[As published in West Palm Beach Magazine]
Jennifer Wesley of Alchemy Juice Co. & Market is a woman of substance. Fifty percent idealist, fifty percent gutsy. Her indomitable spirit comes from a long line of proactive women and from growing up in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, where she developed a love for the simple things in life and delectable coastal dishes.
But it wasn’t until she moved to the mainland that she saw the miracle of natural healing from the very things she learned to eat in abundance on the island—mangos, pineapples, papayas, apples, bananas, and all that is good to eat straight from the trees.
“My mom was helping a friend wallpaper her bathroom and cut off a large chunk of her finger with broken glass,” Wesley recounts. “She ran to the emergency room hoping the doctor would be able to put the piece back, but he said no and that her finger would be disfigured for life. She then went right to the library and took out a book on juicing and its natural healing. It said that if you put whole, raw foods into your body, your cells will regenerate.”
Wesley’s mom went to a local health store and bought a juicer—this was in the early 80s. She juiced straight spinach and carrots, not even combined with anything else. Two weeks later, her finger was completely healed, with not even a scar. “I saw the power of natural healing of your body with fresh vegetables and fruits—which goes back to what Hippocrates said many years ago: ‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.’”
Fascinated by her mom’s incredible healing and curious about the science behind it, Wesley took a course in nutritionist healing. With volumes of research being done on increased levels of stress and pollution in our environment, she saw an ardent need to study the mineral density of fruits and vegetables in the human body. As time passed, and she began her own family, she was mindful of cooking certain foods that can help the body to repair and regenerate new cells.
Then, in 2014, she started Alchemy Juice Co. and Market, distributing her juices to Subculture Coffee in West Palm Beach and other small markets throughout the Palm Beaches. Alchemy. Interesting name, I thought, and that’s how our conversation started at her shop, located at 527 Clematis Street. [Read more]