieve in karma—we get why companies use the process. There’s also plenty of lit on the Internets about why and how this process isn’t as damaging as people like us think. But we just happen to think that our way is the best way…both for our WHealth™, and yours. No disrespect to those who do it different. It’s simply not our choice.

The juicery playground is an expansive space. Lots of options out there. Our hope is simply to be a bastion of awesome information so you can make the best decisions possible. Meantime, see you as you stock up on TJS’ raw, cold-pressed, committed-to-organics, knock-your-socks-off-tasty, badass Singleton bottles at Ft. Apache, The Rose, or The Buzz over at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

Since We Thought It, TJS Has Come…To Henderson!

April 16, 2015 By Jen Chase

Patience may be a virtue, but as we await the soft open of our second TJS tomorrow The Hive is mindful of what got us here: positive thinking, a little movie magic and two damn smart women.

In Field Of Dreams, Cutie Kevin Costner—all corn-fed, farmery and hottt-with-three-Ts—walks through his hard-grown corn to the tune of the voices in his head, telling him if he mows his crop, builds a baseball field and hosts an ethereal game-of-all-time, he’ll raise enough dough to pay his mortgage and save his family farm.

“If you build it he will come.” It’s that kind of positive thinking that if used the right way can help us get through anything…even waiting for a new TJS location to open!

FOD and the messages James Earl Jones delivered in his molasses voice gave us some pivotal rah-rah movie moments that speak to the American dream: work hard, believe in something bigger than you, and you’ll be rewarded. At this point in the post, hopeful happy-ending seekers (like moi) might hear The National Anthem or smell some salty Fenway Franks wafting through the screen, but we all know success ain’t that easy. I mean, it is…but it’s not. Markets crash. People lose their jobs and homes. Some get tumors and die young. Some get sick young and live long. You never know. But pragmatics aside, FOD is based on positive thinking. Toss some inspired thought with blind faith, trust, and the support of solid people around you, the only thing that can get in the way of your success is you.

Mike Dooley has made it his mission to help people change their attitude to change their lives. “Thoughts become things, so make ’em good ones.” “Spiritual accountability.” That stuff. If until now that hasn’t been your flavor of prophecy—if you’re more used to living from a place of reaction than of proactive attraction and working to create your future—I want to talk about Jamie and Marcella.

These two are soon to open The Juice Standard’s second location just 14ish months after their first, and I was thinking about the magnitude of that this morning. Almost 2 years ago I sat with them at Eat in Downtown Las Vegas to review exercises we’d done to reveal the type of ‘tude they wanted to imbue their site and social media. And I so vividly remember sitting across from them, thinking that these two are extremely young and vibrant women who could’ve used their smarts and passion for pretty much anything…yet they decided to bring organic, cold-pressed juice to the Valley because they believe in enhancing the healthy mindset of a city known for extravagance.

That’s not bullshit, Bees. These two are in it to win it…for you. They beelieve in their product, and they beelieve in it because they want to bring it to you. Swear.

All said, J & M didn’t know how Las Vegas would react to The Juice Standard. But they hoped people would embrace the idea of healing the body with what’s put in it, not what meds it’s prescribed. They hoped people would go all in with the “your health is your WHealth” thing and start acting like one’s WHealth is their greatest asset. Hell, bennies aside, they even hoped people would chug TJS juice because it tastes so freaking good. And in its first year, TJS made it.

Have there been setbacks? Youbetcha. Way more places sell juice today than a few years ago, so there’s that. When you’re committed to seasonality, menus have to change when ingredients ebb and flow from availability. All organic, all-the-time takes deep dedication when it would be a lot ~~cheaper~~ easier to use conventional produce. And (sigh of all sighs) as of this writing they’re awaiting a soft open on Saturday 18 April after waitingandwaitingandwaiting for months for their beeautiful buildout to finish! But, Marcella’s and Jamie’s positive thinking and commitment to their honest, authentic desires brought not only success on Ft. Apache (we proudly earned “Best Of Las Vegas” accolades by the Review-Journal!)…starting tomorrow it’s bringing a second location.

“If you build it, he will come.” Positive thinking, blahblahblah. Sounds like a container of caca when you’re in an emotional sinkhole. But for believers, positive thinking is a life preserver for the soul. I’m making this up here, but let’s go ahead and call it a soul preserver. Because in your sacred ring of positivity, you’ll bob up and down through whatever shit you’re wading, and though it won’t be the only thing that saves you, you’ll stay just enough buoyant to float, be seen, and grasp something that will.

Soul preserver. Seriously…just made that up. I like it.

Now go get some juice tomorrow at our brand-spanking-new location Jamie and Marcella are calling “The Rose” (2530 St. Rose Pkwy., Henderson, NV 89074). And as we await that soft open, my gentle hope for you today—and the hope from the rest of The Hive!—is that whether you’re drinking TJS juice or not, make some time to nourish your bod in a way that makes you happy, and do a little day dreamin’ about the good stuff you can work toward attracting to your life. Sit quietly. Breathe. Visualize a moment or a sitch from your life as you’d like it played out like a cut scene from FOD (starring you!) streaming in your head. Because in the slightly more spicy words of the righteous Mike Dooley, thinker of all-things positive: “If thoughts become things, make ’em effing good ones.”

You go, Wayne.

Little Green Lies

April 6, 2015 By Jen Chase

(…And Other Funny Things To Tell Your Kids To Drink Green Juice)

Years ago I was a writer for a media company that had Breville as a client, and my main job was to blog about the best ways to use Breville products here at Food Thinkers…either by sharing recipes or outside-the-box ideas for multitasking its tools.

Look at these cukes! Gorge. Let’s teach kids that green really can be good.

Breville is well known for its counter-top ovens and tea brewers but is especially popular for its centrifugal juicers. Now, lots of budding home juicers start out with centrifugals because they’re user and wallet friendly. But once juice fans increase their juicy knowledge and learn why bumping and grinding produce in a centrifugal isn’t the best way to squeeze juice from produce (#pressedisbest, and so are masticating machines like the Omega), home juicers often graduate to other kinds of machines (or, cough, buy bypass the whole home-juicing mess and pick up product from TJS). But to be fair, a Breville machine is a great step toward improving one’s WHealth™ and glowing self. No judgment.

Anyhoo. One of the most fun posts I wrote was tailored around a funny little tweet that a parent posted to Twitter responding to something we’d said (can’t remember what). The topic was about getting kids to eat foods they find too icky to touch because they’re green, and the Twitterer’s suggestion for getting more WHealth-friendly avocados into a tot’s little bod was to call it “martian butter.”

Brill, right? In my post, I played off the Tweeter’s superb suggestion by noting that the color of certain foods can be a real hang up for lots of people. Granted, parents hope kids outgrow their arbitrary culinary dislikes by tweendom, but the fact is, we eat with our eyes long before food hits our mouth. So kids are right: If something looks gross, we’ll probably avoid it.

All said, I’m a firm believer that if you can start kids on a WHealthy-eating path from being really young, and if you happen to be blessed with a littleton with a sense of humor, their natural monkey-see-monkey-do’ness can have them downing the same green juice that you do. Just tell ‘em it’s “Martian Juice!”

See? Marvin Martin says to just tell ’em it’s “martian juice.”

And have fun with it! Pour it in a sippy cup, or put it in one of those Duralex, perfect-for-little-hands tempered glasses that European kids (and all the children I’ve cared for or nannied) have been drinking out of for eons. That way they’ll be able to see just how green it is.

Wanna test our theory? TJS’ Bee WHealthy is a little less “greeny” than our other green juices thanks to some sweetness from apple, but as we shared in our March 28 Facebook post, kids like Sterling and Maximus Sylver love drinking what their mum and dad do…and their favorite happens to be the very grown up Bee Alkaline.

Sterling, 4 (in the Spidey hat) and Maximus, 2, point to their fave TJS juice: Bee Alkaline.

This is still one of our fave pics in TJS Store Lore: Back in 2015 when this piece first ran, Sterling was 4 (in the Spidey hat) and Maximus was 2, as they pointed to their fave TJS juice (and one of our greenest): Bee Alkaline. For real.

We think it’s the kid-friendly cuke that makes that one so addictive, and its addictiveness is exactly what makes green juice satisfying enough for any man, woman, child…or martian.

Spring Clean Yo’Self With E3Live Shots

April 1, 2015 By Jen Chase

Here on the West coast we’ve already had weeks of warmth (don’t you be hatin’ on us, New England!), but even if you live in a warm-weather clime, doesn’t April feel like spring’s real start? Does to us. And as the weather warms and Mother Nature kicks it into gear, spring is one of those natural annual times when folks think about longer cleanses.

If you’ve read our Friends Who Juice profiles or talked with other Bees who have done TJS cleanses, you might’ve heard that folks feel pretty great when drinking our juice. Honestly, Marcella and Jamie put tons of thought into every recipe to ensure it tastes kickassingly good; but they also deeply considered the order in which each juice should be drunk so you’d feel satisfied (read: not hungry) and live your normal life with as little energy interruption as possible.

Any cleanse length will do your bod a world of good from the break you give it from chewing and digesting all that roughage. But would you believe us if we said TJS is offering yet another way to boost your cleanse’s bennies? Take a looky:

Know how we serve Power Shots? They’re sips of goodness we’ve filled with things like turmeric, ginger, apple cider vinegar, oil of oregano and lemon to help support your immune system. Well now we have one with E3Live, this blue-green algae packed with 65 vitamins, minerals, amino acids and essential fatty acids (EFAs) that help increase stamina; reduce stress; speed up post-workout recovery; and support healthy skin, hair and nails. We mix a tablespoon of this magic stuff with some coconut water for your “one-and-done” shooting pleasure, as Jamie likes to say.

The E3Live shot (we haven’t named it yet…maybe “Bee Alive?”), along with our Flu Shots and Wellness Shots are awesome additions to your everyday WHealthy tool kit, but knock back these puppies during a cleanse and without having to bypass chewed-food roughage, their potency gets jacked because they’re more quickly absorbed into your bloodstream. Plus, they’re served in the most adorb little copper cups—with handles!—that’ll make you feel like you’re at the Kentucky Derby or something. Or not. They’re still cute.

So now that it’s April, if you’re considering a-day-or-more cleanse, consider our E3Live shot. Hell, even if you’re not cleansing, your system can always use a little sprucing, spring or not. And since our spring lasts for a hot Vegas minute, get outside and take advantage of these temps. Soon enough we’ll all be heading to Boston.