Foods To Get You In The Mood

Valentine’s dinner is often a sumptuous array of foods designed to increase the libido.

Many traditional aphrodisiacs are thought to inspire lust through their shapes or indulgent flavours.

After the jump is a list of food combinations that scientists have discovered increases the blood flow to where you want it to go.

Forget caviar, champagne and chocolate.

Scientists have determined that the following scents physically increase desire:

• lavender and pumpkin pie (men)
• doughnuts and licorice (men)
• baby powder (women)
• Good & Plenty candy and cucumber (women)
• Good & Plenty candy and banana bread (women)
• WARNING: Cherries decrease desire (women)

Good luck trying to plan a meal around that!

Common romantic foods often have a scientific basis, but a closer examination finds them fairly useless as mood enhancers.

Chocolate does contain chemicals that trigger feeling of euphoria, but a 130 pound person would have to eat 25 pounds to have enough phenylethylamine in their system to alter their mood. Oysters contain zinc, which enhances sperm production and garlic has an amino acid that could help with erections, but both would have to be eaten in larger amounts and over a longer period of time than a Valentine’s dinner would allow. Chili peppers mimic the physical sensations of sexual arousal, by quickening the pulse and causing the person to sweat — sexy.

I’ll stick to the old standby of candle light and a nice bottle of wine.