Do Essential Oils Belong in the Kitchen?
What do you do when you love both food and essential oils? You join them together! This week I am bringing you my best tips for incorporating the bright, fresh, vibrant flavors of pure essential oils into your food and beverages.
I want to give you some basic tips around ingesting essential oils so we can move into this topic with confidence and EXCITEMENT!
Are Essential Oils Safe to Ingest?
The biggest mystery around essential oils is “are they safe to ingest?”. The answer is YES, they are safe if we follow a few simple guidelines:
- Only ingest essential oils that are specifically labeled for ingestion.
- Do your research on the essential oil company and make sure you feel 100% confident in the quality and sourcing of the oils.
- Start slow with very small amounts; even less than a full drop until you know how your body will respond; then increase as you feel comfortable. Not sure how to achieve “less than a full drop?” – don’t worry, I have you covered.
- Save ingestion for people who are old enough to communicate sensations in their body. As with anything, there is a possibility that essential oils are incompatible with some bodies so the user needs to be able to assess how they feel and convey anything they experience.
Effect of Heat
Have you heard that cooking with essential oils is useless because the heat destroys the therapeutic value? Well, I can’t really comment on the therapeutic value of each and every essential oil that gets heated, but in terms of flavor, essential oils still taste the same even if they have been added to hot food or beverages.
“The fact of the matter is when you add heat to something you are changing the chemical constituents. But this in no way implies that the constituents are dangerous or harmful. Interestingly, some studies show that the chemical constituents of essential oils when added to hot foods and beverages change less than their corresponding herbs do. We all cook with herbs like basil, oregano, and thyme and never worry about them being dangerous after cooking. Let’s apply that same logic to essential oils.” -Lindsey Elmore (https://lindseyelmore.com/essential-oils-and-tea/)
I hope you enjoy those two tidbits; make sure to join me over in The Hassle-Free Family this week for all the sweet and savory details around spicing up your kitchen with essential oils.
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Enjoy!
💝 Diana
Need to grab some Vitality Oils before we get started? That’s what I’m here for!
