Believe It Or Not, A Trip To Your Local Grocery Store Could Give You All The Ammo You Need In The Bedroom

From WCBSTV.com
By Chris Wragge

For many these are days of high anxiety, filled with stress that hangs over us on the job, at home, and, yes, even in the bedroom.

So if all that worry is sapping your urge for intimacy, CBS 2 HD has some things you can do to ensure a lively libido.

And the solution may be as close as your neighborhood grocery.

From the delights of champagne and caviar to garden variety fruits and vegetables, what we eat can affect our love life — just as stress can, too.

“During stressful times your body produces hormones and chemicals that are the exact antithesis of what a great sex life would be, so we have to counteract that,” sex therapist Eric Garrison said.

And one way to do that is with food.

“When we have that chocolate mousse and feel the chemical effect of the chocolate as well as the physical effect, sex is very similar to that,” Garrison said.

The dictionary defines an aphrodisiac as something that arouses sexual desire. And according to food historian Francine Segan there are foods that have been recognized for centuries for doing just that.

“Pepper, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger … all these spices that heat up your system were considered to be aphrodisiac,” Segan said. “They saw right away you take a little nibble your tongue tingles; you get a little warm, you get flushed; you have to imagine it works in other parts of the body, too.”

The sharp, biting flavors of garlic and onions also stimulate blood flow, and were used long before that little blue pill.

“Fruit was considered to be an aphrodisiac,” Segan said. “It’s got sugar, it’s sweet and sensual in your mouth and in fact in the Renaissance they used to call raspberries ‘fruit nipples.’”

And we’ve all heard about oysters.

“Oysters are high on the long, long list of aphrodisiacs, and in fact seafood and Aphrodite the goddess of love go together,” Garrison said.

And there’s more than history here, there’s some medical fact. Oysters contain zinc, which controls the hormones progesterone and testosterone in men, and that has a positive effect on the libido. They should be eaten raw for the best effect.

There’s also the sensuous nature of foods like honey, or the heat induced by spices like ginger, especially when made into tea, and spiced up even more when it’s splashed on fruit or stirred into sweets.

So spicy or sweet, there’s plenty to pick from, and psychologists say this is one area where a placebo can be just as effective.

“If it’s in your mind and you think it’s going to make you feel sexier, it’s going to make you more confident. You’re going feel more turned on. You better believe it’s going to turn on a partner,” Dr. Jane Greer said.

Food historians say they know what doesn’t work. For starters, lettuce — because of it’s “limp” quality, and, ages ago, coffee!

In olden times, it was said coffee houses kept men out of their own homes for too long — away from their wives — the opposite of the desired effects of aphrodisiacs.

April 27th, 2009