1 Euro = 3.60 Reais right now. If I was korean I would totally sell to @Kris_Asard too!
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I wonder if there are different types? Granted, my sense of smell is not great, but I don’t notice an odor. I do find the taste to be terrible, though, so it might just be my nose.
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Putting just about any benign cream on a burn will have a cooling effect. I doubt the nurses did any double-blind testing to actually see if it promoted healing. There’s a reason why the plural of of anecdote is not data.
And nurses are just people, and are just as susceptible to quackery as anyone else, despite their medical training. Just look at the whole Therapeutic Touch quackery, where a large number of nurses deluded themselves into thinking they could.emit magical healing rays from their hands. Really.
And while over 44,000 health care provided fell for this, it was utterly debunked by a nine year old girl. She required the use of a specialized piece of equipment, known as “a piece of cardboard”.
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California now produces some very good olive oils. If you’re Stateside, try one of 'em out. Their Arbequina is solid.
ETA: D’oh! @anon62122146 is already on it. Damn me for skimming the thread.
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And there’s no egg in an egg cream!
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The FDA is rather notably corrupt, according to scientists who work there. They’ll say whatever they are instructed to say, such as, for instance, in the matter of antibiotics in the beef industry, or fluoroquinolone antibiotics, or Sipuleucel-T.
Here’s some papers on Aloe Vera efficacy, but personally I believe in personal experimentation… also I dearly love the tasty aloe drinks referred to upthread so I can never be an impartial judge of the inherent goodness of Aloe!
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-3156.1996.d01-91.x/pdf
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of oral aloe vera gel for active ulcerative colitis - PubMed
Aloe Vera Gel Research Review | Natural Medicine Journal
Yes. At least three that I’ve encountered. (There are also literally hundreds of other species of Aloe besides Aloe Vera.)
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Nor in an Orange Julius (which is a travesty since they outlawed it in the late 80’s)!
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That last link is a 20 year old PDF. So it’s been studied for at least 20 years, and STILL there’s no definitive evidence of its medicinal worth?
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Should I feel justified that I’ve always shunned store brands considering them inferior or should I assume brand-name products are probably just as deficient? I’ll go with the former since I’d rather feel righteous than taken advantage of.
Orange Julius is still in business, and Wikipedia says that the drink contains powdered eggwhite, so… huh?
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Nooooo. They really used to whip a raw egg in it if you paid extra!
Edit: And it was good.
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According to the Internets, there’s been very little scientific study, and many of the studies that do exist were incredibly bad; one used a placebo that turned out to have an 85% cure rate, for example (whoops, not a placebo after all!) and another used a compound to carry the aloe topically (and the same compound, without aloe, for the placebo) that actually made the condition being studied worse… what it boils down to is that when you barely study something there aren’t going to be a whole lot of study results to cite as evidence.
On the other claw, if it was actively harmful I’m pretty sure historians would know about it after several thousand years of extensive therapeutic use. So at least there’s that!
Edit: and two days ago I repeatedly treated a 1st degree burn from hot steel with a frost-killed leaf of aloe, and it was soothingly refreshing. Today, I am still alive.
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It has been years and years since I’ve had one but I loved Orange Julius back from the heyday of indoor malls.
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From the Mayo Clinic…
Aloe may lower blood sugar levels. Caution is advised in people with diabetes or hypoglycemia, and in those taking drugs, herbs, or supplements that affect blood sugar. Blood glucose levels may need to be monitored by a qualified healthcare professional, including a pharmacist, and medication adjustments may be necessary.
Aloe may increase the risk of bleeding. Caution is advised in people with bleeding disorders or taking drugs that may increase the risk of bleeding. Dosing adjustments may be necessary.
Use cautiously in people with heart disease or electrolyte abnormalities. Use cautiously when taken by mouth or used as a laxative.
Use cautiously in people taking agents for the heart, agents for the stomach or intestines, agents that increase potassium excretion, cardiac glycosides, oral corticosteroids, oral hydrocortisone, sevoflurane, thyroid hormones, topical hydrocortisone, or zidovudine (AZT).
Avoid in people with abdominal pain that is sudden and severe, appendicitis, bowel obstruction, fecal impaction, kidney disease, liver disease, or in people taking agents toxic to the liver. Avoid use as an injection, during postoperative incision healing, during pregnancy or lactation, or for prolonged periods as a laxative.
Avoid with known allergy or sensitivity to Aloe vera, its parts, or plants of the Liliaceae family, such as garlic, onions, and tulips.
Aloe may also cause abdominal cramping, allergic skin reaction, constipation, dehydration, dependency if used as a laxative, delayed wound healing, diarrhea, electrolyte imbalance, excess bleeding, hardening of the skin, Henoch-Schönlein purpura (purple spots on the skin), hepatitis, hives, increased risk of colorectal cancer, increased risk of irregular heartbeat, kidney failure, liver toxicity, low potassium in the blood, muscle weakness, redness of the skin and eyelids, skin dryness, skin inflammation from sun exposure, soreness, splitting of the skin, stinging, stomach discomfort, thyroid dysfunction, urinary stone, uterine contractions, and widespread inflammation of the skin.
Note: As a part of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over-the-counter (OTC) drug product review, a final rule was issued suggesting that the stimulant laxative ingredient of aloe (including aloe extract and aloe flower extract) in OTC products generally lack safety and effectiveness or may be misbranded.
Although topical application is unlikely to be harmful during pregnancy or lactation, internal use is not suggested, due to theoretical stimulation of uterine contractions. It is not known if components of aloe may be excreted with breast milk. Consumption of the dried juice from aloe leaves is contraindicated during lactation.
So… there’s that.
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That’s all regarding internal use. Pretty sure @Medievalist was talking about topical applications.
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And marshmallows don’t contain marshmallow.
Next thing you know they’ll be replacing the rocks in Pop Rocks with fake rocks…
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Grammatically true - the literal plural of anecdote is anecdotes, not data - but false when it comes to the meaning of data. Data is just information. A database, for instance, contains data which may be true or false. Anecdotes are data. They just aren’t reliable data.
I’m all for you correctly pointing out the fact that anecdotes are not reliable data, but it’s long past time that skeptics, including myself, stopped using the pithy but misleading “the plural of of anecdote is not data” aphorism.
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Or my camel’s hair brushes won’t be made with real camel hair… 
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suddenly i’m questioning if my baby back ribs even contain any real baby…
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