We put doTERRA Essential Oils to the test in a special Eighty Test Kitchen!
We are big fans of doTERRA‘s essential oils for personal and home use. doTERRA provides high quality, pure essential oils and is the gold standard for CPTG Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade® essential oils. Due to their rigorous standards for purity, they are the only essential oils we use on ourselves and our families. We diffuse their oils in our Eighty office (Balance is my personal favorite), use their line of Breathe products for respiratory health, and rely on their line of On Guard products for keeping immune health strong, especially during cold and flu season. The children are huge fans of the doTERRA Kids Collection, which features specific pre-diluted blends in rollerballs they can use themselves. I use a ton of Deep Blue on achy knees after a strenuous workout. All in all, we are big fans, which got us thinking… why not bring them into the kitchen?!?
Not all doTERRA essential oils are edible, but many are! doTERRA essential oils are either supplements (food grade and ingestible) or proprietary blends (not for ingestion, but for topical or diffuser use). A few months ago, I was preparing a spaghetti squash dish for my own family and realized I didn’t have the fresh oregano the recipe called for. A quick Google later, I found myself adding a few drops of oregano oil to the sauce. The verdict? Even more flavorful than the original! This got me thinking… we totally need to do this more often, especially considering the health-promoting properties doTERRA oils contain! Then we also thought… if clients love the health-supportive benefits of these oils, we can use the oils in our recipes to enhance both flavor and wellness! (And, let’s be honest, how often do you decide to create a recipe on a whim and have all the fresh herbs you need in your fridge?)
After a few additional months of in-house experimentation by substituting a few drops of oils for fresh and dried herbs and flavorings (lemon, wild orange, basil, oregano, ginger, turmeric), we decided to call upon our friend and doTERRA oil aficionado, Jennifer Bennett, of Jennifer Bennett Photography, to co-host an Eighty Test Kitchen featuring recipes made with doTERRA oils. We chose a Valentine’s Day theme, invited a few Eighty regulars and set to work adding even more “wellness” to our health supportive recipes!
Is she smiling because she snuck sweet potato in her kids’ brownies?
We chose a few basic recipes and added various combinations of oils to them:
Eighty’s famous Raspberry-Lime Mousse got a boost from lime – and then we got wild and added basil! – essential oils
Cinnamon-Almond Granola received all the health promoting digestive properties of cassia essential oil
Cold Fighting Elderberry Gummy Treats were a refreshing delight with the addition of both lemon and On Guard oils
Wild Orange Power Bites had an uplifting citrusy boost with wild orange oil
Dark Chocolate Spearmint Brownies were delightful and refreshing (and no one could taste the hidden ingredient… mashed sweet potato!)
On Guard Apples – the easiest of them all – by soaking cut apples in fresh filtered water and a adding few drops of On Guard
Wild Orange Power Bites
On Guard Apples. A health boost doesn’t get any easier.
Finally, because we at Eighty love our chocolate, we created some chocolate blends using the oils and made chocolate covered pretzels! My personal favorites were lemon-lavender white chocolate and peppermint dark chocolate.
Lemon-Lavender White Chocolate Pretzels. Can you even?!?
The overall verdict? Granola was the clear winner, followed by the mousse and the brownies. All in all, our Eighty Test Kitchen participants decided it was delicious way to spend an afternoon and imbue a little extra wellness in their Valentines’ lives!
Cinnamon Almond Granola with Cassia Essential Oil
Thank you to all our Eighty friends for participating in a sweet afternoon!
