Benefits of Aloe Vera

Healing Power of Aloe Vera

Aloe Juice isn’t new to the holistic health community. Many consider aloe juice and gel as topical first aid must-haves.

Keeping an aloe plant around your house provides easy access to the gel in it’s most natural form when needed. Just break open a leaf and apply the clear gel within, to burns, sunburns or rashes for soothing relief.

In addition to topical applications for aloe, the juice of this healing plant is also taken internally as a digestive aid and in cases of stomach ulcers because it has a soothing effect internally as well.

I personally drink aloe juice every day. I appreciate it’s gentle regulatory effect on my colon (it’s important to get pure aloe if you drink it internally because too much of the laxative left in the juice can make it harsh on the system). Benefits I notice from regular aloe consumption include better elimination, less joint pain, less of a tendency toward phlegm in my throat, and less stomach upset from foods or stress.

Although aloe has been considered a definite healing effect in a wide range of health challenges, from cancer to diabetes to immune-system deficiencies, the only medically recognized property is that of a laxative.

How is Aloe Juice and Aloe Gel Made?

Using a process called hand filleting the gel is removed from the leaf, and then the leaf is discarded. Polysaccharides as well as mucopolysaccharide, important properties in the plant lay just beneath the outer surface of the leaf or rind. They can have a bitter taste and are also quite indigestible. They are difficult to refine so many manufacturers prefer to only harves the gel that is within the inner part of the leaf versus harvesting the whole leaf.

Some feel that Aloe Vera products that comes from the “whole leaf” is superior to the inner gel. Where some feel only organic aloe vera, pure inner gel has the most benefit. I has been established that the gel that comes from the inner portion of the plant had the most beneficial properties for healing and this portion of the plant has less of the least beneficial properties. Those who offer products which incorporate the inner gel alone convey their product come as close to being straight from the plant as the process of preservation allows.

Now the producers of products derived from whole leaf Aloe Vera maintain they offer products which use all the leaf because their philosophy is whole leaf products are closer to the natural abundant properties found in the Aloe Vera plant. However, it is worth mentioning that the components which are most apt to destroy the polysaccharides- cellulose and bacteria are actually present just under and on the leaves of Aloe Vera.

So you have to consider how those who manufacture whole leaf aloe process the plant. Some use a carbon filtration process or other unique processes to remove the impurities in whole leaf as it is liquidized, with the intent of filtering out impurities, but many feel this process also removes many of the beneficial elements.

Is All Aloe Vera the Same?

Believe it or not, there are over 250 recognized species of aloe but out of those, there are really only two that are popular for processing. The most familiar to you would probably be Aloe barbadensis Miller, often shortened to just Aloe barbadensis. The other type of aloe that is utilized a lot is Aloe aborescens.