Carrots, yams, and pomegranate seeds have estrogen-related factors and could supplement deficiencies in women. 3 A lack of substances called histamines, in either blood or tissues, has been linked with an inability to reach orgasm in both men and women. 4 Histamine production appears to be triggered by the presence of folic acid and vitamins B 6 and B 12. Foods rich in folic acid include organ meats, asparagus, leafy greens, peanuts, mushrooms, whole-grain cereals, lean beef, and egg yolk— all of which, in one dietary tradition or another, have been considered aphrodisiacs. Other foods, if eaten in large quantities, may have a cooling effect on sexual ardor. Turnips, kale, cabbage, and soybeans( including tofu) contain traces of antithyroid factors; as the thyroid regulates sexual desire, activity, and fertility, when consumed in large enough quantities these foods could possibly inhibit sexuality by lowering thyroid energy. 5
Oriental folk rumor, which I’ ve been unable to verify, has it that tofu“ cools the sex organs” and is used by monks for the specific purpose of aiding them in maintaining celibacy. In this light, it’ s interesting to note that the traditional Japanese diet, high in thyroid-depressing soybean products, also contains appreciable amounts of seaweeds, rich in thyroid-stimulating iodine. SOCIAL Feasts and exchanges of food are an integral part of marriage ceremonies the world over. In Tikopia, one of the Santa Cruz Islands in the Pacific, the ritual includes a meal with unmarried friends; in the Trobriand Islands, there are complex exchanges of food between the two families. In Sri Lanka, when a woman cooks for a man, it indicates that she has a sexual relationship with him, and she refers to her mate as“ the one I cook for.” 6 In all traditional cultures it is taken as a matter of course that food affects sexual performance and health. Carrots and leeks were considered“ love medicine” by the ancient Greeks; asparagus with egg yolks was a potion recommended in the Arabian Perfumed Garden for the Soul’ s Delectation; seventeenth-century Frenchmen noted that fish and shellfish encourage lovemaking. 7 Other foods considered sexually stimulating include camel’ s hump and sea slugs( for the Arabs), shark’ s fin and bird’ s-nest soup( in China), and prunes( in Elizabethan England). When the potato and tomato were first introduced in Europe, they were considered poisonous; eventually, in a curious switch, they gained a reputation as aphrodisiacs. In our own society, caviar and champagne are the stereotyped seduction foods, and, as we’ ll see in the next section, the choice is quite reasonable. ENERGETIC All of life is an interplay of opposites, powered by the yearning of their ultimate unification. When the outer and the inner, expansion and contraction, become one, time disappears, and we glimpse infinity. The sexual act is perhaps the only moment in which most humans are in fact able to unify these opposites, even if only for a few moments, and, if there is a true union, reach an instant of timelessness and ecstasy. Sex is an energetic exchange, a delicate balance between expansive and contractive forces. In broad terms, the male embodies expansiveness, because of his external sex organs and his traditional mode of action in the world. The female embodies contractiveness, with her internal sexual organs and her traditional home and childcentered activities. Both the male and the female, however, manifest expansion and contraction during the sex act, and both male and female secrete small amounts of hormones of the opposite sex. Food affects sexuality because of its own expansive and contractive properties. It is no accident that some classic food combinations of romance combine the extremes of expansiveness and contractiveness: champagne( expansive) and caviar( contractive), for example, or honey and eggs, and beer and oysters. I’ ve even heard of coffee and buckwheat as being particularly effective! Keeping this in mind, we can see the role of aphrodisiacs in a new light: An aphrodisiac is a substance that will expand and relax someone who is sexually too tight, or contract and strengthen someone who is too spacy and scattered. Aside from their chemical and nutritional components, it may be for that reason that foods as diverse as eggs, fish roe, beef, and hard cheeses( contractive), and asparagus, honey, hot spices, mushrooms, and tomatoes( expansive) have all at one time or another been found to have“ aphrodisiac” effects. What many of us have come to dismiss as nonsense makes perfect sense if we accept a broader view of how food affects us. Because the effect of a food, drink, or herb varies with the condition of the individual, the effectiveness of“ aphrodisiacs” is neither universal nor generally testable. Much depends on the customary diet: If you consume two eggs daily, another egg will not necessarily have a sex-enhancing effect. But if you rarely eat them, a single egg may indeed have a powerful influence. Cultural factors must also be taken into account: Europeans will possibly be only minimally sensitive to bird’ s-nest soup, the traditional Chinese aphrodisiac, while the Masai