cover image Great Food, Great Sex: The Three Food Factors for Sexual Fitness

Great Food, Great Sex: The Three Food Factors for Sexual Fitness

Robert L. Fried, Lynn Edlen-Nezin. Ballantine Books, $24.95 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-345-48398-0

Fried and Edlen-Nezin's volume adds ""great sex"" to the list of enticements for the food-fad conscious, but readers looking for a hot and juicy read will be disappointed-after a section on sexual dysfunction, sex seems to be little more than an afterthought to discussions of the benefits of eating healthfully (though there's bound to be a reader who will appreciate grape seed oil's secret life as a ""natural lubricant""). Fried and Edlen-Nezin stress nitric oxide's role in relaxing blood vessels (and thus lowering blood pressure) and the importance of amino acid arginine as a source of nitric oxide. However, the included recipes neglect to list figures for arginine or anti-oxidants in the accompanying nutritional data. Though there is a trove of tips about preparing healthful food and making healthy dietary choices, the book is hamstrung from the beginning by its dependence on what amounts to little more than a smattering of hackneyed comments (""Get ready to X-rate your plate,"" or, at the end of the introduction: ""enough foreplay, let's get down to business"") spliced into an otherwise serviceable guide to heart-healthy eating.