Aloeride® aloe vera

Aloe vera is a food which, as you know is fruit, vegetables, nuts, spices, herbs, fungi, seeds, legumes, meat, marine food and suchlike. Healthy food is the bedrock of healthy growth and development, wellbeing and longevity.

Aloe vera is a herb of the lily family yet it looks like a cactus. The plant needs lots of sunshine to develop fully, that is why it's commercially grown mostly below the equator e.g. South Africa, Australia, India, China, Mexico, South America, Curaçao but some is grown in Spain. The best aloe vera crop is achieved if one grows the potentially most nutrient dense species in highly fertile soils, giving it pure water and using organic farming methods. Such Best Farming Practices is of course how we grow our aloe vera crops, it is best for the environment and it is best for you.

The native environment of this lily of the desert (as aloe vera is known) is very harsh. The greatest challenge to its survival is the high heat and prolonged dryness of below equator climates. That's why an aloe vera plant contains 99.5% water, beyond enabling nutrients to move within the plant, the high water content is savings for many a dry day. For who knows when the next rainfall happens.

Whereas aloe vera's water content is essential for drought survival, it is not where aloe vera's magic is. That resides in the remaining 0.5% of the plant (known as aloe vera working solids) which can contain a spectrum of 300 different types of nutrients, each of which has a unique function (reference: Handbook of Phytochemical Constituents of Generally Regarded as Safe Herbs and other Economic Plants, James A. Duke, 2001). Whether or not an aloe vera product contains these nutrients depends on a) the species one grows, b) how this is grown and then c) how one processes the aloe vera.

There are around 350 different aloe vera species but not all of them are nutrient dense. Aloe Vera Barbadensis Miller is the most molecule dense species, hence the most nutritious and is the only species used in Aloeride® aloe vera.

Some people want to know where we grow our aloe vera. When I tell you it is grown in London we all have a good laugh ;-) The honest truth is that it is a very misleading issue. Say it's grown in South Africa, that might give South Africans a feel good factor and national pride. What if it was in the USA or in Australia? What exactly would be different if it was grown in South Africa, in USA or in AUS, quite beside the fact that processing methods vastly influence the outcome. The criteria for a product being perceived as good or bad just becomes political or whatever else but never focusses on what should be focussed on. Sure enough, if I had said in China people would get worried (including me). At the end of the day the most important thing is how an aloe vera product scores on industry-standard laboratory tests.