Hello, dear, dear readers! If you’re seeing this sentence, that means you are still checking here for posts, and I thank you sincerely for that. I have been AWOL again, and I don’t even have a good excuse. I still think about and plan blog posts often, but have been having difficulty transforming those plans into actual, written entries.

In the past few weeks I’ve done a lot of reading, quite a bit of cooking, gone ice-skating twice, and drank a lot of tea. C & I spent Valentine’s Day in the Emergency room at the hospital (we are fine, just couldn’t get into a clinic!) which was interesting, but certainly not fun. We are not vegan (or even vegetarian) but we have been eating lots of vegan & vegetarian meals lately. Out of sheer laziness, we’ve also been eating out a few times a week. Since it has been raining and/or snowing all week here, I haven’t been buying as many groceries as I usually might. Consequently, we’ve just been using up the contents of our cupboards and fridge.

Various aloes: far left is a gel for topical use. The others are edible and delicious.

What I wanted to write about today is aloe vera. Everyone knows that the gel of this lovely plant is useful for calming skin irritations like sunburn, insect bites, rashes, etc. However, aloe’s benefits go far beyond topical applications. It can be used to calm and soothe the digestive tract, has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties, boosts absorption of vitamins and minerals from food and supplements, and is highly nutritious; aloe contains many vitamins, minerals and amino acids that our bodies need to function optimally.

If you’d like, you can read more about the benefits of aloe vera here. It’s an article from a natural healing website called Uncle Harry’s.

Aloe vera juice is really popular in Korea, which is where I first started drinking it regularly. But, the sort of aloe juice popular in South Korea is more like a soft drink than a health drink–it has a lot of added sugar. I did find a natural version of this beverage in a health food store in Seoul, which was sweetened with pure apple juice instead of the usual sugar or fructose.

Here in Canada I usually drink my aloe juice straight-up: undiluted and unsweetened (as in the bottle to the far right in the photo above). I find it really refreshing, and it really feels like it soothes me from the inside out. I love drinking a few tablespoons in the morning before breakfast.

If you are at all familiar with traditional Korean ‘teas’ (contains no tea!), you might recognize this one. These jars of syrupy ‘teas’ are more of a sweet, dessert-like drink. In Korea you can find many different types. A citron syrup is probably most popular, and it looks exactly like a jar of marmalade to the untrained eye. Other types of sweet Korean tea concentrates are: pomegranate, onion, quince, jujube, ginger, and aloe & honey (pictured above).

Traditionally, this aloe gel & honey syrup would be stirred into hot water to make a sweet, tea-like drink. However, I like it best on top of plain yogurt! Unlike regular aloe gel, I try not to eat this one too often because it is very sweet. It does make a nice treat on occasion, though, and despite its sweetness has a strong aloe flavour that I really enjoy.

Soon, I want to try fresh aloe gel, which I’ve never had. I’ve seen it at a few grocery stores around. The only thing that has kept me from buying it so far is my reluctance to carry home an aloe frond as big as my arm!

Finally, I also love to use aloe gel as a moisturizer and toner for face and body. It never irritates my sensitive skin, and makes my face nice and soft. Plus, it’s only about $5 for the tube in the photo. Frugal facial care, anyone?

So, how about it? Have you tried eating aloe vera, fresh or otherwise? What did you think & how did you use it?

love,
meg xo

Tags: Favourite Ingredients, Korean, Snacks, Tea, Treats

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Breakfast, Plants, Tea, Treats. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.