Pygmalion Project
Neglected Garden Of Eden

Part 2. What Women Really Need
(Plants substances acting like female sex hormones)

The Anatomy Of Female Psyche has clearly shown us certain lack of female sex hormones (estrogens) in the present women, which makes them ill, demanding, and burdensome for the surrounding people.

Noah's Ark
movie poster I Married a Woman
movie poster So, thanks to the common female hormonal disturbance, they need continual mental and physical external maintenance. Thanks to the female permanent fertility, they need to see the plenty of material wealth around them, regardless of how it burdens other people. Finally, thanks to their permanent fertility, they need to feel faultless and perfect, and because of the disturbance they are way not such. Therefore they need also to improve their appearance by means of cosmetics and fancy dress; therefore they just demand flattery from their milieu.

All those take place because female health is devoid of its natural support (estrogens), which would return women into the true norm, and allow them to enjoy themselves.

Luis Ricardo Falero
The Butterfly Luis Ricardo Falero
Fairy Lily In a wonderful way, plant substances acting on female reproductive system, including ones that act like estrogens, female sex hormones, and are called phytoestrogens for this reason occur in the Nature. These plant substances, in particular, can cause natural convertible infertility of women that ought to be the really normal state of female physiology. Among plant those substances there are few ones having steroid structure, and identical to female sex hormones estrone, estriol and estradiol.

There are also plant substances chemically different from female sex hormones but acting like them although thousands times weaker. The latter substances seem me to be of little value for human females as those lack just proper estrogens. On the contrary, these substances attract much bigger commercial interest because they are found not in commonly consumed cultural food plants, and so one could make money on them. The soy presents an outstanding exception; however, this plant has large associations of growers.

William Henry Margetson
Tending the Flowers Daniel Ridgeway Knight
Arranging Flowers At that, note that there is known no plant substance to term phyto-androgen or phyto-testosterone (one acting like male sexual hormones). There only a couple of herbs able to stimulate production of testosterone (ginseng) or inhibit its conversion (licorice), but both the herbs are rich in phytoestrogens! Thus women appear to be subject to plants and that's why some unclear connection between women and plants is noted in both every-day life and mythology.

Floor mosaic
Apollo losing Daphne who is changing to laurel tree

Heliades mouring over Phaethon's tomb
Heliades mourning over Phaethon's tomb
Yakshi touching
tree with her foot
Mathura art In particular, Yakshi's were believed to be able to make trees blossom with simple touches of their feet.

In Greek mythology, some group female deities such as Heliades, Hesperides, Dryads, Meliads a. o. are firmly associated with frees.

Also the legend of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon seems me very noteworthy in this regard as it portrays a very beautiful woman (Amytis) missing the vegetation of her native country very much.

So, a quite physical natural cause underlies this cultural phenomenon.

Here is a list of the few plants containing substances just identical to female sex hormones. According to varied sources this group of plants includes

  • Palms
    • coconuts (Cocos nucifera),
    • dates (Phoenix spp),
    • African oil palm fruits (Elaeis guineensis),
  • Legumes
    • French beans (Phaseolus vulgaris),
    • licorice roots (Glycyrrhiza glabra),
  • Fruit trees
    • pomegranate seeds (Punica granatum),
    • apple seeds (Malus sylvesris),
  • Other plants
    • willow flowers (Salix caprea),
    • hops (Humulus lupulus),

It's easy to see that almost all these plants are enough common in the traditional agricultures. Even licorice root presents practically a food plant and is very much appreciated in the Western countries. They also take significant place in cultural traditions varied nations, which clearly connect these plants with femininity and fertility.

So, folklore of the Middle Eastern countries carries interesting mention of effects of the date palm on women. According to the Koran, dates have always been considered beneficial to mothers. So, when Marium (Virgin Mary) had given birth to the Prophet Isa (Jesus Christ) under a palm tree, she heard a voice telling her:

Shake the trunk of the palm tree towards thee: it will drop fresh, ripe dates upon thee. Eat, then, and drink, and let thine eye be gladdened! 

Koran 19:25-26

The link between the date palm and sexuality/femininity has been imprinted also in some medieval European pictures, of which visual themes, apparently, had come from the Middle East:

Adam & Eve with The Tree of Knowledge Portrayed as a Date tree
A Date Tree

Furthermore, ads of foods containing coconut are obviously targeted to women surely owing to phytoestrogens this fruit is rich in! The Bounty chocolate, Raffaello candies and Bacardi and Martini rums can be mentioned in this connection

Vintage Cuban Ads Of the Bacardi Rum


Licorice The most food legumes are known to be rich in phytoestrogens.

And this property of them is reflected in folklore very much. For instance, in the tale of The Princess And the Pea by H. C. Andersen the princess' sides hurt from the pea. It is a metaphor. Her hips hurt because they were wide owing to the action of phytoestrogens of peas she ought to have eaten before for long time.

The Cinderella story illustrationFinally, remember how the name of the heroine of Grimm Brothers' Cinderella originated:

Besides this, the sisters did her every imaginable injury — they mocked her and emptied her peas and lentils into the ashes, so that she was forced to sit and pick them out again. In the evening when she had worked till she was weary she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the hearth in the cinders. And as on that account she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella.
The awareness of significance of legumes that ought to be responsible for Cinderella's success in stealing the prince's heart has been lost in the tale.

However, only licorice and French beans contain substances identical to the human (and animal) hormones.

I would like to pick out licorice among all the plants containing steroid phytoestrogens. It contains much phytoestrogens, and displays explicit estrogenic properties. Further, it inhibits conversion of testosterone that is responsible for sex drive of both men and women. In this regard, it's interesting that Hepatitis Central, at one time in Germany, Licorice was a more popular gift between lovers than chocolate as it was reputed to sexually arouse women. It stimulates production of corticoids. Thanks to the latter property licorice retains water in human bodies and was esteemed for that in deserts. In other words, it is as though designed by the Nature to remedy the common female hormonal disturbance that consists in certain lack of hormones of those three groups.

So, it seems to be not casual that licorice is very much appreciated in the Western countries.

I had opportunities to observe the benefits of licorice in women in few minutes after intake, and therefore I highly recommend you this almost food herb as very important for true female health. Of course, you should keep in mind the Side Effects and Warnings.


Idunn and her golden apples Idunn giving gods her apples Apples are connected with femininity and fertility in folklore and mythology of many peoples. So, in Norse mythology goddess Idunn supplies the gods with the apples that grant eternal youth.

According to Greek myths of the Garden of the Hesperides. These nymphs guarded the sacred golden apple tree that grew in the garden. Besides, the garden was Gaia's (the Earth) wedding gift for Hera.

Judgement of Paris
Greek vaseAccording to well-known myth of the Judgment of Paris, just the apple with the inscription "for the fairest" was the price of the beauty contest between Olympic goddesses Athena, Hera and Aphrodite.

Furthermore, Aphrodite, the goddess of love and female beauty would often help young people in love: Atlanta, a virgin huntress who remained always under arms, used to force her wooers to race before her and if she caught them she would put them to death, but if anybody would survive she would marry him. But Melanion came to the race bringing the golden apples that Aphrodite had given him. He dropped the apples as he was running, and because Atlanta could not help to pick up the fruit she was beaten in the race.

Goddess CybeleDante Gabriel Rossetti
PersephoneAnother plant known to be phytoestrogens rich is pomegranate. It effects on female physiology also have been fixed in traditional cultures. So, according to Greek mythology, Attis a Phrygian god had been conceived by putting a ripe pomegranate (or almond) in the bosom of virgin Nana/Cybele. This myth reflects contraceptive action of phytoestrogens. The menstruation stop was accepted as a symptom of pregnancy.

It's also interesting that in ancient Rome newly wed women wore headdresses made from pomegranate twigs, and its juice was consumed as a remedy for infertility.

Modern researches have revealed that feeding rats, pigs and mice results in very significant decrease of the birth in the populations of those animals (see the article The Effects of Punica granatum on Fertility of Mice)

In addition, like licorice, pomegranates have the property to retain water in human body. This property was used since the earliest times and the fruit was carried by desert caravans for the sake of its thirst-quenching juice. The use of this property of pomegranate is also imprinted in Greek mythology in the famous story of Persephone. According to the story, after Hades (Pluto) abducted Persephone, the people of earth prayed to Zeus to intervene. Zeus released that if humanity died out there would be no one to worship the gods, so he told Hades to release Persephone. However, since Persephone had been following her mothers mourning fast, refusing to eat or drink. Pluto, in sly kindness, offered to let Persephone go, but first tempted her great thirst by offering her pomegranate seeds. Since pomegranate was symbolic of sexual consummation, Persephone’s consent rendered her marriage to him indissoluble.

By the way in Hades' trick we can recognize a reflection of use of pomegranates for increasing female libido, as a kind of love potion.

Besides, it seems possible that just pomegranates were responsible for the power of Libyan Amazons relates how just a few juicy pomegranate seeds were charm enough to bind Persephone to her husband, Hades, and his realm of the Underworld.


However, the action of the plant estrogens can be blocked by cholesterol, the substance similar to estrogen but devoid of its properties that is a part of almost any animal food.

Thus, women should not only consume plants containing substances identical to female hormones, but also not to consume animal food containing the substance mimicking the hormones. In other, words women (as well as men) should adhere to vegetarianism — the naturally intrinsic human way of eating. So, animal food presents one more extravagant useless and even harmful thing women turn out not to need in point of fact.

The transition from the original human vegetarianism to the animal-eating was the crux of the

The Fault Of Eve