By Yvonne Marquez
Jennifer Jeffries, along with her wife and business partner, Ashley Jeffries, recently launched Jen and Juice Juicery in Houston. Jen and Juice Juicery, a name inspired by the catchy hook in Snoop Dogg’s 1994 song “Gin and Juice,” promotes health and wellness with their made-to-order cold-pressed juices filled with fresh vegetables and fruits. From apples and celery to beets and carrots, Jennifer hopes the nutrients from the juices also heal her community. “[We aren’t juicing] for people to lose weight,” Jennifer says. “We’re doing it for people to improve their overall health. It’s more so [about] helping my community, helping my friends, helping my family to overcome the pain that they have, and with their overall health.”
The 33-year-old turned to juicing in 2019 when she started experiencing allergy issues and had to take multiple medications to function throughout the day. Jennifer was introduced to a raw vegan YouTuber and began researching the health benefits of juicing and plant-based diets to help alleviate her allergies. Jennifer loves to cook and started experimenting with different juice flavor combinations in the kitchen. “I just started juicing and when my daughter actually said it was delicious, I knew that it was good because she’s a really, really picky eater,” Jennifer says about her 12-year-old daughter.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Ashley and Jennifer’s commercial cleaning business took a hit. The family quarantined at home and had “nothing to do besides eat and watch movies.” After indulging in chips, ice cream, and popcorn night after night, Jennifer remembers having painful digestive trouble one day and decided to start juicing again. She started sharing videos of herself making juice on social media and, soon after, family and friends were asking how they could buy it. Once she found the perfect name, Jennifer officially started selling her juices in May 2020.
Through juicing, people are able to increase their daily intake of nutrients and vitamins from fruit and vegetables, Jennifer explains. She also says there’s research to suggest juicing helps to boost the immune system, may remove toxins from the body, and can reduce the risk of cancer.
Jennifer began researching the health benefits of juicing when one of her younger sisters was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a disease that attacks the central nervous system, at age 21. MS can cause a variety of symptoms including vision loss, fatigue, numbness, pain, and imbalance, and can potentially lead to paralyzation. Jennifer recalls her sister injecting herself with steroids while on a family vacation in New York to combat vision loss. Afterwards the family went out to eat pizza. Jennifer’s sister mentioned that she really needed to change the way she eats. “She was just saying how, when she eats that way, it’s harder for her medicine to do its job in her body,” Jennifer recalls. “It was just scary to not know if you’re going to have your sight today versus tomorrow.”
This experience motivated Jennifer to research how juicing could help her sister. She learned many of the changes in her sister’s body happened because her body lacked the nutrients it needed. “Juicing at that time was one of the key factors to help naturally heal your body, because your body is able to heal itself if [it has the] proper nutrients,” she explains. “So juicing became very important overall for me and my siblings because we’re very close. I’m the oldest of six. For my family, it became very important for us to put our health first. I figured if I can get all of us on track, and we can help each other, then we can just transfer the knowledge to the rest of the world, our family, and friends.”
Jen and Juice Juicery offers a range of juices: wellness shots, green, citrus, sweet, and roots, including their best-selling drink, “The Unbeatable,” which has beets, carrots, honey crisp apples, and lemon. All juices are made to order and delivered locally the same day. Jen and Juice also ships nationwide. The juices are frozen, then vacuum sealed, packed with ice packs, and shipped out. The company hopes to get a food truck in the near future to have a pop-up shop at parks, events, and schools.
To learn more about Jen and Juice Juicery, visit their website and follow them on Instagram.
