QUICK SUMMARY
Can you ingest essential oils? Yes. Essential oils can be taken internally when you use the right oil, the right amount, and the right method. The FDA lists dozens of essential oils as generally recognized as safe for their intended use in food, and “natural flavors” on a food label can include essential oils.
For cooking, 1 to 3 drops spread through a whole dish is plenty. For a therapeutic dose, mix the oil with an edible carrier oil such as olive or coconut oil and take it in a capsule. Never put undiluted essential oils in your mouth, never float drops on a glass of water, and stop right away if anything burns or irritates.
The most controversial topic in aromatherapy by far is people trying to answer the question, “can you ingest essential oils?” Is it safe or not? You may be surprised to learn what the research says.
I’m not sure how it exactly happened, but somehow, misguided people started to instill fear into essential oil users that these precious compounds are unsafe for internal use. I say “misguided” in the deepest respect, as I understand that we all have differing opinions, and I know that I’m going to get a lot of “love mail” for this post. Hate mail sounds too ugly, doesn’t it?
But “never ingest essential oils” is too broad, just as “if it’s pure, it’s safe to swallow” is too broad.
Table of Contents
Can you Ingest Essential Oils?
The more I learn about them, the more I realize that ingesting essential oils as medicine is not a common practice for my family and me. I still enjoy a drop of peppermint and cinnamon in my morning latte or a drop of lemon in sparkling water with some liquid stevia as my special ‘soda pop,’ but that’s about it unless I’m battling some specific health condition. It has taken me a year of research & study and literally hundreds (if not thousands) of hours to get to this “revelation.”
The key is dosage. One or two drops of lime essential oil in your guacamole that will be shared with 4 or 5 other people is not your concern. This is referred to as “culinary dose.” The concern is when people are consuming 4, 5, or 6+ drops at a time. This is known as a “therapeutic dose.” More on this below…
I regularly get questions from people asking me about ingesting essential oils and I now understand why there’s so much confusion. One myth breeds more myths. Innocent uncertainty breeds more uncertainty. And the vicious cycle continues.
The fact remains that there are no scientific, evidence-based, anatomical, physiological, or logical reasons to say that all essential oils are unsafe for human consumption. Paradoxically, aromatherapists are still at odds with each other on this point, which confuses the casual essential oil user all the more.
In the words of the National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy (NAHA), “Essential oils may be applied on the skin (dermal application), inhaled, diffused or taken internally. Each of these methods have safety issues which need to be considered.” (1)
NAHA also notes that essential oils “are commonly used internally throughout the world.” It does not support indiscriminate or uneducated internal use, and it is dedicated to education so that internal use “is performed safely and effectively.” (2)
And this makes complete sense to me. Like anything, we can easily overdo it, and we must remember a little goes a long way with essential oils, especially internally! We can also find several local and online schools that will certify you as an aromatherapist and teach safe internal use.
The Atlantic Institute of Aromatherapy is one organization in particular that I have strongly aligned myself with, as it is the oldest aromatherapy school continually run by a practicing aromatherapist. Their founder, Sylla Sheppard-Hanger, has over 40 years of client-based experience and has been teaching classes in aromatherapy since 1985. The bottom line is that when an organization like this includes ingesting essential oils guidelines in their curriculum, with hundreds of case studies to support their recommendations, people should stop for a second and listen, don’t you agree?
And let’s not forget what the universally acclaimed text, Essential Oil Safety: A Guide for Health Care Professionals, repeatedly refers to as “maximum oral dose” in relation to ingesting essential oils safely and effectively.
The thing that throws me for a loop about people who speak out against ingesting essential oils is that they overlook our own federal food law. The FDA’s regulation 21 CFR 182.20 lists essential oils, oleoresins, and natural extractives that are “generally recognized as safe for their intended use.” (3) In other words, essential oils are already in our food supply as flavor ingredients. For the full list, see below.
GRAS is a food status, not a drug approval, and not all oils that are safe for ingestion are included in the GRAS list. I recommend that we use this list as a base point to start the conversation about what is and what is not safe, because it all boils down to dosage.
Do Essential Oils Hurt Your Microbiome?
The short answer is “no.” At least not in the way that you may think.
Yes, essential oils have antimicrobial properties. So it would be natural to assume that ingesting them works like taking an antibiotic, which is designed to kill bacteria across the board. The research so far points the other way.
Let’s start with people. In a 2022 study from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, 30 children aged 7 to 12 with tummy pain took enteric-coated peppermint oil capsules once, twice, or three times a day for a week. Stool samples taken before and after showed no difference in the diversity or overall makeup of their gut bacteria. Only a few bacteria that were barely there to begin with shifted. (4)
The animal studies go a step further. In a 2024 study from China, 240 young pigs were fed cinnamaldehyde and carvacrol (the main compounds in cinnamon and oregano oils) for six weeks. They gained more weight, had less diarrhea, and grew a more diverse gut microbiome. In the pigs fed both compounds together, Lactobacillus made up about 55 percent of their gut bacteria, compared with about 33 percent in the pigs that got neither. (5)
Spanish researchers took it closer to home. They gave mice gut bacteria from patients with heart disease and type 2 diabetes, then gave them savory, parsley, or rosemary essential oil by mouth for 40 days. In their words, the oils “exert prebiotic effects by promoting or restoring beneficial bacteria populations in the gut,” mainly Lactobacillus. (6)
The same pattern shows up in other animals. In a 2026 Australian study of chickens infected to cause necrotic enteritis, a feed blend built around thymol (the main compound in thyme oil) increased beneficial bacteria, Lactobacillus among them. (7) A 2024 review of essential oils for ulcerative colitis describes lavender oil given by mouth easing damage to the colon lining in mice, and peppercorn oil bringing down the E. coli overgrowth that colitis causes. (8)
In obese mice, Sichuan pepper essential oil given by mouth for four weeks reduced weight gain and fatty liver, raised the diversity of the gut bacteria, and increased beneficial strains. (9) And in fish, one 2021 study noted that “dietary EOs may promote intestinal local immunity through the impact of the EOs on the host-microbial co-metabolism.” (10)
Dose still matters. A 2022 review from the University of Bucharest lists rat studies in which lemon, lime, and grapefruit oils disrupted the gut microbiota at high concentrations. (11)
Most of this work is in animals, and a 2025 systematic review of the preclinical studies concluded that clinical investigations are still needed to confirm the benefits for human gut health. (12) The human research we do have points the same way. Besides the peppermint study, a 2024 randomized trial found that essential oil mouthrinses used twice a day for 4 weeks shifted the dental plaque of people with gingivitis toward the makeup seen in healthy mouths. (13)
So the fear that sensible internal use will wipe out your gut flora is not what the research shows. In the animal studies, essential oils raised beneficial bacteria, and in children taking peppermint oil capsules, the gut’s overall makeup held steady. Larger human gut studies are still to come.
Do’s & Don’ts of Ingesting Essential Oils
Before I get into some of the ways that ingesting essential oils can be done safely, there are some “housekeeping” items we need to discuss. Here are some do’s and don’ts.
Daily Do’s:
- Inhale essential oils in an essential oil diffuser, inhaler, spritzer, and other fun ways.
- Add essential oils to your daily body care regimen.
- Be careful, and learn the basics. My Aromatherapy 101 article will help.
- Enjoy the good things in life! There’s nothing like one drop of lemon or orange oil mixed with Solubol in a 32-ounce glass of sparkling water with some liquid stevia as a special soda pop treat.
- Have fun & be empowered! Using essential oils and other natural therapies is a life-changing experience for most people, so enjoy learning all about them!
Daily Do Not’s:
- Ingesting essential oils for “prevention.” This is wasteful and dangerous, and I was a victim of the take-a-drop-of-essential-oil under your tongue (or in your water) every day myth until I irritated my esophagus and developed acid reflux! Thankfully, God healed me and I know better now. The more I learn about essential oils, the less I consume them: only for specific health conditions, or my special soda. And, no, it doesn’t matter how “pure” or “therapeutic” they are. Please learn from my mistakes!
- Think that “more is better.” Essential oils are highly concentrated plant compounds, and internal use requires respect for dose.
- Think that each health condition within a specific body system should be approached the same way. Even though peppermint oil is recommended by the American College of Gastroenterology for IBS symptoms and has helped people on chemotherapy with nausea, it is not the oil for GERD. Heartburn is a known side effect of peppermint oil taken by mouth, which is why peppermint capsules are often enteric-coated. (14)
- Float undiluted essential oils on top of drinking water and assume the water has diluted them. Oil and water do not mix.
- Believe that “there is an oil for that.” Essential oils have changed my life so much that I have devoted much of my personal and professional life to sharing the message that they are truly God’s medicine. Yet, let’s be real. Like anything, essential oils are limited in what they can do, and we should not fall into the trap of treating them as the end-all cure, because misguided hope will disappoint.
- Ignore adverse reactions. If something does not agree with your body, stop using it and reassess.
Ok, now that we’ve cleaned house, let’s get to work…
Tips for Ingesting Essential Oils Safely
I have written extensively about ingesting essential oils in my book, The Healing Power of Essential Oils. In the meantime, it suffices to say that essential oils are extremely potent plant-based compounds and should be used with care.
The key to ingesting essential oils, and why we should consider them in our natural health regimens, is that they combat pathogens (harmful microorganisms), are a source of antioxidants, and have shown cancer cell cytotoxicity in the lab (cells in a petri dish, not people), amongst other things.
Culinary Doses (1-3 Drops per Dish)
The safest way to ingest essential oils is culinary use. Cooking with essential oils is a simple way to enjoy their benefits and enhance the flavor of your food. Here are some ideas on how to get started.
- Use 1-2 drops of cilantro or coriander with 1-2 drops of lime in your homemade guacamole.
- Try 1 drop of cumin in your curry next time. Or, 2 drops of black pepper in virtually anything savory!
- You could use cinnamon essential oil in a cake batter, but you’d only need one drop for the whole batch vs. a teaspoon or more of the bark powder.
- Mix 1 drop into your morning latte. I particularly enjoy a drop of peppermint and cinnamon in my matcha green tea latte.
Do remember, however, that oil and water do not mix, so simply adding a drop to your coffee or tea will leave that drop undiluted. Mix it first into a little coconut oil, coconut milk, honey, or liquid stevia, and then stir it into your drink.
Therapeutic Doses (Up to 6 Drops per Dose)
When ingesting essential oils is needed for therapeutic purposes, much more than a culinary dose is used: up to 5 or 6 drops of essential oil per dose. To do this safely, taking them in a capsule with an edible carrier oil is the preferred method.
Alternatively, you can add 3-4 drops of essential oil to one tablespoon of an edible carrier oil like olive, grape seed, or coconut oil and take it that way. This is what we do for our immune-boosting “flu” shots.
Safety Tip: Never put undiluted essential oils in your mouth. Doing so could burn your mucous membranes. Depending on the oil, the maximum daily oral dose for adults ranges from six to twenty drops per day, up to three doses in one day, or two to six drops per application.
Use only one essential oil remedy at a time, and wait at least four hours between doses.
The safest (and most effective) way to ingest essential oils for therapeutic purposes is to take them in capsules. Taken from my book, The Healing Power of Essential Oils, simply follow these instructions.
(Makes 1 dose)
How to Make Gel Capsules
Quantity
Ingredients
- 1-2 drops caraway essential oil
- Coconut oil extra-virgin AND unrefined OR extra-virgin olive oil
Supplies
- Vegan Coated Capsules , Size 00
Instructions
- Using a pipette, drop the essential oils into the narrower bottom half of the capsule.
- Use the pipette to fill the remaining space in the capsule with coconut or olive oil.
- Fit the wider top half of the capsule over the bottom half and secure snugly.
- Swallow a capsule immediately with water after meal. Take before meals to aid digestion and balance gut flora.
Note: Do not make and store these capsules for future use. Also, this is not a long-term solution, and using it for more than four weeks at a time is not advisable. Be sure to switch up your protocol monthly.
GRAS Essential Oils & Natural Extractives
People consume essential oils every day without even knowing it. Where do you think your processed foods get their flavor?
The FDA’s labeling rule defines “natural flavor” as “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis” that carries the flavor of a spice, fruit, vegetable, herb, bark, bud, root, or leaf. (15) So when you see “natural flavors” on a label, essential oils may well be part of it.
By letting common sense be our guide, here are some tried and true tips on how to take essential oils internally.
- Start off by using oils on the GRAS list below.
- Always dilute in an edible carrier oil, whether you are cooking or taking a capsule.
- Don’t overdo it. Stay within two to six drops per dose, and be sure to wait at least 4 hours before taking consecutive doses.
- Listen to your body, and…
- Discontinue use IMMEDIATELY if adverse reactions occur.
Trust me, people don’t break out in hives in a “detox” reaction when ingesting essential oils like I’ve read out there in cyberspace. Pain, irritation, swelling, inflammation, bloating, burning, reflux, and anything else that isn’t pleasant is NOT a good sign. This is your body’s way of warning you that something harmful is attacking it.
Here is the list exactly as it appears in 21 CFR 182.20: essential oils, oleoresins (solvent-free), and natural extractives (including distillates) that are generally recognized as safe for their intended use.
[42 FR 14640, Mar. 15, 1977, as amended at 44 FR 3963, Jan. 19, 1979; 47 FR 29953, July 9, 1982; 48 FR 51613, Nov. 10, 1983; 50 FR 21043, 21044, May 22, 1985] |
Essential Oil Ingestion FAQs
Can you ingest essential oils?
Yes. Many essential oils are used internally every day, in foods as natural flavors and in capsules for therapeutic use. Use 1 to 3 drops per dish for cooking, dilute therapeutic doses in an edible carrier oil, and never take an oil undiluted.
Does GRAS mean an essential oil is FDA-approved for therapeutic ingestion?
No. Under 21 CFR 182.20, the listed essential oils, oleoresins, and natural extractives are generally recognized as safe for their intended use in food. That is not a drug approval, but it does show that these oils are already accepted in the food supply.
Can I put essential oils directly in drinking water?
Oil and water do not mix. A drop floating in water stays undiluted no matter how much you stir. Mix it first into a dispersant such as Solubol, or into a little honey or liquid stevia, before it goes into your drink.
Can essential oils damage the gut microbiome?
Not in the way most people fear. In pigs, chickens, and mice, essential oils given in food or by mouth increased beneficial bacteria such as Lactobacillus, and in a 2022 study of children taking peppermint oil capsules for a week, the overall makeup of their gut bacteria did not change. Very high concentrations of some citrus oils did disrupt the microbiota in rats, and larger human gut studies are still needed.
Is daily preventive ingestion a good idea?
No. I learned this the hard way when a daily drop in my water irritated my esophagus and led to acid reflux. Take essential oils internally for a specific purpose, for a limited time, and then stop.
Who should take extra care with internal use?
Anyone taking medications, because ingestion carries a greater risk of drug interactions; check with your doctor first. If you are pregnant, avoid all internal use of sage and jasmine. The doses in this article are for adults.
For more on caring for your body God’s way, visit us at BibleHealth.com.
Keep reading: Our Response to Netflix (Un)Well: Essential Oils, Cancer, Ingestion & MLMs · How to Dilute Essential Oils Safely + 5 DIY Recipes · Caraway Essential Oil: A Digestive Powerhouse for Gut Health
References
- National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy. Safety. NAHA. Accessed 2026. Source.
- National Association for Holistic Aromatherapy. NAHA Safety Statements. NAHA. Accessed 2026. Source.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 21 CFR 182.20: Essential oils, oleoresins (solvent-free), and natural extractives (including distillates). Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. 1977, as amended 1985. Source.
- Thapa S, Luna RA, Chumpitazi BP, et al. Peppermint oil effects on the gut microbiome in children with functional abdominal pain. Clinical and Translational Science. 2022. Source.
- Zhao BC, Wang TH, Chen J, et al. Essential oils improve nursery pigs’ performance and appetite via modulation of intestinal health and microbiota. Animal Nutrition. 2024. Source.
- Sánchez-Quintero MJ, Delgado J, Medina-Vera D, et al. Beneficial effects of essential oils from the Mediterranean diet on gut microbiota and their metabolites in ischemic heart disease and type-2 diabetes mellitus. Nutrients. 2022. Source.
- Khairunnesa M, Kumar A, Wu SB, et al. Phytogenic supplementation mitigates necrotic enteritis in broilers through modulation of gut microbiota, short-chain fatty acids, and nutrient-related gene expression. Poultry Science. 2026. Source.
- Li J, Zhang X, Luan F, et al. Therapeutic potential of essential oils against ulcerative colitis: a review. Journal of Inflammation Research. 2024. Source.
- Sun L, Zhang S, Hu H, et al. Zanthoxylum bungeanum essential oil alleviates obesity and dysregulated lipid metabolism in diet-induced obese mice: a multi-omics study linking gut microbiota to fatty acid metabolism. Nutrients. 2026. Source.
- Firmino JP, Vallejos-Vidal E, Balebona MC, et al. Diet, immunity, and microbiota interactions: an integrative analysis of the intestine transcriptional response and microbiota modulation in gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata) fed an essential oils-based functional diet. Frontiers in Immunology. 2021. Source.
- Lazar V, Holban AM, Curutiu C, Ditu LM. Modulation of gut microbiota by essential oils and inorganic nanoparticles: impact in nutrition and health. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2022. Source.
- Gopalsamy RG, Antony PJ, Athesh K, et al. Dietary essential oil components: a systematic review of preclinical studies on the management of gastrointestinal diseases. Phytomedicine. 2025. Source.
- Min K, Glowacki AJ, Bosma ML, et al. Quantitative analysis of the effects of essential oil mouthrinses on clinical plaque microbiome: a parallel-group, randomized trial. BMC Oral Health. 2024. Source.
- National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health. Peppermint Oil: Usefulness and Safety. NCCIH. 2025. Source.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 21 CFR 101.22: Foods; labeling of spices, flavorings, colorings and chemical preservatives. Electronic Code of Federal Regulations. Accessed 2026. Source.
