I don't know about eating it, but it seems like a pretty good aftershave.

Might want to keep withing trotting distance of a loo - aloe's a pretty good laxative.

Might want to keep withing trotting distance of a loo - aloe's a pretty good laxative.

...while ice cream with blueberries makes you click the same button twice.

I've used the fresh skins as a wound bandage, works well.

Might want to keep withing trotting distance of a loo - aloe's a pretty good laxative.

Ha! I scoff at your claims of

I thought aloe came from toilet paper.

What on earth would possess you to eat something that smells so foul?

What on earth would possess you to eat something that smells so foul?

Raw aloe gel doesn't actually smell or taste like much of anything. It's near-tasteless goop. But it's supposed to be very good for you.

Jon, you forgot the vodka in your sorbet. it's what adds that je ne sais quois. (actually it makes it freeze smoother, too)

Many of the more than 450 Aloe species are used in traditional medicine pretty much wherever they are found (southern Africa, eastern Africa, through the Horn into the Yemen, also Madagascar). Their use seems most frequent as purgatives and emetics. The liquefied pulp and/or juice of the leaves from Aloe vera (aka Aloe barbadensis) has become a common addition to various tonics offered in natural food stores, herbal apothecaries, etc. The amount of pulp/juice will determine the degree of laxative effect.

There are actually even more Aloe species than that, if one includes those species indigenous to Turkmenistan and other extremely remote areas in Central Asia. The Turkmeni strains also reputedly have neurochemical properties which make them the favorites of local Buddhist mystics trying to enter a trance state. Because of the laxative qualities of Aloe, however, many such mystics in recent years have begun to use the much more addictive poppies grown in neighboring Afghanistan, thereby contributing to the further degradation of local culture under neocolonial influences.

If anyone wants to play Dictionary, count me in.

I had a bottled aloe drink from an Asian grocery store once. I was consumed by curiosity. It was sweet, basically flavorless, and full of tiny little floating blobs of goo.

Also, watermelon and raisins, seriously?

what jerry said.

I'm in Korea teaching English and have learned aloe is popular in drink and candy form. The drink, as Quicksand noted, is sweet and pulpy (I'd add it's medicine-y in smell and taste, like an antiseptic commercially produced for the taste buds). The candy is indistinguishable from plain throat lozenges.

I drink aloe every morning, very good for the insides, it tastes like air. Applied to a burn soon enough, it will turn a bad burn into nothing much.

I've never eaten it, but I have drunk the juice before, when I had a particularly painful bout of irritable bowel syndrome. It helped soothe the pain somehow. Tasted odd, though - sweet but also vaguely medicinal.

Far better for you when applied externally.

How about making a sherbet out of those little tomatoes? (without vodka, which sounds more suitable for the watermelon version)

Learn something new every day. I had no idea it was edible.

Today, there was an excellent programme on my local NPR about food production in Cuba...a must listen!

"Transforming Cuba’s Agriculture"
Nearly 80 percent of food grown in Cuba is organic. Cuba has more urban farmers than anywhere on Earth. Miguel Altieri, Professor of Agroecology at the University of California-Berkeley will tell us how they did it.

http://www.wbez.org/Program_WV.aspx