Jamie Stephenson co-founder The Juice Standard

Sunset at The SnowMansion.

For two weeks, I spent my vacation time at The SnowMansion, north of Taos, New Mexico, for a permaculture design course. Permaculture—derived from the two words “permanent” and “agriculture”—is a philosophy based on the concept of producing an abundance of food in a manner that won’t run out while at the same time, creating little or no waste. It’s derived from the template of nature: she produces in abundance, and rarely produces waste…for the benefit of us all.

Throughout the course I asked myself, “How can The Juice Standard provide abundance in the Las Vegas community while minimizing waste?” It’s so simple: We can maintain THE highest standards in the industry (i.e., “Only ORGANIC food is served here”). We can (and do) operate with the utmost integrity—the people who work with us want to be here, and they want to learn and grow to be stewards of quality in service and in personal growth. And we can, do and will continue to steward the health of our citizens by serving THE highest-quality medicinal food.

The right thing and the hard thing are often the SAME thing. We take our bottles back, sanitize, and re-use them, just like restaurants do. YOU help us to do this, and we thank you for your help.

Below is a snippet of my two-week journey to a land of extremes…Taos, New Mexico.

The full moon on the summer solstice… June 21, 2016.

This is an example of a “bee garden.” Bees tend to gravitate to blue and purple flowers. Their eyes have a type of color spectrum that draws them to the color. Through their eyes, they see patterns on those flowers that point to where the nectar is. Then, they stick out their long bee tongues and drink the flowers’ nectar.

Honey bees return with tummies full of nectar that will be dried by the beating of thousands of bee wings. This turns raw flower nectar into raw honey.

Bees are statically charged thanks to the rapid beating of their wings. When she mounts her flowers, her positively charged body attracts pollen instantly. She collects it into pouches seen here, and hands it off to her sisters as protein-rich “bee bread.”

Raw goats milk, along with a bit of culture and rennet, covered and left for 18-24 hours, then strained through cloth and a colander, yields the most gorgeous raw cheese! Serve cheese with homemade berry or chili sauce. Fresh tomatoes from the garden are served with Brigid’s fresh raw honey, backyard lavender, and her famously simple raw goat cheese. Backyard to patio table: hyper local, uber fresh and nourishing for the body and soul!

Backlit honey bee.

Harvested lavender can be consumed fresh or dried. Lavender for tea, cheese and aesthetic beauty. Chamomile picked and dried for afternoon tea.

Check out Paul Stamens TED Talk, “Nine Ways Mushrooms will Save the World.” Did you know that mushrooms have taken over Chernobyl? The Albert Einstein School of Medicine finds that mushrooms, “have the capacity to use radioactivity as an energy source for making food and spurring their growth.” (Nuclear waste-metabolizing FUNGUS. Is that not insane!? Nature….)

Scot and Rachel drill 20-25 holes into these freshly cut Aspen logs. Fresh lumber that hasn’t been treated is key as the wood itself is the food source for the mushrooms.

We opted for the edible Blue Oyster variety.

This is an example of what these Aspen logs will look like: japantwo.com

Cob is an extraordinary building material made of four simple ingredients: clay soil, sand, straw, and water. It is foot-mixed and feels a lot like cold dog poo between the toes. Since it’s NOT cold dog poo, however, it feels WONDERFUL! This elicits a reversal in aging while simultaneously softening the feet. (BONUS!) Cob structures act as thermal mass, heating you in the winter and cooling you in the summer.

I made new friends! Pictured left to right: Nile, Miles, Emery, Paloma, Rachel, Kelly, Judy, Kim, Alex, Chris, Cecil, Scot, Teresa, Rebecca, Stephanie and Jamie.