Our Spice Cabinet Makeover

While I was learning different ways of converting our daily remedies, personal care products, cleaning and laundry products with Young Living's essential oils and products, my husband (the cook) grew interested in what healthier choices these essential oils could provide in our continually evolving wholefoods kitchen.  What he learned was we could begin substituting and replacing many of our pre-powdered spices with these amazing essential oils.

It's not that powdered spices are necessarily unhealthy it's just that essential oils pack a MUCH bigger punch in terms of health benefits.  Like most processed foods, the quality of powdered spices can vary drastically. Most of the spices you buy in a regular supermarket are often old, have unhealthy additives, are made from nutritionally inferior parts of the plant, or have had the life-blood of the plant dehydrated out of them. 

So although I admit my spice cabinet was not the first place I started looking while on this journey to better health because most people can't pat their thighs and thank tumeric for the extra inches. As a matter of fact many spices like basil, garlic, rosemary, and thyme have been credited with an array of health benefits. However, none of them can hold a candle to the benefits of pure, therapeutic grade essential oils.

Here are a few essential oils we have begun to use in our wholefoods kitchen. 

• Basil 
• Rosemary 
• Thyme 
• Oregano
• Black Pepper
• Nutmeg
• Cinnamon
• Clove
• Ginger
• Lemon
• Lime

If you use your essential oils while cooking or baking the benefits will not be as strong because heat will degrade the medicinal effects of the oil.  I will say they are still much better than dry powdered spices that have gone through additional processing steps before being packaged.  

One area we use many of our essential oils is in our homemade salad dressings. Look out for future recipes.

While cooking make sure you take a whiff, because often the affects of inhalation are as powerful as using them topically!

I *do not* recommend ingesting any essential oils other than the Young Living's brands. Young Living offers a Seed to Seal guarantee, and their oils have been safely ingested for over 20 years. Many other essential oil brands are “perfume grade” and state right on the bottle that they are not safe to ingest, or even apply topically.

Next time you reach in your spice cabinet and pull out a dead, dehydrated bottle of something, think about the vibrant “life blood” you could be adding to your dishes! Not only do they support most of the major systems in the body, they taste and smell great!

Don't forget to check out some of the awesome recipes we have made with our essential oils!

Don’t have any essential oils? Click here to get started!