Latin Name: Pinus edulis. Other Pinus species also
Other Names: Piñon, pinyon
Many nuts are rich in zinc, a lack of which is said to cause impotence and infertility in men. Pine nuts especially have been used throughout the Mediterranean and the East for centuries to make up love potions.
The Roman poet Ovid (a vegetarian) in his work 'The Art of Love' selected 'the nuts that the sharp-leafed pine brings forth' as an effective and powerful aphrodisiac.
The Perfumed Garden, (an ancient Arabic love manual), contains many references to pine nuts including this prescription to restore a man's sexual vigor by Galen in 200 AD: "A glass of thick honey, plus 20 almonds and 100 pine nuts repeated for three nights."
Nuts have also been found to be an effective brain food, due to a substance called boron that increases electrical activity in the brain.
"Pine nuts first got their aphrodisiac reputation from the effort required to get them. They're nestled in the cones of the pine tree, and the best were said to come from the Himalayas," says Martha Hopkins, author of InterCourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook.
Like most nuts, they also offer protective cardiovascular benefits and are especially good sources of thiamin, iron, magnesium, and manganese, explains Mittler. Zinc also helps the immune system and promotes wound healing.
Another curiosity: the pine nut with most aphrodisiac power is the type that comes from the PINUS GERARDIANA, a pine tree who grows only in the NW side of the Himalaya Mountains at a height between 2000 and 4000 meters.
Hm, I must taste them
ReplyDelete