Vile Swill!

So if I'm starting a review that way, it can't be positive, right? Well...yeah. That's pretty much the long and short of it right there.

Today I stopped at the gas station to get gas on my way to school, and I notice that they have a new drink called ALO Drink. Why not, I figure, and I pick two - ALO Exposed and ALO Enliven. Pick up a juice for my three year old, prepay for my gas, and I'm out the door.

I get back to the car, and pick out which one of the ALO drinks I want to try. I chose ALO Enliven, which promises all the health benefits of ALO, with the vitamins of 12 fruits and vegetables.

The website says ALO Enliven is 25% aloe vera and aloe vera pulp, which therein lies a bit of my problem. The ALO drinks were housed with the water and juice. If I have a grape juice, I know what I'm getting, every time across the board. If I open a Smart Water I know what I'm getting all the time, every time.

I open an ALO drink, I get a drink that I have to chew. Yes, CHEW. Good for my orange juice. Not good for my bottled water or juice.

The texture was slightly strange and the mouth feel was horrible. Kind of slimy. And the "pulp" was awful. I found that it actually got somewhat better if I didn't try to chew the pulp and just swallowed it whole, but by that point, the texture and mouth feel was just too much to make me interested in trying it again.

It says on the website that they sweeten the product with a natural sugar, but you could have fooled me - I didn't taste any sweetness at all.

I read on their website that they've done quite well in customer polls and been mentioned in several magazines and what not. I can't imagine - if they were the best, what on earth was the worst?!

This is horrible, horrible stuff. And now I have $5 worth of stuff that seriously, I have a little anxiety attack when I think about having to drink it again. It's that level of horrible. Skip this purchase, big time.

Just so you don't think I'm making it up and that there's no way a product this horrible could really exist:

ALODrink.

ALODrink: It's horrible. It's overpriced. We're not really sure how we're still legally allowed to sell it. Pass it by on a grocery store shelf near you!

I Live, And I'm Super Excited!

So poor Chef has kind of gotten lost over the last few weeks, and I do apologize for that.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've actually been doing alot of footwork for the blog though. According to my Comp 2 professor, I can't legally republish recipes without permission from their authors, so I've been digging out cookbooks of mine, and contacting the authors to seek out permission to republish in the blog.

I'm very close to getting permission to republish one!

When I start republishing recipes, I do intend to test the recipes as often as time and being reasonable will allow. One of the books I've almost got permission for, the first recipe in the book is holiday punch, that starts with a base of two bottles of wine. Yeah...I live alone with my fiance and a three year old. We don't have any chance of drinking two bottles of wine before they go bad. :O So that one will go untested at least. Unless I can find someone to drink wine. I told my fiancee that he was taking the punch into work, he didn't look that excited at the prospect. :D