Jojoba oil is not safe to ingest. Unlike cooking oils made from olives, coconuts, or seeds, jojoba oil is not a true oil at all. It is a liquid wax, composed of roughly 98% wax esters, and your digestive system cannot break it down the way it handles normal dietary fats. It also contains a naturally occurring toxic compound that causes significant gastrointestinal distress.
Why Jojoba Oil Is Not a True Oil
Most edible plant oils are made up of triglycerides, a type of fat your body recognizes and digests efficiently. Jojoba is fundamentally different. Its molecules are long-chain wax esters, formed by fatty acids bonded to fatty alcohols. These wax esters have a unique structure where the two double bonds sit far apart from each other, separated by an ester bond. This makes them chemically distinct from any fat you’d find in food.
Because your digestive enzymes are designed to break down triglycerides, they struggle with wax esters. The result is that jojoba passes through your gut largely undigested. This leads to fat malabsorption, which can cause loose, pale, greasy stools that float and smell unusually strong. Persistent fat malabsorption can also interfere with your body’s ability to absorb fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K.
Simmondsin: The Toxic Compound in Jojoba
Beyond the wax itself, jojoba contains simmondsin, a cyanoglycoside found naturally in the plant. Animal studies have consistently shown simmondsin to be toxic when consumed. Its primary effect is severe appetite suppression, which it achieves by indirectly activating receptors for a gut hormone called cholecystokinin (CCK). This hormone normally helps regulate digestion by stimulating gastric acid, triggering pancreatic enzymes, and slowing stomach emptying. When artificially overstimulated by simmondsin, these processes go haywire.
In human terms, that translates to nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and headaches. These are the same side effects observed in studies of oral CCK-stimulating drugs tested on people. At least one case report documents a 62-year-old man who arrived at an emergency department with worsening diarrhea, body aches, restlessness, dry eyes, and intense thirst that began immediately after eating homemade jojoba seed butter. He had essentially created a concentrated dose of simmondsin.
What Animal Studies Show
Most of what we know about jojoba ingestion comes from animal feeding studies, since ethical constraints prevent deliberate human trials of a known toxic substance. In rats fed jojoba meal during pregnancy, fetal body weight dropped compared to controls. Skeletal development was also delayed, though researchers attributed this largely to the appetite-suppressing effect of simmondsin: the animals simply ate far less food. Pups born to jojoba-fed mothers weighed less at birth, though the difference disappeared within a week and the offspring developed normally afterward.
The takeaway from these studies is that simmondsin’s primary danger is its potent suppression of food intake, which causes downstream problems like malnutrition and poor growth. But the compound itself has not been cleared as safe at any dose for human consumption.
Regulatory Status
Jojoba oil has no approval as a food ingredient in any major regulatory framework. The U.S. FDA has not granted it Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) status for food use. While the European Food Safety Authority has evaluated several natural waxes for use as food additives (beeswax, carnauba wax, candelilla wax), and jojoba wax data has been referenced in broader safety reviews of other waxes, this does not amount to an endorsement of jojoba for eating. There is no established acceptable daily intake for jojoba oil or its components in food.
Jojoba oil is regulated and marketed exclusively as a cosmetic and industrial ingredient. When you see it in skincare products, lip balms, or hair treatments, that external use is its intended application.
What If You Accidentally Swallowed Some
A tiny accidental amount, like licking your lips after applying a jojoba-based lip balm, is unlikely to cause problems. The concentration of simmondsin in highly refined cosmetic-grade jojoba oil is minimal, and the volume involved is negligible. The risk comes from deliberately consuming jojoba oil in meaningful quantities, whether by drinking it straight, adding it to food, or making something like the jojoba seed butter in the emergency case described above.
If you’ve consumed a significant amount and experience nausea, diarrhea, cramping, or vomiting, those symptoms are consistent with what the medical literature describes. They typically begin shortly after ingestion. Persistent or severe symptoms warrant medical attention, particularly if dehydration sets in from prolonged diarrhea or vomiting.
Safer Alternatives for Internal Use
If you’re looking for an oil to consume for health benefits, several options are well-established and safe. Olive oil, avocado oil, flaxseed oil, and coconut oil are all true triglyceride-based fats that your body can digest and absorb. Each has a different nutritional profile, but all are recognized as food-grade oils with long histories of safe consumption. Jojoba oil belongs in your skincare routine, not in your kitchen.