What about different boozy drinks—say, wine, liquor, and cocktails? Jury’s nonetheless out, in line with a 2021 Present Analysis in Parasitology and Vector-Borne Illnesses evaluation. “It’s nonetheless vital to analyze whether or not the consumption of different alcoholic drinks…has the identical impact on the attractiveness to mosquitoes,” the researchers wrote.
Bananas
Your favourite potassium-packed fruit could possibly be making you a mosquito magnet. Okay, that’s an exaggeration, however in a 2018 examine printed within the journal Bugs, researchers discovered that consuming bananas “resulted in a major improve within the general quantity” of mosquito encounters. Nonetheless, the impact wasn’t proportional, that means the rise didn’t rise with the variety of bananas eaten. Alternatively, the identical examine additionally investigated inexperienced grapes as a possible threat issue and couldn’t discover any relationship, so if you wish to keep away from getting swarmed at a picnic, perhaps pack a bunch of these as your fruit of alternative as an alternative.
Some kinds of cheese (and perhaps different fermented meals)
When Dr. McMeniman and his colleagues carried out fieldwork in Zambia for a examine printed in Present Biology in 2023, the staff noticed that mosquitoes had been drawn to individuals who had physique odor profiles excessive in a category of acids generally known as carboxylic acids. Specifically, butyric, isobutyric, and isovaleric acids, all that are closely related to sure meals, together with dairy merchandise like milk, cream, and butter, and fermented objects like miso, cheese, yogurt, kimchi, sauerkraut, and pickled cucumbers. (In actual fact, Limburger cheese, a kind recognized for its pungent, foot-like aroma, was particularly proven to draw mosquitoes in a 1996 Parasitology Right this moment examine.)
Due to this, there could possibly be a hyperlink between “consuming sure fermented merchandise and your attractiveness to mosquitoes,” Dr. McMeniman says. “I believe it is a completely excellent query that has been restricted in rigorous, systematic testing carried out thus far, however a vital one shifting ahead.”
Garlic
On the flip aspect, garlic’s all the time been one of the vital widespread meals popularly believed to discourage mosquitoes, Dr. Swiger says—and on paper, it is smart. To place it properly, in any case, this vegetable has a well known status for, nicely, intensifying your odor—and never essentially in essentially the most optimistic means. So far, nonetheless, no knowledge has emerged to help the concept it might severely decrease your chew odds (as on this 2005 examine printed in Medical and Veterinary Entomology). Nonetheless, the examine did be aware {that a} longer interval of consuming garlic may be essential to have a measurable impression.
Onions
Ditto for onions, in line with Dr. Swiger—each within the sense that they make your breath odor stronger and that they don’t have any proof pointing to decreased mosquito attraction.
Some herbs and spices
Then there are specific objects that will even have a protecting impact: In Dr. McMeniman’s identical collection of trials in Zambia, mosquitoes tended to keep away from individuals who smelled strongly of eucalyptol, a compound current in all kinds of plant-based meals and flavorings, “together with candy basil, cardamom, and different herbs and spices,” Dr. McMeniman says. (You possibly can add mint, mugwort, rosemary, and sage to that record, plus arduous sweet, cough drops, desserts, and lotions that comprise eucalyptol as a flavoring agent.)
So does this imply it’s best to change your food regimen if you need fewer mosquito bites?
Primarily based on the out there analysis, avoiding main dietary threat components may doubtlessly assist, however don’t essentially count on it to make an enormous distinction: It’s not like garlic breath will act as some kind of mosquito Mace. “Whereas a few of these issues can alter the attraction of a mosquito to you, I do not assume any of ’em have a big sufficient impression that we might need to fully alter our diets in a means that may be like, ‘Oh, this may hold mosquitoes from biting me,’” Dr. Swiger says. In addition to, Dr. McMeniman emphasizes, there’s an actual want for extra sturdy, intensive investigation to higher pin down the connection between food regimen and mosquito attraction.
