Does eating meat affect your scent?
Check out this research abstract I recently found. I can’t wait to read the full article:
"Axillary body odor is individually specific and potentially a rich source of information about its producer. Odor individuality partly results from genetic individuality, but the influence of ecological factors such as eating habits are another main source of odor variability. However, we know very little about how particular dietary components shape our body odor. Here we tested the effect of red meat consumption on body odor attractiveness. We used a balanced within-subject experimental design. Seventeen male odor donors were on "meat" or "nonmeat" diet for 2 weeks wearing axillary pads to collect body odor during the final 24 h of the diet. Fresh odor samples were assessed for their pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and intensity by 30 women not using hormonal contraceptives. We repeated the same procedure a month later with the same odor donors, each on the opposite diet than before. Results of repeated measures analysis of variance showed that the odor of donors when on the nonmeat diet was judged as significantly more attractive, more pleasant, and less intense. This suggests that red meat consumption has a negative impact on perceived body odor hedonicity."
The article is from the Chemical Senses journal, volume 31 issue 8, October 2006.
This method of having men (or women) wear axillary (basically, arm pit) pads to collect body odor samples is commonly used. I find this report interesting. Given that we have sweat glands in the genital area too, and that smell can have an impact on taste, I wonder to what extent eating meat may influence a person’s perception of genital smell/taste.
February 11th, 2008 at 10:38 am
That would explain why I would fall for bovine midwestern lasses during my stint at a meatpacking plant (ba-doom-cha).
February 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
I like your musk.
February 11th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
And yet the question, Ed the Gent, is whether the bovine lasses liked your - as J.H. says - musk?
February 11th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
As a vegetarian myself, I just love it when stuff like this comes out. “See? If you stop eating meat chicks will dig you more!” But as a logical person (yes, some vegetarians actually are logical
) I have to wonder about the results of this study. I ‘m not saying they didn’t find what they found, or that anything was wrong with their methods. I just find their results to be the opposite of what I would expect based on evolution.
I would think that, back in the caveman days, a man that ate plenty of red meat was a strong hunter. A good provider. So you’d think this would be more attractive to a potential mate. You’d think that the females would grow to appreciate whatever scent the red meat produced and see it as a sign of virility, even. But maybe evolution is exactly the reason that the results of this study turned out the way they did? It’s been a long time since most of our societies were hunters in the wild. Perhaps the female of the species has evolved to appreciate the less-meaty diet. I’m not sure exactly why, on a raw evolutionary level, they would - but it’s interesting to think about.
February 11th, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Great points, Misty. I got the full text of the article today and read it and it actually seems like an incredibly sound study. I’ll blog about the details in a post tomorrow afternoon. However, I think an important point to note is that it’s not that the odors of meat eaters were found to be UNattractive, it was just that in comparison to men who did not eat meat, the odors were not AS attractive/pleasant/intense. There was no difference in women’s ratings of masculinity of the odors. My line of research is not in the area of odors but I always enjoy listening to colleagues who study this sort of thing - I find it fascinating! Glad it sparked some interest in you too!
February 12th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I like steak more than sex anyway…but hey, I’m a Brit!
February 12th, 2008 at 11:21 am
And some might suggest that whatever you may be lacking in the “scent” department (if anything - again, this is relatively new research), you may make up for with an accent. Just ask Ed the Gent.