Many customers ask why we recommend re-freezing aloe vera in plastic rather than glass. In this short answer, we will address your question and concerns about plastic.
We have found that when aloe vera freezes, it seems to expand more than water and with more strength than water. Over the years, we have even had discussions with customers about this that felt their canning and freezing experience would be sufficient to discount our recommendations. We had one such humble person return to us with photos of all of the jars broken in the freezer. She humbly admitted we were right and provided us with the photos for your benefit.
Some Customers Have Success Refreezing In Glass
Not everyone looses their aloe to broken glass. One customer, Sharon, shared her experience to us by email. This is what she said:
I just got my new order of aloe. I quickly put it in glass jars. I like the 1 pt. mason jars.
As long as the jars have no curves and you leave a little room at the top for expansion (ball mason jars have a freeze line showing how much room to leave) you should have no problems…
…I hope this helps someone.
At Haley Nutrition, we can’t accept responsibility for what happens if you choose to refreeze in glass. But clearly it can be done.
Plastic Concerns
Most people are concerned about using plastics in foods because of what they have heard about plastic chemicals leaching and being “hormone disruptors”. We AGREE that plastics leach and are not healthy for you.
Leaching of plastics primarily got its bad rap from bottled water. If you consider how much space bottled water occupies in the grocery store, you can imagine how much space empty bottles would take in a bottled water factory. A single plastic bottle machine can manufacture more than 10,000 bottles per hour.
Giving the empty bottles time to cure and gas-off is not an option at bottled water companies. Instead, the bottles are made, quickly rinsed, filled, capped, and labeled. The bottles are then packaged, palletized, and put onto trucks for delivery. The roads become the warehouses as the trucks depart taking them to their destinations. This can result in larger amounts of chemicals leached into the water.
We feel that using bottles that were made and have had plenty of time to gas-off minimizes leaching. Furthermore, using colder temperatures further slows molecular activity minimizing leaching of plastics. We recommend filling your bottles while your aloe vera is still cold and placing them right into the freezer.
What Kind Of Plastic Should I Use?
We recommend doing your own research to determine the kind of plastic that is best for food. For us, we choose BPA free recycle #2 “HDPE” plastic which is typically used for juice bottles and plastic milk jugs.
We have a customer that chooses to use #5 “PP” (polypropylene) plastic which also seems to be a good option. The PP plastic is particularly hard and heat resistant. She likes the “Reditainer Cups” because they stack well and are larger at the top making them ideal for freezing liquids that expand.