Eat vegetables to improve body odour

Vegetables don’t just keep you healthy, they make you smell better too, according to researchers at Macquarie University, who found that men who eat more vegetables smell more appealing to women.

By providing sweat samples to female participants to evaluate, and cross-referencing the data with markers of greater fruit and vegetable intake, the study has found that eating fresh produce results in more pleasant-smelling sweat with ‘floral, fruity, sweet and medicinal’ qualities.

The Macquarie University study, led by Dr Ian Stephen, asked female participants to evaluate the sweat samples on several affective, qualitative and psychophysical dimensions. This was compared to skin spectrophotometry measures for the male participants.

Previous studies have found that carotenoids, which accumulate in humans through fresh vegetable consumption, contribute to the yellowness of skin in Caucasians, meaning that slightly yellower skin is a mark of greater intake of fruit and vegetables — and has also been found to increase someone’s facial attractiveness to others.