Peel it and scrape the gel out of it, and use the gel. This is a great way to treat sunburns BTW. It smells a little bit like b.o., surprisingly. Not sure how to eat it; might be easier to buy aloe vera juice at the health food store.

I'm not sure about the leaf, but have you considered drinking the juice? Trader Joe's sells a big vat (gallon, maybe) of the juice at a pretty cheap price. My doula wants me to drink this for toning the uterus. I'm not completely sure if this is really beneficial, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with it.

That being said, I'd love to hear from someone with regard to the benefits of this.

There's no reason to believe that it would cause you to purge some sort of toxins. "Toxins" as a term is useless unless you can actually name some of the toxins and why they are toxic.

Use it if you like it and it doesn't cause any symptoms, but don't think that it's going to have any particularly positive health outcome.

I drink 2 oz of the juice mixed with water after exercise:

http://www.lovingfit.com/nutrition/the-incredible-benefits-of-aloe-vera-juice/

Drinking aloe vera juice is like drinking a vitamin and mineral cocktail, it contains Vitamin A, B1, B2, B6, B12, C, E, Folic Acid and Niacin. Minerals in aloe vera include Calcium, Sodium, Iron, Potassium, Copper, Zinc, Manganese, Magnesium and Chromium.

Another benefit of Aloe is that it contains 19 amino acids, and 7 of them are essential amino acids ( not produced by the body ).

I drink Georges 100% aloe juice I buy from Vitamin Shoppe... I buy 100% Aloe Vera gel for my skin.

you can try birch sap for three weeks next year, since the season has passed [unless you found some like with dukandiet];

It is popular for "detoxes" because it can make you poop. The people who are all about detoxing think we are being poisoned by having food moving through us too slowly. Just eating a clean diet that supports your liver, and maybe adding liver support herbs will allow your body to remove what it needs to at a safe and sane speed. Dumping too much stuff into your system at once the way detox flushes are designed to do can just end up poisoning you for a bit before some gets put back to where it was safely out of the way in your adipose tissue, and some goes down the toilet (but I doubt much more than you would purge in daily clean living, plus you feel like crap for a few weeks).

Aloe is likely safe for most people, I've used it therapeutically a few times to heal inflammation in my upper gut to prepare for adding betaine supplements.

It does appear to possibly be bad for some people's liver though. Your liver is how you remove stuff from your body, so be nice to it. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20191055

There does seem to be some promise of getting toxins stored in fat tissues out via exercise, temperature cycling hydrotherapy, saunas, and far infrared saunas, and they are sweated out in addition to being filtered by your liver, so the impact on your internal organs is reduced. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21951023

Aloevera juice has many tested anti-bacterial and anti-fungal attributes. It's actually used in medications implemented to prevent ringworm or tinea creating fungus infection. The particular complete levels of active elements including C-glycosides as well as other lectins enables aloevera. It's actually a famous anti inflammatory, anti-oxidant and overall health restoring agent. Using aloe vera gel for hair has many amazing benefits. Specialized lotions and creams are actually designed to treat injuries, stings and lacerations, burn, eczema and acne breakouts. The sap or even gel from the herb is usually consumed to stop heartburn or acid reflux, candida albicans, Chron disease, joint disease, bronchial asthma, hay fever and also shield our body from free-radicals.

Today I read about aloe latex which contains aloin which can be toxic. I'm drinking aloe juice from forever living products. I feel my body going through something strange and I'm honestly not sure if it's a normal reaction or a poisoning.

Do some research about aloin and aloe latex.