Essential oils.. To ingest or not to ingest, thoughts of an aromatherapist.

Who, when, how and why? These are important questions to ask when ingesting essentail oils.

​Today I was asked what my issue with ingesting essential oils is.
I was asked this by someone who sells essential oils for a MLM company and was taught to believe that ingesting
essential oils is a very safe practice.
I never gave her any reason to believe that I am against ingesting essential oils, she simply assumed that I am because I am an aromatherapist!

Because my thoughts on ingesting essential oils are way more complex than she gave myself or other aromatherapists credit for, I decided to lay my thoughts out for anyone who may want to hear a perspective that is not simply black or white. 

The big debate, to ingest or not to ingest.

I am not fundamentally against oral administration of essential oils. I am actually “pro-ingesting” IF I know that the constituents in the essential oil have not been proven to contraindicate
​a person’s issue
​ or other forms of treatment they may be on.
A constituent is a “component part of something”.
In the case of an essential oil, we are talking about the individual chemicals that make up
the whole of the substance. 

Now… What I am against is irresponsible and unethical use of essential oils when they are being ingested. 

My first question when considering whether or not ingesting
is the correct choice of administration is simple….
“Why?” 

What is the issue that the client is having and is ingesting an essential oil the proper and most advantageous
way to support this person?
There are situations where oral administration is preferable
as it allows for better precision in how much of the
essential oil is being absorbed.
Also, the bioavailability of the constituents is much greater with ingestion than when administered topically or through inhalation,  this makes for a great tool for certain acute issues!

The following is an excerpt from "Essential Oil Safety"
by Tisserand and Young. 
​
“The typical oral dosage range is approximately ten times greater than the amount typically absorbed from massage. We have assumed that 100% of any oil administered orally is absorbed. Although this is unlikely in every instance, it is appropriate for a worse-case scenario. Absorption in the bloodstream after dermal application is slower than after oral dosing and the mucous membranes of the GI tract are likely to be more readily penetrated and more easily irritated than the skin, therefore requiring greater caution. With oral administration there is a greater risk of overdose, gastric irritation and with interactions with medications. Therefore, only practitioners who are qualified to diagnose, trained to weigh risk against benefits and have a knowledge of essential oil pharmacology should prescribe essential oils for oral administration.” 

My 3 main avenues of thought regarding common ingestion practices. 

Many people who regularly ingest are not familiar with the chemical makeup of essential oils.

1. Knowledge About Chemical Constituents and Contraindications. 

Although essential oils are classically used for their flavors, fragrances, cosmetic effects and their therapeutic powers, because of the extreme concentration of the chemicals in them, (most contain between 50 and 500 different chemical constituents.) it is important to be knowledgeable of the contraindications connected with each chemical constituent. This takes some sort of classical training or at the very least, independent research, in order to be sure you are using essential oils responsibly. By research I do not mean research that is merely based around testimonials.

Testimonials for therapeutic benefits are wonderful when it comes to collecting information on what things an essential oil can be used for. However, they can be very dangerous when being recommended from person A to person B for a specific issue. The reason is because person A and person B may not have the same health histories, medical issues, wellness regimens or be on the same medications. All of these things need to be considered when ingesting essential oils for therapeutic benefits. 
​

Not only can you control the flavor of fresh herbs that essential oils come from but they are safe and they have nutritional value.

2. Flavor craze.

Time and time again I see that essential oils are being put right into the mouth, under the tongue or into a glass of drinking water. Not only are they being used irresponsibly in these two examples but they are not always being used to support a specific issue. There are also people who are using essential oils for flavoring their food and beverages, in addition to or replacing fresh herbs and spices.

First things first, we are right back to the observation above, which remains true. Although essential oils are classically used for flavoring, they are done so within regulation and by people who are trained in their chemical compositions and how to determine safe percentages.
​
I won’t say that a drop here or there, diluted effectively and disbursed throughout a recipe is dangerous BUT, I will say that I really don’t see the need for it or feel that it serves a great purpose.

Let’s say hypothetically that we knew drinking a certain essential oil in our water and dropping it right into our mouths didn’t propose any danger because the vigorous chemical research was done and supported this fact. They are still being used in a dangerous way as these substances should be
​diluted before being ingested!

Although not actually an "oil", essential oils and water do NOT mix.

Dropping essential oils into water and drinking them is not a safe practice no matter if it is being done for therapeutic benefits or for flavoring. The word “oil” in essential oil is used to indicate a liquid that is insoluble in water. Therefore, the essential oil is not being disbursed evenly throughout the water or being absorbed safely throughout the body.

Although it will certainly find its way into the blood stream, it will also attach itself to the very delicate inner tissues of the body. A disadvantage of ingesting is that should there be any adverse reactions, they will be more difficult to determine AND more difficult to soothe. Working off of risk verses reward may make sense if aggressively treating an acute issue which is necessary through ingestion, but not merely for flavoring which can be done with fresh herbs and spices. 
Which lands us at the myth that essential oils offer some sort of nutritional value.
No. Just, no. 
​

There are no vitamins or minerals in bottles of essential oil.

---

​There are no vitamins and there is absolutely no nutritional value in essential oils. For this reason alone, when it comes to culinary purposes in the home, I believe we should use the fresh plant material which the essential oils derive from.

For example, although thyme is high in vitamins A and C, calcium, fiber and iron, you WILL NOT reap the rewards of any of these vitamins by using thyme  essential oil in your soup.

The constituents left from the original plant material after distillation are the molecules that are so small that they are made volatile. Volatile means they readily evaporate, hence the reason they are able to turn into steam and then later to liquid form in the distillation process. These molecules are the ones that add aroma and flavor to the plant material they derive from.
This is the same thing they do as essential oils when added to food.
They are aroma and flavor. 

If essential oils are being used for flavoring, some of the beneficial constituents may survive long enough in the meal to have an impact on the people eating the meal, but not enough
to make a marked impact.
​
And isn’t that why we love essential oils?
Because of how powerful they are in the world of healing?
When being used to flavor food and beverages,
there just isn’t a safe enough way to guarantee that the
flavoring is also making an impact on health. 
And there certainly isn't enough impact on the health
to justify the amount of plant material that is needed to make the essential oils!
​
This brings us to my last observation regarding these ingestion practices. 

3. A concern for sustainability. ​

Lemon essential oil is one that is most frequently mixed into drinking water.

​ When the ability to ingest essential oils is taken for granted by people who feel the need to drink them in water daily or flavor their cookies, pasta sauces and hot-cocoa on a regular basis, there is a huge sustainability issue!

I will use lemon essential oil for this example as it seems it is one that is used regularly by many. A simple picture painted here is this.

Let’s say we have 100 people who consume 1 drop of lemon essential oil a day in a glass of water.
In 6 days they have consumed one ounce (30ml) of lemon essential oil, as one ounce it about 600 drops.
This equals about 100 lemons!
This may not seem like a big deal, however, when we talk sustainability we need to think on grander scales!

There are tens of thousands of people who are regularly putting essential oils in their drinking water and the numbers are rising everyday with the spread of this practice!
To top it off, MOST of these people are using more than only one drop in a glass of water!
Typically, its two or three drops per glass!

Let’s just consider 6,000 people and how much essential oil it takes to consume
a single drop a day, for one week.

6,000 people x 1 drop a day for 7 days = 42,000 drops.
This is about 70 ounces as one ounce is 600 drops. It takes about 100 lemons to make about one ounce of lemon essential oil. That is 7000 lemons for one week’s worth of essential oil used in their drinking water.

Let’s consider the numbers for 60,000 people.
60,000 people x one drop a day for seven days = 420,000 drops. That is 700 ounces of lemon essential oil.
So, in order for 60,000 people to use ONE drop of lemon essential oil a day in their water, 70,000 lemons have to be used.
I'll repeat, this is for one week!

That is a scary number when we consider how many people are jumping on this craze every day, even scarier to think that more than one drop is being used!
60,000 people using 3 drops a day for ONE WEEK extinguishes the resources of 210,000 lemons.

If you don’t think it can get scarier, you’re wrong! More and more people are doing things of this nature every day. Essential oils are not only being ingested in water daily but in foods and other beverages for flavoring and it is not only one drop a day!
Lastly, it is not only lemon essential oil, which actually has a pretty decent yield, while there are other plants that take much more plant material to produce an ounce of essential oil.
​
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of plant material is being used weekly to satisfy the insatiable practices of under-educated people. At least, I’d like to believe that they are under-educated!
​I don’t want to think they truly have such a great disregard for the very real sustainability issues regarding the plants it takes to make these beautiful oils!

In conclusion.

​Ingestion in and of itself is something that I feel has a place in aromatherapy. In my opinion, ingestion is a great tool for healing when there is an acute internal issue which needs an aggressive and understood dosage of treatment.

I also believe that there are qualified people out there who have the ability to understand dosage as well as the “risk vs reward” for each client. Some of these people being aromatherapists with formal education on the human body as well as physicians with education in essential oils.

That said, I also believe that people who do not fall into either of these categories run a very high risk of putting their clients in danger. Especially when the information is coming from testimonials or even from general information passed down from a qualified person. The reason for this is because the general information being passed down might apply to the essential oil or its chemical constituents BUT it will not necessarily
apply to the client.

It is my belief, as a certified aromatherapist and wellness coach
that practitioners of all modalities owe it to their clients to treat them as individuals and not simply treat their symptoms.
One of the key factors for this is making sure that each part of the wellness regimen is as effective and as safe as possible for the person being treated. 
And the truth is...
Sometimes that might mean administering
​ingestion of essential oils.