Natural Aphrodisiacs On Your Dinner Table

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Photo courtesy Healing Arts Press (c) 2002

Excerpted from The Sexual Herbal: Prescriptions for Enhancing Love and Passion, by Brigitte Mars, A.H.G., with permissions from Healing Arts Press (c) 2002. The following excerpt can be found on Pages 11 to 13. 

Food, more than a mere filling for the belly, can also pleasure the soul, fuel the body, and promote good health. The ideal food for inciting passion is light, moist, sweet, easily digested, and enzymatically active. Moist foods lend their yin to sexual fluids. Yang comes from their enzymes-the spark of life-and from their seed reproducing capabilities. Naturally sweet foods, such as fruits and vegetables, provide energy and stamina.

• Culinary Herbs for Better Sex 

The presentation of food is an opportunity for loving expressions of creativity. Make your food a mandala of love, celebrating the fantastic forms and colors of nature! Serve entrees on a bed of colorful greens, grated carrots, or cabbage. Decorate with colorful garnishes: try cucumber slices, radish roses, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower buds, carrot curls, sprouts, avocadoes scooped out with a melon baller, buckwheat lettuce, sunflower greens, lemon slices, watercress, almonds, chopped nuts, olives, chopped red pepper, coconut, stuffed celery, berries, slices of citrus, pomegranate seeds or star fruit slices. Stick a small bundle of green beans or asparagus spears in the round of a red pepper.

Sprinkle food with paprika or cinnamon. You can create beautiful designs by placing a lace paper doily or large maple leaf on top of a dish, then sprinkling your colorful powdered seasoning all around it. When you carefully remove the doily or leaf, you'll have a stunning ornament! Use fresh herbs from your garden (basil, chives, cilantro, dill, fennel, oregano, mint, parsley, or rosemary.) Add crunch and color with sesame, sunflower, or chia, or poppy seeds. Use nuts, dried fruit, or edible flowers to make designs. Use pretty molds shaped like hearts or butterflies for cakes and pates. Set the table with beautiful serving ware. Decorate with edible flowers to cause your chakras to vibrate!