Questions for Amanda Chantal Bacon From a Former Moon Juice Skeptic

As the founder of Moon Juice and the author of The Moon Juice Cookbook , she is the embodiment of the firm’s New Agey juices, herbal tonics, powders, and snacks, and reporters love to lampoon her complicated, occult-sounding potions. When Bacon began trading her first Moon Juice shop in 2011 in Venice, California, it wasn’t just another L.A. juice bar shilling green juice and ginger shots.

Moon Juice was an entire line of powdered herbs with futuristic names like Cordyceps, Sex Dust, and Tocotrienols. Now her line of powders and dusts is distributed nationwide by the likes of Urban Outfitters and Amazon, Moon Juice is rapidly expanding, and she’s got a second cookbook on the way. There are countless critical articles that regard the 33-year-old with serious side eye, flippantly dismissive of her nouveau riche hippie vibe.

After spending some time with Bacon’s book, I’ve replaced my coffee and scallion cream cheese bagel breakfasts with witchy almond milk smoothies loaded with just about everything from my spice cabinet and about half of the Moon Juice pantry. Sure, you could chalk it up to the placebo effect, but it’s 2017, women’s health is under political threat, and women are still paid 80 percent of what men make.

With barely a moment to spare in her packed schedule, Bacon spoke with me over the phone from the Moon Juice offices in Los Angeles. It’s coming up with recipes that people can use for social media that include the dust.

Was there a moment where you came up with the idea for dusts? I kicked off with herbs that I like and looked for herbs for things that I wanted help with. Then it was like, “Shit, I thought that was ho shou wu but actually that was a reishi. I’ve put too much in, and now I’ve totally screwed up my coffee and I’m at a cafe and everything is spilling.” I wasn’t really keeping track; I was just doing it for myself.

I did consult with an herbalist, and different suppliers and consultants have come in along the way. We’ve got an in-house herbalist, and she’s got teachers, and we consult with doctors and so it’s really becoming a robust thing. “I have explored the hell out of Sufism.” But we test for everything.

We’re pretty light on claims. (The FDA is pretty insane.) But we do just make sure that if you’re gonna take a teaspoon of that dust. We’re telling you it’s good for your spirit, we’ve actually included the requirements of what is going to move the needle for you and what is actually going to change your chemistry. It’s clear to me that a lot of critics want to get a chance to tear you down.

One such interview was a tense back-and-forth with an NPR reporter in a supply closet at the Moon Juice shop since there was no free office to duck into. There’s so much in a day that when you are that busy and spread so thin, I don’t want to spend my time worrying or getting into it with people. There’s so much to do, and when I do find that moment where my brain can wander, it doesn’t go to why I trigger all these people.

You have to keep doing what you’re doing in the face of a lot of critique—and a lot of critique that’s not just a whisper or a murmur or a weird vibe you got from someone on your team, but like thousands of people who want to be in your face. Being able to continue on focusing on the point with that going on—in a weird way, it’s been grounding and reminds me even more that I want to be doing this.