Life

Do Vegetarians Have Better Sex?

by Nathalie O'Neill

Here's another reason to consider going vegetarian — or at least flexatarian: new research suggests soy is rich in sex hormones (precisely, phytoestrogens) that make you want to get it on. My own extensive internet research has yet to reveal where this mythical soy-endorsing research comes from, but hey, we were going to have tofu for dinner anyway.

And if you think about it, eating soy because you think it's an aphrodisiac might be just as silly as eating meat because you think it makes you more manly. I'm not making this up – a study published in Psychology of Men & Masculinity, a journal of the American Psychological Association, found that men like eating meat because it makes them feel like studs (in other words, good luck trying to get your boyfriend to try the whole tofu-is-an-aphrodisiac thing with you).

No matter what you think of all this, make sure you take your soy organic and fermented (think miso and tempeh), because processed soy is a big no-no. "When we move away from the actual soybean on to soy milk and the soy protein isolated in energy bars and veggie bars, that’s where it starts to become processed and a ghost of a nutrition food," Amy Shapiro, R.D., a nutritionist and founder of Real Nutrition NYC, told Refinery29. Who's hungry for some miso soup?