New research published in Evolution and Human Behavior, came out of research into whether sweat can give information on health status and genetics. The study found that men who eat salad smell more attractive to women while men who eat a diet high in carbs smell worse.
To ascertain how fruit and vegetables affect our body odor, men provided information on their diet to researchers, and then their odor was tested in two ways. The first, objective, method used skin spectrophotometry to measure dietary carotenoid intakes. The second used the noses of human females to do the measuring. The women were tasked with smelling sweat samples from men and ranking their attractiveness.
The results showed that eating vegetables and fruits produces, overall, more pleasant smelling sweat. Next in line were fat, meat, eggs, and tofu, a diet of which also produced pleasant odors in sweat. Men who feasted primarily on carbs, though, had "stronger smelling less pleasant sweat," says the report.
