Bee Healthier food store and juice bar opens on LBI

Bee Healthier, a new grocery store, deli and florist shop, has taken over the former Tramontano Produce building, located at 604 North Central Ave. in Ship Bottom. The store offers healthy food options, including fresh produce hand-picked every other day from an 800-acre farm in New Egypt; fresh bagels delivered daily from Bagels and Beyond; homemade soups and salads; and Boar’s Head meat, which store owner Patricia Barry of Manahawkin said is all natural and mostly gluten free.

Photo by Ryan Morrill
Bee Healthier recently opened inside the former
Tramontano Produce building in Ship Bottom.

What’s more, customers will even find a juice bar at the store, with drinks and smoothies made on the spot.

Having just opened the store in July, Barry said she had always wanted to open a juice bar in the local area after she read The Bruess Cancer Cure three years ago, which suggests cancer patients consume a rigid diet of fruits, vegetables and herbs in liquid form. She decided to try the diet with her husband when he was suffering from stage IV colon cancer at the time. Although he passed away a few years ago, Barry continued the juicing diet after realizing how much better it made her feel.

Photo by Ryan Morrill
Store owner Patricia Barry (far right) said she
has always wanted to run a local juice bar.

“The juicing, on a whole, is just so good for you,” she said. “I weighed 226 pounds when I started this diet. It’s been three years, and I’m down to 166. I had diabetes. And for nine months now, my A1C’s have all been low, so they took me off all my diabetes medications. The doctors were so amazed.

“I don’t call it a diet; it’s my way of life.”

Barry swears by juicing and said she is rarely hungry if she drinks all-natural juice made from whole fruits and vegetables for breakfast and lunch.

“When you drink vegetable and fruit juice, the time it takes your body to digest food is decreased. Therefore, the nutrient absorption in your body is sped up,” she said. “Raw fruits and vegetables offer higher levels of minerals and enzymes that the body needs. Vegetables lose large amounts of minerals and nutrients your body needs when they are cooked.

“Enzymes that are found in fruits and vegetables are needed to help encourage digestion. The nutrients that are left undigested cannot be used by the body. Because our diet consists mainly of foods that are hard for our bodies to digest, we need the enzymes to help break down the food so that our body can digest the nutrients.”

“You can increase your ability to fight off disease with phytochemicals that are found in plants,” she continued. “During a typical day, most people do not eat enough whole fruits and vegetables to get enough phytochemicals in their diet, but with juicing you can easily consume more vegetables. Juicing helps the body detoxify itself and allows the body to absorb nutrients. When your body is loaded with toxins, it is hard for the cells to absorb the necessary nutrients from the food you eat. By drinking juice, you can unconsciously help your body overcome illness quickly. Drinking juice with specific fruit and vegetable combinations can actually help improve symptoms from illness,” she explained.

Bee Healthier offers a combination of different fruit and vegetable juices from fruit-only juices such as the “Love Muffin,” which includes apples, pears, pineapples and cinnamon; to vegetable-only juices, such as the “Juice of Life,” which incorporates beets, potatoes, celery, carrots, radishes and lemon essential oil.

Other juices incorporate both fruits and vegetables. “Queens Candy” is made with spinach, kale, pineapples, blueberries, oranges, carrots, and ginger and citrus essential oils. Customers can also customize their own concoction. Juices cost $7.50 for 16 ounces and $8.50 for 20 ounces.

Shots of juice such as wheatgrass with lemon essential oil are also available, as are smoothies that can be made with homemade almond milk. Agave nectar is used instead of sugar, and coconut water can be substituted for regular water.

Barry is hoping to keep the store open year-round. She has included breakfast and lunch specials to help encourage participants to stop in on a regular basis. The store is open Monday through Friday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and on Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Staff will attend the seventh annual Fall Harvest Festival at Manahawkin Lake Park on Saturday, Oct. 19, between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to help promote their florist business. Paul K. Barry, creative producer, who has nearly 28 years of experience creating flower arrangements for celebrities in New York City and Los Angeles, Calif., will manage floral arrangements for all occasions. Delivery is available for a minimum of $50 plus a $10 delivery fee. For more information, call 609-661-1155.

–Kelley Anne Essinger


This article was published in The SandPaper.