Do essential oils remain in food after cooking?

Cooking with essential oils is a tasty way to incorporate their benefits into your food. But the quantity of essential oils that remain in the food after cooking is a question that no one has researched scientifically, until Chilean food scientists tested the retention of Thyme and Oregano oils in pasta (April 2016).

They incorporated the essential oils into pasta dough, which they passed through a pasta roller. They then boiled and baked samples of the pasta. After cooking, they sent the samples through the gas chromatograph to test the retention of the main components of the essential oils: thymol and carvacrol. Boiling the pasta resulted in higher retention of thymol (65 percent retained) and carvacrol (72 percent) than baking the pasta (52 percent thymol and 51 percent carvacrol). Interestingly, though Thyme and Oregano essential oils contain differing amounts of thymol and carvacrol, these molecules were retained in the same rates regardless of what essential oil they originated from.

Did anyone else just get hungry for Thyme and Oregano homemade pasta?

Bibliography

•Learn more about the benefits of carvacrol.

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•Read about internal use of essential oils.

doTERRA Science blog articles are based on a variety of scientific sources. Many of the referenced studies are preliminary and further research is needed to gain greater understanding of the findings. Some articles offer multiple views on general health topics and are not the official position of doTERRA. Consult your healthcare provider before making changes to diet or exercise.