Growing up my parents had an aloe vera plant. I remember we would cut off a piece if we ever got burned and use the gel inside the leaves to help soothe the burn. Not only is the gel great for use on burns, but there are other benefits to aloe vera that one gets from eating the gel inside the plant.

A quick Google search pulls up benefits such as halting cancer (they don’t show any research that proves this, however), soothes inflammation, and can help heal stomach ulcers. Jon and I heard about the benefits of eating the gel from the documentary, Hungry for Change, who said that eating the gel would cleanse your digestive tract which would, in turn, help your body absorb more nutrients. After seeing aloe leaves for sale at Whole Foods for a few weeks, we decided it was time to try eating aloe vera and decided to make a smoothie using the gel.

I tried to find a good recipe online for smoothies using aloe, kale and ginger, but most contained more fruit (sugar) than any other ingredient, so we decided to come up with our own recipe.

Aloe Vera Paleo Smoothie

Ingredients:
1/2 a bundle of Dino Kale
1/2 of a Cucumber
2 Apples
1/4 lb Ginger
2/3 lb Pineapple
1/8 Aloe Vera Leaf’s Gel
Splash or two of Vanilla Almond Milk

We used a juicer for the kale, cucumber, apple, ginger and pineapple. After we got as much juice as possible out of those ingredients, we switched to the blender and added the aloe gel and almond milk.

The outcome? Surprisingly good! Not too sweet, not too spicy/sour or any weird consistency. Just smoothie deliciousness.

The gel was super sticky and kind of oozy before we put it in the smoothie and we weren’t really too sure how it would blend, but we were surprised that we couldn’t see or taste it. The only thing I will change next time is to not add as much ginger, but that is mainly just because I am not a big fan of ginger.

Have you ever used aloe to cook with? What other recipes should we be trying with this plant?