Figure 1 Phytonutrients come in all colors, shapes, and sizes.
Ever play hide the salami? Well, you should, but I don’t just mean the obvious thing here. It turns out that hiding meat from your dinner plate is also a good thing for the health of your penis (and your other parts as well). A lot of scientific studies have examined how diet affects the penis, and the results keep pointing in the same direction—towards the produce section of the grocery store.
The insides of the penis chambers that fill with blood are spongy. Each tiny space has two layers—a special lining cell layer, backed by a very thin muscular layer. The lining cell layer, called vascular endothelium, is the same type of cell layer that lines all the blood vessels of your body, from the large, pulsating aorta arising from your heart to the tiniest capillary in your little toe. This layer releases a variety of amazing molecules. One in particular, nitric oxide (NO), is critical to the health and function of your “meat.” In fact, it is critical to healthy bloodflow in all your other favorite parts—including your heart and your brain, and yes, your little toe. The NO molecule makes the muscle lining stretch, which opens up the spongy spaces of the penis so that they fill with blood, making the penis hard. NO also prevents the spongy tissue from aging and shriveling up. Even though the lining cells can make NO on their own, you can give your penis more by eating certain foods. Furthermore, as we get older, our body’s ability to make its own NO declines, so the more we can help it along when we are young, and the more we can compensate when we age, the better.1 What you put in your mouth directly affects how much NO your penis sponge can get and how healthy the tissue stays. If the tissue becomes unhealthy, it loses its ability to stretch out and fill with blood, and you no longer “get pumped.”
When you go grocery shopping for your penis, or you take it out for dinner, keep in mind that some foods pump up the NO, while other foods actually block NO and even harm the special spongy tissue. Ultimately the menu for success contains lots of vegetables, especially the green leafy ones, and moderate intake of seasonal fruits, especially berries. It contains little or no processed carbohydrates, processed oils, or animal products. The produce section is like nature’s pharmacy. Vegetables and fruits are made of thousands of molecules that nourish and repair our body in ways we are only beginning to understand. In the penis, NO is a gas that lasts for only a few seconds after it is released. We don’t actually eat food that has NO in it, but rather we eat food that has nitrates, NO3. Lots of foods contain nitrates, including hot dogs and other processed deli meats, but these foods have other ingredients that are not good for your meat. The best sources of nitrates are powerhouse vegetables such as beets, lettuce, arugula, and spinach. Other vegetables, such as peas, potatoes, and tomatoes, contain less than 10 percent of the nitrates that the powerhouse veggies do, but we tend to eat them so much more often that they end up providing the bulk of the nitrates most people consume.2
It’s important to get your nitrates from whole foods. A plate of green leafy vegetables will provide more nitrates than your body can produce on its own.3
And it’s even important to chew that food. You see, we, like all mammals, have been chewing our food for millennia, and have special bacteria in our mouths that break down nitrate (NO3) into nitrite (NO2), which eventually gets broken down in our gut into nitric oxide (NO). These bacteria live in the deep cracks in the back of our tongues. Unlike most bacteria in the outside world, they rely on nitrate instead of oxygen. What’s really interesting is that the nitrate these bacteria use does not come directly from the chewed up spinach in your mouth, but instead from the saliva that you secrete when you chew. The nitrate from the food you eat first has to get absorbed in your small intestine, and from there, it gets into your bloodstream. Then the blood drops it off back in your mouth in the salivary glands, where it gets concentrated 20 times. When you chew, saliva is secreted and the bacteria hiding in your tongue convert the nitrate from the saliva into nitrite. You swallow the nitrite and, in your stomach, the acid there converts it to nitric oxide—finally! Other plant nutrients such a polyphenols and vitamin C make these reactions possible. Some nitrate that gets past your stomach is absorbed in your large intestine, where it gets into the bloodstream to be converted into NO by a few different pathways, including one that requires the red blood cells themselves to make it work.4 The NO you get from food works along with the NO that your own tissues make to do its magic on your wand, as well as the rest of you.
So why not just take nitrate supplements? Because nitrates are just part of the puzzle. Thousands of other plant chemicals (phytonutrients) come into play. Their functions and benefits are just beginning to be understood. The most studied group of phytonutrients is called polyphenols. So far, more than 8,000 different polyphenol molecules have been identified, 6,000 of which are categorized as flavonoids. So which ones should you choose? The answer is that we really don’t know. Some fruits and vegetables have more of one kind than another, and the same kind of vegetable can have more or fewer, depending on where and how it was grown. Some are inactivated by heat, so it’s important to include raw vegetables in your diet whenever possible.
Flavonoids can increase production of NO or keep NO from being destroyed. They do this in complex ways, working alone or in combination with each other. They improve blood vessel health, both with and without nitrates and nitrites. Some protect the blood vessels from the damage of a high-fat meal. Some prevent toxic cell-damaging chemicals from ever forming. Flavonoids lower blood pressure in people with high blood pressure. This matters to your penis because high blood pressure makes the muscular layer of the penis sponge too muscular and less able to stretch out and expand with blood. With so many possible combinations of effects, it’s impossible to say which of the many thousands of phytochemicals is the most important. The best approach is to try to get as many of these molecules into your mouth as you can.5
You don’t need to have a subscription to a nutritional science journal to eat the right fruits and vegetables. Studies that simply looked at people who ate a lot of fruits and vegetables, regardless of the variety, showed these people have less heart disease and less high blood pressure, and yes, better erections.6 They live longer too.7
But if you care to peel back the onion, there are theories and some pop science suggesting that some varieties of vegetables, fruits, and grains may trigger inflammation in some people due to higher levels of naturally occurring “antinutritional” molecules called lectins. The theory is that these molecules may get into the circulatory system by breaking through the normal barrier of the intestine and that they then cause your immune system to overreact to your own body. Gluten is an example of a lectin, but there are many other lectins and other “antinutritional” molecules, for that matter. Cooking and fermentation can neutralize lectins. Red kidney beans have a high concentration of lectins, and eating them raw or even undercooked will give you severe food poisoning—but they’re safe if they’re fully cooked. Leafy vegetables, root vegetables, and cruciferous vegetables are lower in lectins than beans, some fruits, seed-bearing vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash (which are actually fruit), and whole grains, where lectins largely reside in the husks.8 Others point out the potential medicinal benefits of lectins, including anticancer applications.9
Maybe this diet sounds like no fun at all. Well, there is some wiggle room. Turns out that one of the most decadent foods of all can actually be good for your penis. That’s right: chocolate. Chocolate lovers were found to have close to a one-third reduction in cardiac disease and stroke, which means healthier hearts pumping more blood through healthier blood vessels to healthier penises.10 The effect is believed to be due to the very high levels of flavonoids in chocolate that boost NO, amongst other benefits. Cocoa is, after all, a fruit. If you are a fan of pistachios, get crackin’ because men in a Turkish study (they grow a lot of pistachios in Turkey) who ate a cup and a half of pistachios a day were more likely to bust a nut at night.11
Figure 1 Phytonutrients come in all colors, shapes, and sizes.
So, now the bad news: Processed carbohydrates are bad. No way around it. Processed carbohydrates is a fancy way of saying “sugar.” When you eat sugar, it gets absorbed rapidly into your bloodstream and it’s used as a source of energy. Of course, we need energy, but given the amount of sugar we need compared to the amount of energy we tend to put in our mouth in the form of sugar, the result is like flooding an engine. Insulin allows the sugar to go where it’s supposed to, into the cells. When you take in more energy than you need, it gets stored away as fat. This fat isn’t just a problem for your wardrobe, it’s a problem for your health. Fat gets deposited in your liver and around your organs. This excess fat actually causes inflammation, which releases toxins into your blood called free radicals. Not to be confused with idealistic college protestors, free radicals are harmful molecules that go around oxidizing your tissue. When steel oxidizes, it becomes rust. When your tissues oxidize, they degrade, malfunction, and age. A host of other harmful molecules is released as well. Even if you aren’t overweight, right after you eat processed sugar, your body is triggered to release other toxins into your blood. These toxins released from a sugary meal or from excess fat also interfere with NO production. Over time, these free radicals and other toxins hurt your body’s ability to release insulin, making a bad situation worse. This eventually leads to prediabetes, and then to diabetes, and then to the dreaded metabolic syndrome—a constellation of high blood pressure, clogged arteries, heart disease, and stroke.12 But long before your heart or brain takes the hit, your little soldier will likely die in bed.
Okay, so maybe you don’t go out of your way to eat sugar cubes, but sugar is lurking everywhere. When America went “low fat,” all the major food manufacturers got on board, but there was a dirty little secret that we have only recently recognized. Food without fat doesn’t taste nearly as good, so to keep the consumer happy, food manufacturers substituted simple carbohydrates for fat. In fact, low-fat, low-calorie foods have even more sugar than regular versions—up to twice as much. The fattier the food is naturally, the more sugar is used to make the low-fat version.13 Why? Because it tastes better, but this has wreaked havoc on our population and is a big reason that we, as a society, are fatter and more impotent than ever.
Sadly, this wasn’t simply a mistake. Beginning in the mid-1960s and through the 1970s, the sugar industry’s primary professional organization, the Sugar Research Foundation, actually promoted changing the American diet to low-fat foods in order to boost the sugar market, all the while concealing evidence that sucrose caused elevated cholesterol and heart disease. Unfortunately, the FDA ultimately let the sugar industry influence recommendations for the low-fat diet that was supposed to reduce cholesterol-related heart disease but instead has led to record levels of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.14
It’s not enough just to avoid sucrose—the sugar that’s in sugar packets. Sugar is also hidden in starch. Starch is nature’s way of efficiently storing sugar in a more complex molecule. In fact, starch is converted to simpler sugar molecules as soon as you put it in your mouth by enzymes in your saliva that surround it and break it down. The more refined the starch, the easier it is to break it down.
Fruits, vegetables, and grains all have varying degrees of starch and sugar, also known as carbohydrates. In the natural state of fruits, vegetables, and grains, these carbohydrates (starch and sugar) are attached to other molecules such as fiber and protein that keep them from being digested and absorbed rapidly when you eat them. These attached carbohydrates are therefore called “complex carbohydrates.” Fiber itself is a complex carbohydrate. Because of its complex arrangement, it cannot be rapidly absorbed into your bloodstream. Some of the complex carbohydrates will just pass through you, and in some cases the fiber will actually draw some fat or sugar out of you on its way through. But simple sugars like sucrose and high-fructose corn syrup don’t have complex molecules to keep them out of your bloodstream. The same goes for “simple” or extracted starches, such as white flour and white rice or cornstarch and potato starch. These starches are missing the other, more complex fiber and protein molecules that would be in the wheat husk, the rice husk, or the potato or corn itself.
It’s best to avoid processed foods, particularly “light” or “low-fat” versions. Avoid things made out of white flour such as most breads, rolls, pastas, pastries, cakes, cookies, breakfast bars, and many cereals. Avoid white rice and food made from rice starch, including cereals and gluten-free breads, cakes, and pastries. Avoid obviously sweetened foods such as soft drinks, sweetened tea and coffee, ice cream, and desserts. Furthermore, when you look at food labels, be aware that sugar or additives that become sugar can masquerade under other names, including anhydrous dextrose, lactose, malt syrup, maltose, fruit nectar, agave, corn syrup, and fructose. Artificial sweeteners may have no calories, but your brain knows it and drives you to get more calories anyway. If you must feed your sweet tooth, consider a safe, natural sweetener, such as erythritol.
So that brings us to fat and meat. Now that it turns out low-fat diets didn’t help us, the FDA has been convinced to let go of the reins when it comes to fats. The latest recommendations for healthy eating place no upper limits on fat consumption. But can that be right? Can we really eat all the bacon we want? Not likely. The same studies that show a rush of bad chemicals after eating a high-sugar meal show the identical thing happening after eating a high-fat meal. What about good fats versus bad fats? While it’s true that essential fatty acids such as omega-3 fatty acid are good for us, they are present in grains, seeds, and nuts and are probably better used by our bodies if we ingest them that way. What about olive oil? Is there really a good oil? A study comparing blood vessel health in young, healthy volunteers after consuming a meal rich in olive oil showed the same old decrease in bloodflow as with any fats, and the toxic molecules causing it were just the same. In this study, olive, soy, and palm oils, both raw and cooked, were also compared and were all just as bad.15 So when it comes to your penis, the best oil is massage oil!
What about the Mediterranean diet? This is a recently popularized diet that incorporates a lot of olive oil. And yes, a Mediterranean diet has indeed been shown to improve blood vessel and heart health in comparison to the typical Western diet.16, 17 On closer inspection, the Mediterranean diet is not just about olive oil. It mostly consists of fresh vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and nuts, with small portions of fish and modest portions of wine. When you look at a Mediterranean meal, you realize that most of the food is the good stuff: vegetables—plenty of green leafy ones—fruits, nuts, grains, and even red wine—full of phytonutrients, the polyphenols, flavonoids, and antioxidants that promote healthy bloodflow and healthy tissues. Taken with the olive oil, they are probably playing defense, letting the oil provide flavor and satisfy the brain’s craving for fats without the unmitigated damage of the oil alone.
Okay, now to beat the meat. What about grass-fed, lean organic beef? What about hormone-free, organic milk and cheese? What about free-range, organic chickens and eggs? What about fresh wild-caught fish? They all have one thing in common: They cost more. But are they really healthy? Well, they are probably healthier than their nonorganic, factory-farm-raised equivalents. But are they good for you like fruits and vegetables are good for you? The answer is no, or at least not likely. Protein is absolutely essential for our bodies, and without it, we would starve and die. Animal protein, whether from steak, chicken, fish, or dairy, is a very concentrated form of protein. A little goes a long way, but as with simple carbohydrates and fats, modern technology has brought way more animal products to our plates than we are truly adapted to eat. Now, it is true that certain populations, such as the Plains Indians who ate mostly buffalo, adapted to a mostly meat diet. But for the vast majority of humans, animals were scarce and consumed in much lower portions than what we get served up at the drive-thru window, at the restaurant table, or even at home when we cook what is waiting for us shrink-wrapped in our freezer.
We actually get enough protein for good health from fruits and vegetables. After all, every cell in a living plant or animal has protein, but it’s much denser in animal muscles than in lettuce leaves. Animal protein is also different from plant protein in that it contains all the amino acids our body uses in each bite. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Our bodies make many, but a few we can only get by eating something else. Plant proteins lack one or another of these amino acids, but over the course of a few meals, depending on your meal plan, all the amino acids are provided by plants. You don’t have to worry about combining vegetables just right at a certain meal. As long as you eat a variety of produce, your body will know how to store and combine the amino acids it needs. The one nutrient that you do need to supplement if you go strict vegan is vitamin B12. About 100 micrograms per week by mouth is fine. B12 used to be available in fruits and vegetables that had a little dirt on them because the bacteria in the soil provided it, but that’s hard to come by in our modern grocery stores.18 Vitamin D is in beef, but your body can make plenty if you get enough sunshine.
There is growing evidence that high levels of animal protein itself, not just fat, result in the same blood vessel disease as do excess simple carbs and excess fat.19 Other diseases and cancers are linked to high animal consumption, including prostate cancer.20 A recent study in mice demonstrated that cutting back on two amino acids, serine and glycine, slowed down certain cancers. Animal products such as meat and eggs have much higher levels of these amino acids than green leafy vegetables—and so do soy and nuts, which are touted for their protein.21
So how much protein is the right amount? In the world’s Blue Zones, where people live the longest, they are, more often than not, eating very few animal products. In rural Asia, for example, where heart disease and many cancers occur at a fraction of their levels in the West, animal products make up only about 5 to 10 percent of the total diet.22 A massive study of more than 60,000 people in England demonstrated that vegetarians and those who ate only small amounts of meat had lower rates of many cancers compared with meat eaters.23
What about fish? Isn’t fish supposed to be good for your heart? The answer is that it’s better than fatty meat but, in reality, the waters of the world are so heavily contaminated with mercury that there really are no untainted fish to eat. Mercury poisoning causes nerve and muscle damage and brain damage to unborn children. It’s a real risk for people consuming more than just a couple servings of fish per week. In fact, pregnant women are advised to avoid fish. Big fish store the mercury from little fish in their fat. “Premium” fish such as tuna or yellowtail have much more mercury in them than do cheap little anchovies. Farm-raised fish are often fed fish oil and therefore have higher levels of mercury as well.
There’s no end to the list of additives food scientists have concocted to flavor, color, texturize, and preserve the food we eat. One in particular deserves special mention: phosphates. Phosphates are found in dark colas and in a wide variety of packaged and processed foods. Elevated levels of phosphates cause the smooth muscles in your arteries to change into bone cells, become calcified, and harden, leading to erectile dysfunction and eventually cardiovascular disease. Phosphates are everywhere, and they don’t always get listed on the label. They are in popular breakfast cereals and they are in processed meats. They are in coffee creamers and they are in flavored waters. They go by many names, such as phosphoric acid, disodium phosphate, and tricalcium phosphate, but usually hidden somewhere in there is the root word phosphate.24 Phosphates are also found naturally in plants, but at much lower levels and bound up in a way that makes them not affect your circulation in the same devastating manner. Rule of thumb: If it’s in a wrapper, box, or can, think twice about putting it in your mouth.25
Why would we be built to crave the very stuff that’s bad for us? Probably because sugar, fat, and protein are all critical nutrients that our body and brain absolutely need for survival. The problem is that our modern technology has given us too much of a good thing—to the point where now they have become toxins. It’s like oxygen. You need oxygen to live, and our atmosphere is about 20 percent oxygen, but if you breathe 100 percent oxygen from an oxygen tank for an extended period of time, it will be highly toxic to your lungs because it oxidizes their lining with free radicals. Just as our atmosphere contains less oxygen than oxygen tanks, food that occurs naturally contains a much smaller percentage of sugar, fat, and protein than what we manufacture and process. So here’s the problem: Our brains evolved to seek sugar, fat, and protein in a world where they were scarce. That part of the brain doesn’t know that we discovered agriculture and industry and now there’s way too much sugar and fat and animal protein out there, so our brain keeps driving us to eat them. Furthermore, the level of sugar and fat we eat on a regular basis causes our brain to set that level as “normal,” and when we drop below it, the brain thinks we haven’t eaten enough and generates a craving.
Fortunately, your brain can be reset if you give it a few months. The same plate of vegetables that seems cruel and unusual will actually satisfy you several months later if you stick with the new regimen. It’s not easy, but eventually the craving does go away as the brain resets to the new normal. But let’s face it, it’s not likely that you or I will adhere to a pristine diet all the time. Well, don’t despair—there’s a workaround. It turns out that eating natural produce—vegetables, fruits, and whole grains—is not only a good offense to keep you in the game, but actually plays defense when you choose to eat something less healthy for your penis. It turns out that if you eat a lot of green leafy vegetables or other polyphenol-rich food along with simple carbs or high-fat, animal-based foods, there is a protective effect, and fewer toxins and free radicals are unleashed on your blood vessels and tissues.26
I personally take a 90/10 approach. I try to keep my meals about 90 percent plant based, without excess fats and simple carbohydrates, but I flex out to anything and everything when I’m served a meal caringly prepared by friends or family, or when I am celebrating or vacationing with others. Like we say in surgery when we irrigate a dirty wound, the solution to pollution is dilution. So eat the tasty “bad” stuff if you must—just not all the time.
Figure 2 Summary of nutrition effects on the penis