The foods that make you smell more attractive
39 comments
·November 2, 2025comrade1234
rowanG077
I would expect that it washes of? Why does jogging help but not a daily shower?
lazide
Sweating releases whatever is in your sweat glands - which builds up. If you sweat a lot really fast, it even ‘washes’ them out in a sense.
Sweat glands are under the skin, and a shower doesn’t touch them.
goda90
I've heard anecdotes that some athletes find they don't even need deodorant because they sweat so much during practice that it's nearly odorless.
skopje
no mention of curry? the Jain guy that works with me smells so good of curry every day that i breathe deep whenever i talk next to him. it is quite pleasant. very much the opposite of stereotypical insults about men from india.
PessimalDecimal
I hope you don't actually start inhaling deeply each time you're around your coworker.
GaryBluto
> i breathe deep whenever i talk to him
Imagine working at the office and whenever one of your co-workers comes up to talk to you he always sniffs incredibly deeply inbetween sentences.
PessimalDecimal
Just needs some lick smacking and a very satisfied "mmmm..."
sh4rks
Probably because Jains don't cook with aliums
amelius
NB. Curry considered dangerous:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/24/d...
decremental
[dead]
andy99
I don’t normally wear deodorant, and afaik normally don’t smell (I know, but I’m married and have discussed this, agree it’s not foolproof, I also have a really good sense of smell). I also exercise a lot and subscribe to the idea that sweating pushes out whatever would normally feed the bacteria and make BO.
Anyway, the point I want to make is that when I am stressed or nervous I definitely find my sweat smells different (and bad). Unless it’s just some heightened awareness and I actually always smell that way but don’t notice, I’m pretty sure there is a real causal relationship.
goda90
I've definitely had stressful days at work where I don't recall any feeling of being too warm, but I find my armpits, especially on my dominate arm, has a very rancid sweat smell that's different than if I were outside on a hot day or exercising.
ChrisMarshallNY
I find rice pudding makes my sweat smell like pound cake. I figured this out, after going on a rice pudding binge for a week, and having my wife indicate that I "smelled funny."
She said that it wasn't bad, but it was certainly odd. I stopped eating it (which is good for me, anyway), and I returned to my usual stinky self.
zorobo
I love cumin (the spice) but stopped having it as it makes my sweat smell bad.
amelius
Some ammunition for vegans:
> The odour of the men on meat-free diets was on average rated as more attractive, more pleasant and less intense.
Klonoar
…and vegetarians, and pescatarians…
ajdude
> and pescatarians
The article goes on to say:
"Fish and beans, for instance, can cause body odour because they're filled with trimethylamine, a very strong-smelling compound. There's even a health condition, called trimethylaminuria – also known as "fish odour syndrome" – which arises when the body can't turn trimethylamine into a non-smelly compound, says Beeson. "This can lead to a strong body odour," she says"
sixtyj
In 4-Hour Chef, Tim Ferris mentions eating steaks from grass-fed cows… He became almost magnetic for women.
an0malous
> Another study of adult men from 2006 by Havlíček's team can offer insights about whether meat makes us more attractive. The scientists looked at 30 men who were either eating a meat or non-meat diet for two weeks. Women rated their scent for their pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity and intensity. The odour of the men on meat-free diets was on average rated as more attractive, more pleasant and less intense.
> "To our surprise, those who were eating meat smelled slightly worse than when they were not eating meat," says Havlíček.
armchairhacker
The people in the study probably ate lower-quality generic meat. Perhaps the hormones (artificial and naturally-produced from stress) caused them to smell bad, not the meat itself. Although I’m skeptical there’s anything magical in grass-fed beef that “magnetizes” women more than a good vegan diet.
goda90
The book was exploring some about the nature of the meat eaten, particularly the fatty acid makeup. Tim Ferris was exploring grass fed beef against other meat, not meat against no meat. It could be some meat is better than others for scent?
goda90
If I recall correctly, he was attributing it to his testosterone levels, which he was measuring. But in the book he also talked about garlic being part of his weight loss supplements, which this article mentions impacts attractiveness too.
defrost
An interesting tangent here from the article:
This is the first study on human axillary odour to sample a large number of subjects, and our findings are relevant to understanding the chemical nature of human odour, and efforts to design electronic sensors (e-nose) for biometric fingerprinting and disease diagnoses.
~ https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rsif.2006...
Any updates on how that's panned out in the past decade; robustness in the face of diet change, application in the field, overt or covert, marketing sales of magicTech to LEO adjacent bodies, etc. ?
jjmarr
Is there a list of the least and most attractive foods?
deadbabe
Take bromelain.
tomcam
It would take a feastful of foods to make me smell more attractive. In other news, I used to be able to identify people by smell but I am thankful to have lost this ability.
zoklet-enjoyer
All of my girlfriends have mentioned being attracted to my scent. I always assumed it was a combination of pheromones and a vegan diet.
esafak
Women sense your power, and they seek the life essence.
cookiengineer
Never drink a café half/half, never eat gelato with milk, and never eat chicken parm. Otherwise you'll lose your powers after the third strike!
IncreasePosts
It could also just be survivorship bias - the girls who found you repulsive never became your girlfriend in the first place to comment on your scent.
amelius
No you should read the article. The effect of eating meat on odour has been researched.
IncreasePosts
The article says that meat diet people smelled worse than'non-meat diet, but it also said "But the same study suggests that people consuming diets with a little bit of fat, meat, egg, and tofu intake were also associated with more pleasant-smelling sweat. Carb-heavy diets produced the least sexy of scents.".
A lot of the vegans I know (a lot! I live in boulder) have a carb heavy diet.
Any way. The point isn't even about diet because diet is just one factor in body scent.
null
If I don't sweat enough, urea builds up in my skin and it begins to smell like pee/old people.
If I don't jog or do something strenuous for a week or two and then go for a hard sweaty run my shirt afterward smells like someone peed on it.
When I do jog/sweat regularly my body odor is completely neutral.