Tag: <span>ingredient spotlight</span>

So…almonds. Let’s think about what we know about almonds (or what we think we think we know about them):

Almonds are brown. They’re oval. They’re actually a little sweet (unless you hit a nasty-bad bitter one). They’re high in calcium and low in sat-fat. And when you soak and blitz ’em up with water, spices and your favorite sweetener, you make a delicious nutmil….

Check it: Did you know that technically speaking—botanically speaking—almonds aren’t nuts? Neither did we, and it stopped us in our cold-pressed juicing, nutmilk-loving tracks. And while we here at The Juice Standard probably won’t stop calling our fave silky-sweet plant-based drink a nutmilk, in the name of vegucation, we wanted in on the skinny so we looked some stuff up.

According to Amy Stewart’s The Drunken Botanist, The Plants That Create The World’s Drinks (2013, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill), “From a botanical perspective, a nut is a fruit with a dry, hard shell. An almond is a drupe, or a stone fruit whose pit surrounds a fleshy seed,” kinda like peaches. But, Stewart continues, “Unlike peaches, apricots, and other drupes, the almond’s ‘fruit’ is nothing more than an unappetizing leathery outer membrane.”

Huh.

So the reality is that all nuts are actually dried fruits that don’t open at maturity to release their seeds. And almonds, in particular, are closely related to peaches and apricots, and likely share an Asian heritage with them (trees were grown in China some 12,000 years ago before heading to Greece by about the 5th century BC).

Thankfully, whether almonds are a fruit, a nut or a seed, all this backstory does nothing to change our knowledge about how healthy these babies are for us…especially when we eat ones that are organic.

So if you see almonds on The Juice Standard’s ingredients list (or any ingredients list), know that they’re incredibly good for you, for a kajillion reasons. And if you happen to be at a trivia night where you’re faced with the Is-An-Almond-A-Nut-Or-Not question…you’re welcome.

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Beeing National Honey Month and all, here’s to what’s right and true about an ingredient that should be your fave, too.

The Juice Standard’s honeybee love goes so much deeper than our branding and comb-shaped logos that we’ve included it in our philosophee. Bees are a pivotal part of the company’s reason for beeing. That’s why over on The Facebook we’ve been celebrating honey since September’s start as part of our 30 Days of Sweetness for National Honey Month. And beecuase we love it, we want you to, too.

Honey of the raw and local variety is a major super food. Anti-microbial, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial, it’s excellent for external uses like face scrubs and skin irritation salves, and internally, it’s a tasty, trusty addition to tea. But health-wise—as something that’s real and deep-in-your-bones good for your body—this nectar is especially helpful in one distinct area:

Allergy relief.

The idea is that honey-producing bees consume the same pollen that flies through the air during allergy season (which for some desert dwellers is May and, Oh, now). And when bees produce their honey, they do so by processing the very pollen we can be allergic to. A major contributor to the icky eyes and sneezes of Las Vegans are the dreaded Fruitless Mulberry and European Olive trees…but the theory is that the more we’re exposed to their allergy-causing pollen, the more we can build a tolerance to those nasty-bad irritants.

Got raw honey at home? Down it. Have access to local bee pollen? Many of us take a teaspoon a day for good measure. Whatever you do, see if you can incorporate this blessed stuff into your beeing. Course we think that drinking it is the cat’s meow, but your bod’ll be happy no matter how you enjoy it.

Since we think honey’s better than Benadryl, we’re here to help you up your daily dose. These TJS recipes contain the kind of sticky stuff we hope you’ll be stuck on.

BEE HAPPY is rich with raw-cacao goodness and at least once a week is called “adult chocolate milk” by someone who thinks they invented the compliment. (Nut milk made with filtered water, coconut water, raw cashew, raw brazil nut, raw walnut, raw local honey, raw cacao, vanilla bean, and pink Himalayan salt.)

BEE TRUE TO YOU is, simply put, an allergen alleviator of the highest order. (Cold-pressed juice with cucumber, lemon, ginger, turmeric, honey, cayenne.)

BEE LEGENDARY brims with exotically warm spices, and is on its way to being known as TJS’ perfect fall flavor you’re lucky enough to by year ‘round. (Nut milk made with filtered water, raw cashew, raw brazil nut, raw walnut, turmeric, ginger, vanilla bean, cardamom, nutmeg, clove, raw local honey, pink Himalayan salt, and cracked black pepper.)

BEE I’M POSSIBLE is creamily, dreamily kissed with love, light, lemon, and lavender, of all things…and BOY does it work! (Nut milk made with raw cashew, vanilla bean, lemon, lavender, raw local honey, and alkaline water.)

Ingredient Spotlight: Almonds

Honey’s In Da House