Who Are The Bees In Our Hive?

Who Are The Bees In Our Hive? Urban Hydro Greens.

February 4, 2016 By Jen Chase

In the last 5 years there’s been a huge uptick in people caring about where their food comes from, since the fewer the miles ingredients travel between harvesting and cooking, the more nutritious they are.

Couple that feel-goodyness with a return to how food was harvested in the olden days (i.e., without pesticides) and you’ve got folks craving the purity of organic produce just as much as The Juice Standard does. So in this occasional feature, “Who Are The Bees In Our Hive?” we’re introducing you Bees to the farmers and purveyors who help TJS do the deliciously good work that we do.

Urban Hydro Greens: Go Small or Go Home.

Know those delicate, frilly little greens that started topping salads and sammies a few years ago? Hardly for show, they’re called microgreens and they’re harvested for more than cuteness.

The threadlike shoots that veggies like broccoli, kale and peas produce just after they sprout are massively nutrient dense: A handful of broccoli microgreens actually has the same vitamin and mineral content as a pound and a half of its full-size cousin. (Imagine the chewing you can save!) Plus, their size makes them easier to digest than the full-fledged veg…so people who have trouble tolerating typical, gas-inducing culprits like broccoli or kale do much better with littletons greens.

TJS uses micro greens in our Field Greens Salad and our newest juice, Bee Resilient. And we buy them from right here in Las Vegas from Urban Hydro Greens, founded by farmer Chelsea Dora and her partner, Dennis Vitali, where thanks to their hard work, within 24 hours Urban Hydro Greens’ greens go from soil to TJS salad plate, wrap or bottle. Can’t get much more local than that. Here, Dora shares some ins and outs of this farm just five minutes off the Las Vegas Strip.

US (The Humble Bee): You’ve created a vertical farm, indoors, in the desert…and a very successful one, at that. You must still get weirdo looks.

THEM (Urban Hydro Greens): We have birthday parties. We teach classes. We sell “Garden In A Bag.” Most microgreen farmers you speak to are [growing] for specific restaurants, and we do that too; but we have a different take. I’m in business to teach people. I’d like to “Mary Kay” this, where mothers can start their own farms as a source of income and feed their own communities.

US: You sell microgreens at farmers markets. Is the home cook savvy enough to buy them?

THEM: When I first started going to farmers markets, maybe one in 50 people knew what they were. Now? About one in 15 do.

US: What’s making them more popular?

THEM: Microgreens are more gentle on the digestion…and their live, active enzymes break down easily, so the body is more capable of absorbing them. One handful of microgreens is up to 40 times more potent than the vegetable itself. They’re like live multi vitamins. We like to say, “Don’t just garnish your food; garnish your life!”

US: What’s in the TJS blend you grow for our salads and juice?

THEM: We call it our “Local Superfood Microgreens Blend.” It contains micro broccoli, kale, pea shoots, red cabbage, bok choy, and amaranth, and it does everything from fights cancer and increases immunity; delivers plant protein and amino acids; makes hair, skin and nails shine; and even detoxes the liver and gallbladder. The mircogreens in the blend were carefully chosen to crate the ultimate meal booster…[and] the easiest way to get your daily vitamins and minerals in one serving!

Is TJS Kitchen Manager Shad MacDonald Our ‘King Bee?’

December 3, 2015 By Jen Chase

Beeauty. It’s logically the first thing we seeing beeings notice about a person, but it’s decidedly not skin deep and hardly a way to judge someone. Yet a lesser soul giving TJS’s Shadrach MacDonald a sideways glance might dismiss his intricate facial tattoos (the kind worn by New Zealand’s wholehearted Māori people) as some weirdo thing that makes MacDonald something he’s not. Uneducated? Scary, maybe? A punk? Fill in the blank.

If they did judge, that lesser soul would be the loser…and not in the snarky sense, but in the truest. They’d lose out on getting to know the passion, ingenuity and heart behind MacDonald’s ink; ink he tenderly chose to face the world with to honor the people he’d met as a boy and marveled at. And it’s MacDonald’s heart that The Juice Standard (TJS) co-founder and CEO Jamie Stephenson was drawn to when they met.

“His clear eyes,” says Stephenson. “When I hired him, that’s what I saw. He’s our artist. And when I think of him, and how he works with us, I think of the word ‘synergistic.’ I’ve been working with some of the team for year, and to have the ability to have a group of people working in a 660-square-foot-kitchen—smiling and laughing—he’s just a synergistic, creative force. He’s wonderful.”

Since MacDonald manages TJS’s daily 5 a.m. juice and nut milk pressing, does that synergy go straight into your Singletons? If you beelieve that energy transmutes from one place to another—if his vibes are in our juice—we’re a lucky hive to have MacDonald among our King Bees.

Since We Opened With The Tattoos…

“I got them when I was barely 18,” says MacDonald of his tā moko tattoos. Calling the Māori some of the nicest people you’ll meet (“if you’re walking, and their door is open, they will invite you to sit at their table to eat with them”) MacDonald was a rare youth propelled toward body art to emulate, not retaliate.

With swirls, dots and lines even more pronounced than his eyes, MacDonald “practiced” being in public with facial stencils to gauge how people would react. “They’re what everyone calls a ‘job killer’,” he says lightly.

Undeterred, at Chicago’s Harold Washington College, if professorial inclination was to prejudge, it was squelched by MacDonald’s academic creds: dean’s list; Phi Theta Kappa; a major in addiction studies, and a minor in psychology.

“I’ll be the first to tell you that people judge you every day,” he says of his tattoos. But they’re not a regret. Not even close.

Talents That Surprise Behind Those Eyes

Hello…from one Renaissance man to another.

“Lots of people are surprised I’ve golfed since I was 4 and that [members] of my family are junior-pro or pro-[amateur],” shares MacDonald, who the day of this interview was enjoying quiet time at the home he shares with longtime friend and love, Rowan.

“I was a contractor for a while…a plumber, a carpenter. I’m a certified forklift operator. We owned our own bike-rebuilding company, and we turned it into [rebuilding] motorcycles and cars. It’s just one of those things where I feel guys should be able to do this stuff.”

All that Renaissance man stuff has in fact come in handy at TJS, where co-founders Stephenson and COO Marcella Williams marvel at his tackling everything from screwy plumbing to resealing floors. “Working on stuff—breaking stuff and rebuilding stuff—is pretty much what I’d rather be doing than watching TV or playing video games.”

Ask Not What TJS Can Do For You…

Along with Williams and Stephenson, MacDonald’s the guy you want in the TJS kitchen. He’s a master recipe developer who loves learning from the ladies the health bennies of different fruits and vegetables, and then tinkering with ingredients to create the new bites and sips you Bees have come to love. And from homemade kimchi and coming-soon hummus and tahini sauces to alchemizing the company’s juice pulp—ALL that pulp!—into WHealthy™ pastries and muffins, MacDonald’s previous kitchen manager/sous chef experience garnered in Chicago and California restaurants is put to delicious use, daily.

As you read this newsletter, Shad’s kimchi ferments away in a secret, undisclosed location, preparing itself to be eaten for your dining pleasure.

What Free Time?

MacDonald and Rowan prefer nights at home tinkering in the kitchen (he cooks her breakfast and lunch every day, and by night they cook together…natch) and hikes suggested by fellow avid hikers Williams and Stephenson. Whether he’s working on menus and juice recipes or playing Mr. Fixit around the store, for MacDonald, “It’s nice to have an entire group of people working [together]. It’s nice to have all of their knowledge….I am truly blessed to be a part of the TJS family.”

Who Are The Bees In Our Hive? Meet Annsley Naturals Southwest

September 30, 2015 By Jen Chase

In the last 5 years there’s been a huge uptick in people caring about where their food comes from. The more we learn, the more we realize that the fewer miles ingredients travel between where they were harvested and where they’re cooked, the more nutritious they are.

Coupled with a renewed effort to return to how food was harvested in the olden-golden days (read: without pesticides), people are also seeking out ingredients grown as organically as possible. So we’re rolling out a new feature format called “Who Are The Bees In Our Hive?” with tidbits and tales about the farmers and purveyors who help us do the good work that we do, like maintaining our No. 1 standard: Stay committed to sourcing organic. Period.

This month, we bring you an interview with our honey supplier, local honey distributor Annsley Naturals Southwest, and some insights shared by its affable, passionate and Renaissance woman-of-an-owner Dee Drenta.

Us (The Humble Bee): Many a honey convo turns to whether honey is organic or not…yet the U.S.D.A. doesn’t really have a protocol for designating honey as such (since those little bees can’t exactly be strapped with GPS’ to track there whereabouts). So putting aside the raw/organic issue, let’s turn to why it’s important to buy honey locally.

Them (Dee Drenta): In the case of honey, the term “local” means it comes from the same region in which one resides so as to reap the health benefits of the pollination process of the indigenous plants in that region.

In our case, we live in the Mojave Desert and Annsley Naturals Southwest honey, from our desert, offers a flavorful bouquet, texture and color as a result of the pollination of numerous wildflowers…[which] is also why many use it for airborne allergies.

I proudly support our local beekeepers by purchasing regular amounts of bulk honey and constantly boast about their ecological and sustainable practices. In regard to other consumer items, “local” may mean it comes from one’s own town or city, state, region of the country, or country itself. As a small business, I quickly learned the importance of others supporting my local products. I realized it was my responsibility first to provide consistency in my service and product line to prove to them they could rely on me. As a result, sales increased consistently since I became the company owner in 2008 for which I am most grateful, and I have been able to employ both of my grown sons, teaching them while also learning about entrepreneurship, customer service, and the importance of understanding one’s own products as well as packaging and marketing. This education is priceless!

So…buying local creates and maintains jobs!. My family’s individual and collective incomes allow us to circulate our money within our own community, further supporting other jobs, and so on. And, buying local as in the case of Annsley Naturals Southwest local Desert Honey, supports positive ecological philosophies, health and wellness, and financially benefits many local ancillary businesses, further circulating the prosperity and abundance.

US: Besides allergies, what else can local honey help alleviate?

THEM: There are a myriad of health benefits from using [local] honey….These benefits also include the facts that honey contains vitamins (all of the B-complex, A, C, D, E and K); minerals and trace elements (magnesium, sulfur, phosphorus, iron, calcium, potassium, iodine, sodium, copper and manganese); and proteins, amino acids, carbs, and organic acids. The live enzyme content of honey is one of the highest of all foods.

US: Since we are The Juice Standard, what’s been a guiding gold “standard” for Annsley?

THEM: I always make it a point to promote family-owned health food stores. Being a small, family-owned business, [and] with Annsley Naturals Southwest specializing in local honey, I understand and appreciate what the independently owned stores regularly provide their customers. They recognize the importance of outstanding customer service and repeat business by building a rapport with their customers based on trust, education and consistency. They take the time to learn about each and every product they carry so that their customers reap the benefits of that knowledge. (Let’s face it, they wouldn’t bring in products that won’t hold their own by selling well!)

I am also very pleased to share how supportive of local vendors some of the more corporate stores are: Whole Foods, Sprouts, Glazier’s and Smith’s. Most often, our products are not only in the honey section, but are also cross-marketed in actual LOCAL sections in these stores. I believe this is a most positive and supportive gesture on their part to strengthen our community in many ways.

US: Last one. What’s one way honey has personally improved your life?

Here’s a little secret: I keep a jar of my honey in the refrigerator to purposely crystallize it so I can use it as the most divine sugar scrub on my face and body!