What Aphrodisiacs are in your Grocery Love Cart?

I remember being a kid the first time I heard the term ‘aphrodisiacs’. I spent entirely too long thinking they had something to do with styling afros, rather than being foods that supposedly stimulate sexual desire. Aphrodisiacs, named after the Greek goddess of pleasure, beauty, love, passion, and procreation are meant to help you get in the mood, but apparently it’s somewhat unreliable. What gets one person going might do nothing for someone else, so it’s an inexact ‘science’ at best and a weird way to get sexual about food at worst.

Photo: Amber Engle/Unsplash

But if you want to give it a good old-fashioned shot, I’ve taken the liberty of looking into a few that you can try out this Valentine’s Day.

1.  Nope. I refuse to believe this is an aphrodisiac. Literally, any booze could be listed here and it would get people dropping their pants because alcohol lowers inhibitions. Yes, champagne SOUNDS sexy but that’s only because you don’t want to see Jagerbombs on an aphrodisiac list, even though they probably work the exact same way.
2. Apparently celery contains androsterone, a male pheromone that is attractive in men. The amounts involved though are infinitesimally small, so really, it’s more like you get turned on by the chomping sounds of eating celery, reminding us of our cavemen origins, since breaking celery sounds like breaking bones. Here’s a video that proves it (sorry if you came here to feel sexy).
3. Now I’m just getting mixed messages… I would have thought loading up on garlic would harm your chances of getting lucky. But, apparently there’s no need to hold off adding toum to your kebabs because garlic contains allicin which helps with blood flow.
4. Figs are high in amino acids, which supposedly helps with libido but mostly it’s apparently because they just look sexy. Yeah, excuse me if I am not on board with that plan, especially after reading this article about wasps laying eggs in figs.
5. Any millennials reading this? Remember how we got told we couldn’t afford to buy property because we liked avocado toast too much? Well, turns out we were onto something. High levels of folic acid, vitamin B9 and B6 makes avocado an aphrodisiac because of increased energy and greater testosterone production.
6. When I say aphrodisiac, you’re probably thinking of oysters, right? These babies are loaded with zinc, which is good for testosterone production and they apparently help produce dopamine, a neurochemical associated with desire. That said, when I asked my husband what I look sexy eating, the answer was not oysters. In fact, he said oysters are the least sexy thing to watch me eat, largely because of his allergy to seafood. Apparently flirting with death doesn’t do it for him.
7. This summer fruit contains citrulline, something that increases nitric acid in the body, which increases blood flow and sexual arousal. I’m not sure about that, but Harry Styles in his Watermelon Sugar music video can probably do the same thing, for a fraction of the price.

Happy Valentine’s Day!