Aloe Vera Gel: Food of the Gods

By John Ortiz, edited by Jonathan Atleson

Dec 27, 2024

Janice

Back in the early 2000s I was living in Florida and working as an energy healer. One day a client of mine, Janice, claimed she had cured herself of Stage Four cancer. I was intrigued, impressed even. I asked her how she did it.

She said she “did a lot of aloe vera gel.” I smiled politely and asked what else she did. She said…nothing, that had been the only change she made in her routine.

I thought to myself, That must be some magical gel! Where can I get me some of that? Well, it turns out this aloe came from a guy named Rodney. And it wasn’t your garden-variety health food store aloe, either.

Aloe vera gel has been used to help fight cancer.

Rodney

Let me introduce you to Rodney Stockton. Here’s the story that I remember from what Janice and Rodney told me:

Rodney was originally a chemist in the military. After World War II, he heads west to Arizona. Unaccustomed to the desert sun, he quickly gets a severe sunburn.

So Rodney goes to see a Native American healer, as one does when in Arizona. This healer introduces him to aloe vera gel, which makes quick work of his burns. But Rodney the chemist wants to know more. What other things could it do? What is the best variety?

Aloe vera gel is well-known for treating burns and sunburn.

Now, in the U.S. alone there are 600 different species of aloe. Of all these, Rodney wanted to find the most efficacious one…the best of the best. And find it he does…one particular species called barbadensis-miller.

So he starts a company to produce this aloe, leveraging his military connections to get his funding. Remember, this is the time after World War II, during the Cold War. One of the biggest concerns of the military was what to do if there’s a nuclear war…how do you treat radiation burns?

No stranger to aloe’s burn-healing qualities, Rodney manages to convince the military to sign a contract to supply them with the world’s best aloe vera gel. One small problem: the military doesn’t just want a little bit; they want a lot…as in, a steady supply of 55 gallon drums! Their thinking was, in case of nuclear war, bombing victims would wash themselves down multiple times a day with buckets of aloe gel to heal their radiation burns.

So now Rodney has to figure out how to mass produce aloe vera gel.

And then there’s another problem: his customer is not interested in the whole leaf. It turns out the outer portion of the leaf, actually the sap just under the green outer rind, contains a compound called aloin that is a bit of a laxative. They are only interested in the gel from inside the leaf. No preservatives, nothing added, just the straight dope…pure gel fillet.

Avoid whole leaf preparations if you are concerned about a possible laxative effect due to the aloin in the sap.

This goes on for years and years. The contract is pure gold, you see, because the military insisted on it being preservative-free. So after a while, the gel inevitably goes bad. And when that happens, they just order more 55 gallon drums.

So Rodney is selling aloe gel like hotcakes, until one day somebody in the military decides that nuclear war is not so likely after all. Or at least if it happens, radiation burns will be the least of our problems.

What does Rodney do with his industrial-strength aloe operation? He needs to find a new market. This new market turns out to be terminal cancer patients, for whom he develops a protocol.

Going to See the Wizard

Now we come back around to my story about Janice. She tells me I should meet this Rodney Stockton guy if I wanted to learn about aloe. And I said, “Well, he sounds really interesting!” So I was able to arrange a meeting.

When I got there, I found this 91 year old man running around. I mean, he was hyperactive. He had way more energy than I did! Who was this guy? It was amazing!

So I got Rodney to tell me his story about how he discovered aloe and found the best variety, and then how he developed his protocol for cancer patients. And I asked him what percentage of patients get better on his protocol. He said 50 percent. I couldn’t believe it. That seemed impossible. If I hadn’t had the walking proof of Janice, I don’t think I would have believed him.

Rodney Stockton had amazing health and vitality until his accidental death at 96. He drunk a lot of aloe vera gel!
A quart a day was his terminal cancer protocol, but also likely a good plan if you are doing an “aloe fast” like Ghandi.

And what was this aloe protocol? Well, he would have people drink 32 ounces a day…that’s a whole quart! I thought, Holy cow, that's a lot of aloe.

I said, “So you’re basically having them ‘pull a Gandhi’.” “What do you mean ‘pull a Gandhi’?” So I tell him about when Mahatma Gandhi was working for peace between the Muslims and Hindus in India, post-independence, he fasted on aloe vera gel. And I'm sure he was probably drinking a quart a day, right?

For your listening pleasure, two prog rock anthems about Rodney Stockton created by the Suno app from a ChatGPT poetic rendition (yes the lyrics are the same):

Food of the Gods:

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-4:00

Drink Deep the Gel:

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0:00

-4:00

First Experiments

So I’m almost sold on this aloe thing, but first I need to do an experiment of my own. I buy a five-gallon bucket containing 4 gallons of frozen gel. I have to thaw it out, put it into smaller bottles, and then re-freeze it, because without preservatives, the shelf life is limited. Now I have both my refrigerator and my freezer chock full of aloe vera gel.

Working with my clients, friends, and family, we found ourselves chasing every kind of gut issue you could think of, from diarrhea to constipation to Irritable Bowel Syndrome. We were improving all of these conditions. Back then, we didn't know about the microbiome. We didn't know why the aloe worked.

We just called it the Food of the Gods. Unbeknownst to us, it turns out a number of different civilizations referred to aloe that way.

We were consuming vast quantities of the stuff. Well, maybe not military-grade quantities, but still it wasn’t cheap. So I went back to Rodney and I asked him, suppose you're not a terminal cancer case…what's the minimum daily dose one should take? He said, well, if your goal is general wellness, we recommend eight ounces a day, or one quarter of the cancer (or Gandhi) protocol.

Part of me is a minimalist, and the minimalist (or cheapskate) in me says, eight ounces…I wonder if you could do it with less if you figured out how to consume it in the most efficient way? So I immediately cut it in half to four ounces a day, but taken in divided doses of two ounces first thing in the morning and two ounces at night before bed on an empty stomach.

Rodney suggested 8oz/day for wellness, but John suggests 2oz first thing in the morning and 2oz before bed to get the most bang for your buck.

So we tried this new protocol for everyday wellness, and people were chasing all their gut issues, and it was just kind of a miraculous time. We were drinking it and having fun, didn't know how or why it worked, but we were just getting tremendous results.

Well, after a few years of that, aloe starts showing up everywhere. Every health food store has it, grocery stores have it, you can get it online…everybody’s got it, right? So I started thinking, well, you know, this fancy aloe costs a lot and it ties up my freezer and refrigerator and maybe these other products, you know, they usually use a preservative, usually citric acid or something like that. I said, But I'm not applying it on my skin for burns, so a little citric acid won't hurt.

Gary

So I reluctantly switch over to the abundant commercial aloe. Seventeen years go by, and aloe is the last thing on my mind. Then one day, my client and good friend Gary came in complaining of stubborn IBS; some days it’s better, some days worse, but it never goes away completely. I told him to just pick up some aloe vera gel at the health food store. “Just make sure it doesn’t have any preservatives in it.”

“Also,” I added, “try not to get one that contains a thickening agent.” A lot of aloe vera gel wasn’t pure or full strength. They would filter out the fibrous elements making a watery substance and then add a thickener to turn it back into the gel that people were expecting.

“Oh, and one more thing, don’t get a whole-leaf preparation because the outer portion of the leaf contains aloin, which is a laxative.” This issue with whole leaf versus just the gel is what makes some of the aloe information online of questionable validity. You see, they don’t always control for the aloin, and so conclude that aloe is a laxative. So you hear that it is great for constipation but otherwise not advisable.

Aloe1 or barbadensis-miller-stockton aloe vera gel has no preservatives (it comes frozen), has no thickener or dilution (it is the gel just like you find in the leaf), and avoids the aloin in the sap (huge mature leaves allow a fillet to extract plenty of pure gel).

Suffice it to say, all these caveats and warnings weren’t making Gary very happy. Instead of a solution, I was just giving him more problems to solve. So Gary threw down the gauntlet, “What is the absolute BEST aloe gel on the market?”

A long-dimmed lightbulb came back to life in my brain. I couldn’t believe he asked that question, because a long time ago there was this company called Aloe#1. I was sure it no longer existed, and Rodney had long since made his ‘transition’. (Unless, of course, he managed to become immortal on aloe.) But there was no way that his aloe product was still available on the market.

And then Gary surprised me. “Let's look it up!” So we looked it up online and found out that a chiropractor by the name of Michael Haley had taken over Rodney’s aloe business and had some for sale!

“I think I want to order some,” Gary said. And I said, “Well, shoot, if you're going to order some, I guess I'll order some too.”

So we start looking at the product. The cheapest option was to buy one 5 gallon tub (4 gallons of aloe). But I knew that it would be too labor intensive to thaw and split up. So we settled on the half gallon jugs (58oz. of aloe). Gary says, “Okay, how many are you going to order?”

They had a deal where if you order two, you got a certain price, and if you ordered four, you got a better price. And if you ordered eight, you got the best price. I said, “Oh, we have to order eight, because it’s like a fine wine and I don't want to spend more than I have to.”

So we place the order for eight jugs, no idea how it's going to actually show up. Because by this time we're living in the San Francisco Bay Area, all the way on the West Coast. But the next day, Gary called me up and says, “You know, I really don't need four jugs.” And I said, “Yeah, I realize that, I’ll take whatever you don't want. You want two, or just one,” and then I'm joking and said, “if you want zero jugs, I'll take all eight.” Well, the next day, Gary called me up and says he'd reevaluated his finances and decided he would take me up on my offer and not order any jugs, and let me have all eight. He would just try a little sample from my stash.

Now I’m thinking, what just happened here? I said to myself, Oh my God, Holy Spirit has just put me back in the aloe business! Because if this guy hadn’t walked in and asked for the best aloe in the world, I wouldn’t have thought about it. And if he hadn’t said he wanted to order some, I wouldn’t have ordered it. And then he backs out of the order, leaving me with a total of 3.6 gallons of frozen aloe gel in transit.

Back in the Biz

So I call my wife who had been part of the original aloe experiment back in Florida.

“Hey Honey, guess what? I ordered some aloe vera!”

The phone goes dead quiet, because she is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“What do you need?”

“Well, I, uh, need the freezer for a couple of days.”

“Absolutely not!”

She was unwilling to, once again, donate the household freezer to the aloe cause. But she was willing to fund the purchase of a chest freezer, the kind hunters use to store a whole carcass of game meat. It turned out to be one of the best investments I’ve ever made. Instead of playing Tetris in your little freezer compartment, you just throw everything in there and it never seems to fill up.

So the eight jugs of aloe gel come in and I put them in my new chest freezer. Now I meditate and ask for spiritual guidance because I have no idea how to sell this aloe. And what came to me was I would thaw out one jug and then split it into smaller eight or sixteen ounce bottles and let people buy smaller quantities more frequently. People like…Gary.

But in my quest for the ultimate aloe experience, I also wanted to avoid plastic. Glass is far superior…but not when freezing is concerned. When you freeze aloe, you see, it expands even more than water. So refreezing aloe in a glass container is problematic because the glass can break. And not just crack, but shatter all over your freezer. So I gave up on that idea and sold smaller amounts of aloe, already thawed, or else the whole jug frozen.

It turns out, my clients loved it. They said things like, “Oh, this is great stuff! I feel amazing when I take it!” Their excitement was contagious, and within a week, I had sold all eight jugs of this aloe gel. I was surprised it sold that quickly.

Then the questions started. “When are you ordering more?” I hadn’t planned on it, so I replied, “Uh, I wasn’t going to.” They shot back, “You can’t hook us up with the good stuff and then cut us off!” I thought, What have I become, some sort of drug dealer, only for health food?

So I ordered another eight jugs. This time, everyone who bought smaller bottles upgraded to the full half-gallon size. Those eight bottles were gone in three days. In just ten days, I had sold sixteen bottles of aloe gel to my clients, friends, and family. That’s when I thought that maybe I had stumbled upon a side business.

So I called Mike Haley, the aloe-slinging chiropractor, to introduce myself. He was surprised to hear from me because I was, in his words, “old school”. I mentioned that I knew Rodney from seventeen years back, and told him the story.

Out of morbid—and scientific—curiosity, I asked Mike what happened to Rodney. He said Rodney had been working late one night, tripped, hit his head, and passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage. (Now it’s said he had a heart attack.)

I responded, “No, I don’t think so. I think Rodney’s guardian angel was chasing him for 96 years, finally caught up, and said, ‘We’re done here. We’re going home.’ Then he tripped him!”

I asked about getting wholesale pricing. Mike explained that he only offered wholesale prices to someone with a clinic and a freezer on-site. I told him, “Well, I’ve got a little healing center here in the Bay Area.”

What’s funny is that when you say “Bay Area,” people have different interpretations. In the northeast, they think of Boston; in Florida, it’s Tampa Bay. But in California, we know it’s the San Francisco Bay Area. When I told Mike, he got excited. “Oh, we don’t have anyone in Tampa Bay!”

I clarified that I was in California. There was a pause, and then Mike said, “California? We sell more aloe gel in California than in any other state.”

That didn’t surprise me. California is home to one in eight Americans. People here tend to be health-conscious, so it made sense that aloe gel would sell well. Mike told me to look at the map, and sure enough, there I was—one of the few aloe gel dealers on the West Coast. That’s how I got into the aloe gel business.

Over time, it grew. People from San Francisco and beyond came to me to buy aloe gel. The business connected me with people who wanted to discuss healing, health, and wellness. It also gave me a chance to refine my knowledge: how aloe gel works, why it works, and how to use it more effectively. To this day, I don’t think I’ve found any substance more healing to the gut than aloe vera gel.

Many scientists believe 60-90% of your immune system resides in your gut. Healing the gut, to me, is the key to healing the immune system. I take aloe vera gel daily, and my son would drink it like water. He said, “The more I drink, the better I feel. I don’t get sick when I drink this stuff.”

Aloe and the Triad

As a minimalist, I want to use the least amount for the maximum benefit. That philosophy is part of what I call “Triad Healing.” It focuses on three aspects:

1. Physical healing

2. Mental/Emotional healing

3. Spiritual/Karmic healing

Triad Healing also emphasizes three principles: safety, effectiveness, and affordability. The first two were no-brainers. Affordability, though, meant different things to different people.

To make aloe gel affordable, I aimed to use it efficiently.

I joked with my wife, “If I die prematurely, put this on my epitaph: He should have drunk a little more aloe vera gel.”

From my experience, the best way to use aloe gel is what I call the “Gandhi Method”: sip it throughout the day, especially on an empty stomach. The two most important times to take it are:

1. In the morning, after oral hygiene, to set your digestion in motion.

2. At night, after oral hygiene, to support your microbiome and heal during sleep.

Interestingly, each person has a unique palate. Some people think aloe gel tastes like water, while others find it bitter or slimy. I once worked with a cancer patient who struggled to drink eight ounces a day. I pushed her—perhaps too hard—by asking, “Would you rather die than drink aloe vera gel?” She paused and said, “Let me think about that.” It was a cost-benefit analysis for her.

For those who struggle with the taste, chefs I know have developed formulas to make it more palatable. However, in its purest form—without thickening agents or preservatives—aloe gel is most effective on an empty stomach. It also pairs well with intermittent fasting to quickly reboot the gut.

Pair aloe vera gel with intermittent fasting to reboot the gut.

To this day, I’ll probably go to my grave drinking aloe gel—maybe not enough, maybe too much. Who knows? But one thing is clear: physical health is invaluable. If you lose your health, it doesn’t matter how much money you have.

This reminds me of a historical story. Alexander the Great once sought to conquer the world. His teacher, Aristotle, told him, “First, go to the island of Socotra and conquer it. That’s where the aloe vera is.” Alexander did just that because he knew more soldiers died from infected wounds than from battle. They used aloe vera gel to treat injuries, preventing infection and saving countless lives.

Aloe vera gel was famous for treating wounds and preventing infection.

To me, aloe vera gel remains a magical substance. Whether used topically or internally (avoiding the whole leaf due to its laxative properties), it’s been a life-changing tool for healing. For those looking for pure, unadulterated aloe gel, it’s worth the investment—because health, after all, is priceless.

For more information, get the book “The Everything Guide to Aloe Vera for Health” by Britt Brandon. (affiliate link)
Purchase Stockton Aloe1 locally in the San Francisco Bay Area: contact John Ortiz at jjoawake@gmail.com
Order Stockton Aloe1 aloe vera gel drink in bulk, shipping directly from Haley Nutrition in Florida (get a special bonus offer!): haleynutrition.com

Triad Healing