Letterman responded with “Wow! He goes crazy New Year’s Eve!”
The truth is my father does eat some chocolate every New Year’s Eve. But it isn’t just a little bit and it usually isn’t even dark chocolate. He has between twelve and fifteen Reese’s peanut butter cups!
No one is saying that a lot of dark chocolate is healthy—it has too much fat and can contribute to weight gain in a hurry. Don’t go out and eat a bunch of chocolates now. But what I am saying is that the plant-based world is filled with wonderful treats, whether it’s ripe tropical fruits, creamy rich nuts, or, yes, even a little lip-smacking good chocolate now and then.
22
Plants Light Up Your Love Life: Men
Q uestion: What disease will kill one out of every two men and women? Answer: Cardiovascular disease. Question: What is the first clinical sign of heart disease in men? Answer: Erectile dysfunction. That’s right. The canary in the coal mine when it comes to male heart disease is an underperforming penis. What’s the best way to avoid it? Is it by downing handfuls of red meat? No! Is it by downing handfuls of blue pills? No! The best way to perform in bed is by downing handfuls of leafy green vegetables and whole plants.
The idea that meat is good for sex is just another in a long line of medical myths. For example, the nineteenth-century dietary crusader Sylvester Graham (famous for the cracker named after him) thought that meat encouraged “sensuality.” Even odder, English schoolteachers in the early twentieth century told their pupils to skip meat in order to reduce their urges to do what teenage boys do when they are alone. Fat chance of that!
Another school of thought was that impotence was caused primarily by psychological issues, and that eating meat made the male ego stronger and, therefore, more psychologically fit to get sexually aroused.
Wrong on all accounts. Doctors now believe that around 85 percent of impotence issues are caused by medical or physical problems. And for the thirty million American men who suffer from erectile dysfunction, meat is actually part of the problem. Why?
What makes an erection really great is good blood flow. When men become aroused, their bodies release a chemical called nitric oxide that has the same effect on their Johnson that nitrous oxide has on a car: It supercharges it. Blood flows to the penis and increases it to roughly twice its normal size, and, just like that, you’re off to the races. But you won’t be racing anywhere if your blood isn’t racing down there.
Says Terry Mason, the chief medical officer of the Cook County Health and Hospitals system in Illinois, about a discussion at a 2010 joint meeting of cardiologists and urologists at the National Medical Association convention, “We found [a] strong relationship [between erectile dysfunction and a fatty diet]… due to damage to the endothelial cells. The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels. Now, the penis has more endothelial cells per unit volume than any other organ in the body. So anything that would affect endothelial cell function would be a problem in the penis.”
That’s where meat comes in. Obesity, heart disease, atherosclerosis, and high blood pressure caused by diets high in saturated fats, cholesterol, animal protein, and processed foods are the major causes of impotence in the United States. According to a recent article in the
New York Times
, more than 40 percent of impotent men suffer from hypertension. If your arteries are blocked from too much crap, the amount of blood flowing through your body is reduced, meaning there isn’t enough to pick you up when you want to get down.
To help you understand why the artery to the penis tends to block up first and foremost, let’s take a look at the diameter of two arteries. The coronary artery that flows to the heart is about 5 mm wide, or the size of a normal drinking straw. The artery to the penis is a
The truth is my father does eat some chocolate every New Year’s Eve. But it isn’t just a little bit and it usually isn’t even dark chocolate. He has between twelve and fifteen Reese’s peanut butter cups!
No one is saying that a lot of dark chocolate is healthy—it has too much fat and can contribute to weight gain in a hurry. Don’t go out and eat a bunch of chocolates now. But what I am saying is that the plant-based world is filled with wonderful treats, whether it’s ripe tropical fruits, creamy rich nuts, or, yes, even a little lip-smacking good chocolate now and then.
22
Plants Light Up Your Love Life: Men
Q uestion: What disease will kill one out of every two men and women? Answer: Cardiovascular disease. Question: What is the first clinical sign of heart disease in men? Answer: Erectile dysfunction. That’s right. The canary in the coal mine when it comes to male heart disease is an underperforming penis. What’s the best way to avoid it? Is it by downing handfuls of red meat? No! Is it by downing handfuls of blue pills? No! The best way to perform in bed is by downing handfuls of leafy green vegetables and whole plants.
The idea that meat is good for sex is just another in a long line of medical myths. For example, the nineteenth-century dietary crusader Sylvester Graham (famous for the cracker named after him) thought that meat encouraged “sensuality.” Even odder, English schoolteachers in the early twentieth century told their pupils to skip meat in order to reduce their urges to do what teenage boys do when they are alone. Fat chance of that!
Another school of thought was that impotence was caused primarily by psychological issues, and that eating meat made the male ego stronger and, therefore, more psychologically fit to get sexually aroused.
Wrong on all accounts. Doctors now believe that around 85 percent of impotence issues are caused by medical or physical problems. And for the thirty million American men who suffer from erectile dysfunction, meat is actually part of the problem. Why?
What makes an erection really great is good blood flow. When men become aroused, their bodies release a chemical called nitric oxide that has the same effect on their Johnson that nitrous oxide has on a car: It supercharges it. Blood flows to the penis and increases it to roughly twice its normal size, and, just like that, you’re off to the races. But you won’t be racing anywhere if your blood isn’t racing down there.
Says Terry Mason, the chief medical officer of the Cook County Health and Hospitals system in Illinois, about a discussion at a 2010 joint meeting of cardiologists and urologists at the National Medical Association convention, “We found [a] strong relationship [between erectile dysfunction and a fatty diet]… due to damage to the endothelial cells. The endothelium is the thin layer of cells that line the interior surface of blood vessels. Now, the penis has more endothelial cells per unit volume than any other organ in the body. So anything that would affect endothelial cell function would be a problem in the penis.”
That’s where meat comes in. Obesity, heart disease, atherosclerosis, and high blood pressure caused by diets high in saturated fats, cholesterol, animal protein, and processed foods are the major causes of impotence in the United States. According to a recent article in the
New York Times
, more than 40 percent of impotent men suffer from hypertension. If your arteries are blocked from too much crap, the amount of blood flowing through your body is reduced, meaning there isn’t enough to pick you up when you want to get down.
To help you understand why the artery to the penis tends to block up first and foremost, let’s take a look at the diameter of two arteries. The coronary artery that flows to the heart is about 5 mm wide, or the size of a normal drinking straw. The artery to the penis is a
Similar Books
