Can Plant Therapy essential oils be ingested?
Many essential oils and plant extracts are generally recognized as safe (GRAS) to consume when used appropriately to flavor foods. Whether or not something actually obtains GRAS status is determined by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). So what does this mean exactly? Well, it means that essential oils CAN be safe to consume when done so properly. Properly is the keyword here.
Believe it or not, essential oils are used in a lot of different food products and beverages that we consume every day. Now you are probably thinking that this makes them safe to put into your food and drinks, right? Wrong. It’s important to realize that these foods and drinks are formulated by professionals and produced in large quantities using expensive machinery. None of which is true of the food and drinks you make at home.
So now that we’ve gotten food and drinks out of the way, what about ingesting essential oils for health reasons?
The International Federation of Aromatherapists does not recommend that essential oils be taken internally therapeutically unless under the supervision of a medical doctor who is also qualified in clinical aromatherapy.
At this time, none of Plant Therapy’s certified aromatherapists are clinically trained to administer essential oils internally, so we can not recommend or advise further on essential oil ingestion. To reach out to an aromatherapist in your area, we recommend using the Find An Aromatherapist option on the Alliance of International Aromatherapist website here: https://www.alliance-aromatherapists.org or on the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy here: https://naha.org.
