Logging in essential oils and medicine?

katsushii
katsushii Posts: 31 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hi!

I often add a drop or two of essential oil to my water, for example at night, I add lavender, and right now I am drinking cold water with an essential oil blend of: grapefruit peel, lemon peel, peppermint plant, ginger root, cinnamon bark and lemongrass. Sometimes I add pink pepper oil to my water. It just adds flavor. I have no idea of its actual chemical effects on my mood or energy levels. (Though the lavender helps me calm down at night, it might be a placebo effect.)

Is it worth documenting these in my food diary on Myfitnesspal?

Additionally, is it worth documenting on Myfitnesspal the prescribed supplements that I take, such as iron pills and vitamin D? The iron pills actually help me, significantly moreso than food with tons of iron in it.

Regular users: Do you document yours in your food diary? Nutritionists: Are vitamin supplements significant enough to document on MFP? Are essential oils significant enough to document on MFP?

Please feel free to reply with any additional comments on this topic!

Thank you!

Replies

  • MikePTY
    MikePTY Posts: 3,814 Member
    What are you using MFP to track? Your calories or something else? If these essential oils have calories in them, then they are worth adding. If you are using MFP to track your Iron, then it is worth adding so you can track how much iron you are consuming. But if you don't care about iron outside of your supplement, then there is no need. Vitamin D is not tracked by MFP, so there is no real benefit to adding it unless you want to remind yourself that you took it.
  • katsushii
    katsushii Posts: 31 Member
    Hey, I am using it to track the items that I eat and their nutritional content, for example sugars, carbs, protein, fiber, calcium, iron, but please note all of these are merely examples only if applicable. You are reminding me that MFP is merely a calorie tracker. I have no idea if the oils or pills have calories, but would assume they do albeit negligible. Thank you.

  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
    As far as the iron and D supplements, what @MikePTY said.

    The essential oil question is a really interesting one. Prepare for a science digression :)

    I'd consider one drop per day of most things to be negligible and wouldn't log it. However, if you're adding essential oil to several drinks per day, then it's going to add up and its calorie content becomes a valid question. My knee-jerk reaction is to log about a half teaspoon of oil (approximately 20 calories). However, then I asked...is essential oil actually "oil"? Or is it just the extracted aromatic compounds from a plant substance (i.e., called "oil" but not actually fat)?

    I've done some research, but I'm not confident of the answer. Essential oils are not, chemically speaking, the same thing as dietary fats because they do not contain fatty acids. They would therefore not have the same number of calories as cooking oils, since the energy we get from eating fats comes from breaking apart those fatty acid chains. "Essential oil" seems to be a general term for various aromatic compounds extracted from a plant (https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm:978-0-85729-323-7/1.pdf).

    I still don't know how many calories are in essential oils, but my best guess is zero calories because they do not seem to contain any of the substances the human body can use for fuel. I would just say make sure that you are using food grade essential oil, since some are not safe for consumption and are only meant to be used externally. However, I would be really interested in learning more if any chemistry nerds can weigh in.
  • JetJaguar
    JetJaguar Posts: 801 Member
    When I took multivitamins I logged them mainly as a reminder that I took one that day, even though the calories themselves were negligible.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    I'm anemic and have to ingest almost 400% of the RDA of iron in order to stay in Low Normal. I just log food and try to get slightly over 100% there. I get the rest from my supplement, which I do not log.

    I don't look at foods that were fortified with iron as contributing - since I had to go through a lot of trial and error to find a form of iron that helps me (the first two forms of iron prescribed by my doctor did not) I assume food manufacturers who add iron are using an even cheaper, more useless form.

    During the week of my period I have liverwurst for lunch and red meat for dinner, and feel that this helps make up for my increased need for iron during this time.
  • Strawblackcat
    Strawblackcat Posts: 944 Member
    Most vitamins/supplements shouldn't require logging. Most multivitamins / mineral supplements provide micronutrients, which generally don't have a quantifiable caloric value. However, supplements that are fat or oil based (liquid fish oils, flax oils, and supplements contained within large softgels, for example) should be logged. A teaspoon of cod liver oil has 40 calories, and a 1000 milligram softgel pill has about 10 calories most of the time. Gummy vitamins and chewable usually should also be logged, since they almost always have enough sugar, starches, and sugar alcohols in them that they have caloric value. If you're taking more than one kind of supplement of this nature, the calories can start to add up.

    A typical regimen could look something like:

    1 tsp fish oil (40 calories) + gummy multivitamin (40 calories) + gummy probiotic (20 calories) + elderberry syrup (30 calories) = 130 calories from supplements.

    So, yeah, certain supplements should be accounted for in your diary. But a normal tableted multi or a vitamin c capsule shouldn't matter.


    As for the essential oils, I assume that you're not using any more than a drop or two in a large glass of water. I wouldn't bother logging that. If anything, quick add 10 calories or something, if it makes you feel better. That said, I do caution you on consuming essential oils. Even for edible plants, such as lemons and oranges, they're incredibly concentrated. For example, it takes about 50 lemon rinds to make one bottle of lemon essential oil. Furthermore, some companies use suboptimal extraction methods, and leave solvents in the finished product. And, if the oils were conventional, they can be a concentrated source of accumulated pesticides as well.

    You'd probably be better off infusing actual fruit and herbs into your water. Or, you could use natural flavor enhancers, such as these: sweetleaf-liquid-stevia-sweet-drops-large.jpg
  • ekboh
    ekboh Posts: 53 Member
    Why are you drinking essential oils, admitting you don't know their effects and admit they have no measurable impact? Seems like a waste of money and possible calories, not to mention putting a non-food grade substance in your body that probably isn't recommended by a doctor. Some of those essential oil companies claim to eb "food grade", but are they FDA approved? I would personally proceed with caution with those oils. Try actual fruit to flavor your water or La Croix/ Hint water!

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