What you eat can help keep you get or remain trim, add pounds to your frame, or determine whether you need to wash your shirt (we’re looking at you, mustard!). Turns out, your diet can also influence how you smell, according to recent Australian study titled “Diet quality and the attractiveness of male body odor.”
“We’ve known for a while that odor is an important component of attractiveness, especially for women,” Ian Stephen a professor at Macquarie University in Australia and one of the study’s authors, revealed to NPR.
B.O. is created when the bacteria on skin meets and greets sweat that pops out of your sweat glands. Most of us wear deodorant to mask the stank, but you, of course, know a few smelly hippies that go against the grain and piss everyone off.
Even so, to figure out which foods were more desirable to women, the docs asked healthy young men using a spectrophotometer, an instrument that measures light intensity. After snacking on colorful veggies—radish, peppers, beets, etc.—the skin takes on the color of the plant pigment (carotenoids) that comprise the red, yellow, and orange foods. The results are “a good indicator of how much fruits and vegetables we’re eating,” adds Stephen.
A closer look into the findings demonstrates that, unsurprisingly, a Mediterranean diet that consists of more veggies than meat isn’t just healthier for you, but also creates a more pleasant B.O. In short:
Eat This: Fruit & Veggies
The scent was described as more “fruity” and “floral” than meaty or carby diets. Do you think that’d change if the dude ate dragon fruit? Just curious. And along providing you with polyphenols, micronutrients packed with healthy antioxidants, veggies are low in calories.
Don’t Eat This: Meat
A 2006 study found that women dug a guy’s scent when he had a diet that was void of meat (or mostly void of meat), including characterized eggs, cheese, soy, fruit, and vegetables.
And for those of you looking to make better food choices to shed a few pounds rather than attempt to stink less, you’re in luck. We’ve compiled 20 tips that’ll help you lose weight fast. How fast? Put it this way, you’ll have dropped at least .34 of an ounce simply by clicking the link. Seriously.
