Healthy Sexual Function

[BrownEye]

http://www.sheknows.com/health-and-welln...ter-lovers

How red meat saps sexual performance

To understand why a vegetarian diet can heat things up, it's important to understand how eating meat can cool things off.

According to Lee Hitchcox, author of Long Life Now, ingesting high amounts of saturated fats restricts blood flow to men's private parts and increases blood pressure, thereby causing impotence. Since animal products, particularly red meat, tend to be high in saturated fats, it isn't a stretch to assume a direct link between high red meat consumption and loss of sexual function.

Obesity can lessen your lovin'

Further evidence to support a plant-based diet comes from the growing body of research showing that vegetarians and flexitarians are healthier, weigh less, and are at a reduced risk of disease as compared to their meat-eating counterparts.

Though many factors contribute to being overweight, reducing or eliminating red meat from the diet is one of the first strategies that weight loss professionals suggest to people who want to slim down. Besides the health dangers that being overweight presents, people who are overweight also suffer lower sexual stamina and lower energy.

Sexual benefits of eating plants

Typically, a vegetarian diet is healthier than a diet high in meat because a balanced diet of plant-based meals is more replete with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and "good for you" unsaturated fats, and it is typically lower in calories.

According to Hitchcox, the only saturated fats that come from plants are from coconut products and palm oil. And many health experts say that the type of saturated fat found in coconut oil is different from animal-based saturated fat and actually quite healthy. (Health benefits of coconut oil)

What does this mean? Vegetarians make better lovers because they eat a diet that is devoid of impotence-inducing, overweight-causing, animal-based saturated fats.

Plant-based foods boost your sexual energy

Important when it comes to daily activities as well as bedroom romps, being vegetarian can lead to more energy. (Perhaps you've noticed that after eating a large slab of meat or a fat burger, you'd rather be like the lion lazing after the kill, than the energizer bunny revving to go.)

Certified nutritional consultant at the Huntington College of Health Sciences Heidi VanPelt-Belle explains, "Vegetables, especially dark leafy greens in their raw state, provide all the necessary amino acids for protein building and, because of fast assimilation, give you more energy." Ultimately, this means vegetarians are more energetic (in bed and out). Further, people with élan are also often seen as being more attractive to potential mates.

Vegetarians smell better

In addition to being healthier, trimmer and more energetic than meat-eaters, research indicates that vegetarians also smell better.

According to a study at Charles University in the Czech Republic, women preferred men who ate a vegetarian diet because the men had a "significantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense" body odor than the male participants who ate meat. VanPelt-Belle seconds that: "If you eat meat, you are eating rot which leaves you smelling bad."

Less aggression, more compassion

Finally, there is evidence to suggest that vegetarians are calmer and gentler people, making them more attuned to their mates.

An article in Better Nutrition points out that the fiber in vegetarian diets may cause men to be less aggressive, and therefore, better lovers. Also, some argue that people who kill for their own sustenance are less likely to be compassionate with their mate. Many vegetarians won't even date someone who doesn't share their plant-based views (to avoid a buzz-kill conversation that can suck the life out of a sexually charged moment).

Bottom line

There's more to being a good lover than just diet, but rocking the bedroom can start with incorporating more vegetarian-based meals into your lifestyle. Sure, eating meat may taste good, but if limiting it means you're healthier, more attractive, less smelly, and more likely to sizzle in between the sheets, being vegetarian doesn't sound all that bad, does it?

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16891...kpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed

The effect of meat consumption on body odor attractiveness.

Havlicek J, Lenochova P.

Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University, Husnikova 2075, 158 00 Prague 13, Czech Republic. jan.havlicek@fhs.cuni.cz



Axillary body odor is individually specific and potentially a rich source of information about its producer. Odor individuality partly results from genetic individuality, but the influence of ecological factors such as eating habits are another main source of odor variability. However, we know very little about how particular dietary components shape our body odor. Here we tested the effect of red meat consumption on body odor attractiveness. We used a balanced within-subject experimental design. Seventeen male odor donors were on "meat" or "nonmeat" diet for 2 weeks wearing axillary pads to collect body odor during the final 24 h of the diet. Fresh odor samples were assessed for their pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and intensity by 30 women not using hormonal contraceptives. We repeated the same procedure a month later with the same odor donors, each on the opposite diet than before. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the odor of donors when on the nonmeat diet was judged as significantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense. This suggests that red meat consumption has a negative impact on perceived body odor hedonicity.