Food and sex have had a complicated relationship over the years, almost as complicated as your own love life. Taking someone out to dinner is a fail-safe date, and making dinner at your own place is that much more impressive. There are even foods meant to boost your libido, like shellfish and avocados.

But, as with every relationship, food and sex have their disagreements, too.

Yep, there are foods that do a pretty good job of turning you and your partner off, rather than on. And if that’s not really the mood you’re looking to set for your big date Saturday night, then you’ll want to avoid eating these 11 foods that will kill your sex drive.

CHEESE

Photo: OmNom Cheese

While cheese platters might be a classy way to impress your date, they’re also a one-way ticket to abstinence-ville. Population: You. The multitudes of hormones in dairy products, like cheese, might mess with your hormone levels, including estrogen and testosterone.

And when your hormones are askew, it’s likely that your sex drive won’t be at its strongest.

MINT

Photo: The Farmer’s Almanac

Skip the pre-kiss gum, guys; the menthol in mint lowers testosterone, which in turn depletes your sex drive. Try a fruitier flavor to keep your breath and your libido fresh.

CORNFLAKES

Photo: Urtokri

Good advice for that early breakfast date? (Hey, there are weirder things.) If you and your date are meeting in the morning (or maybe you’re still together from the night before…) skip this bland breakfast cereal. Otherwise, you’ll have a much less enjoyable, uh, morning grind.

Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, who invented corn flakes, believed that sweet or spicy foods inflamed the passions, and sought to depress the libido with a bland, sugarless cereal. The reasoning behind his diabolical experiment is unknown. However, it’s unlikely that Kellogg created a cereal so bland that it makes sex unappealing; more likely, it’s the carbs and grains in this cereal that kill your drive.

COFFEE

Photo: Wikipedia

Planning on, uh, pulling an all-nighter? Not with coffee, you’re not. If coffee makes you jittery, then you should not be drinking it before having sex. Your increased anxiety from the caffeine intake will lower your sex drive, as people with caffeine sensitivity have most likely experiences.

CHOCOLATE

Photo: 2048 Online

This one might seem surprising, considering that chocolate has been well-known as an aphrodisiac for years. While this may hold true for women, men are singing a different tune when it comes to chocolate and sex; chocolate actually lowers testosterone levels, lowering male sex drive dramatically.

Sorry dudes, leave the boxes of chocolate to the ladies.

MICROWAVABLE POPCORN

Photo: Finder’s Free

Having your date over to Netflix and chill? Skip the microwavable popcorn. Definitely for the sake of your sex drive, but also for some more serious health reasons. Chemicals like perfluorooctanoic acid found in the bag’s lining can not only kill your libido, but over the long term even cause prostate problems in men.

Switch to stove top corn, fellas. Still romantic and delicious, minus the unpronounceable chemical that’s slowly killing your prostate.

SOY

Photo: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

This one isn’t all bad — for women, at least. Soy has high levels of estrogen, which means that ingesting soy products prior to sex will boost a woman’s libido significantly.

However, for men, the opposite can be said. Eating soy boosts a man’s estrogen levels, doing a pretty good job of ending his sex drive pretty much on the spot.

FRIED FOOD

Photo: The Daily Meal

We’d like to think that Mickey D’s is not your go-to dinner date spot. If, for whatever reason, it is, you’re essentially sabotaging your love life. Fried foods and foods that are high in fat (which, yes, means fast food in most cases) leave you feeling tired and sluggish. Shockingly, that’s not very sexy.

Even worse, hydrogenated fats and oils suppress male testosterone levels. That double whammy is not worth that double cheeseburger.

ALCOHOL

Photo: Web MD

While bars may be a prime place for meeting people, they’re also a prime place for embarrassing sexual encounters. Of the limp kind. Sure, that last tequila shot gave you the confidence to ask someone to come home with you, but it will also reduce testosterone levels and limit sexual function in both men and women.

LICORICE 

Photo: Nuly DVR Lists

Skip this snack at your next movie date. Due to a natural ingredient in the candy called glycyrrhizin, eating a high amount of licorice can suppress your libido and lower testosterone levels. Granted, you would have to eat a lot of licorice for this to be a serious issue — but do you really want to risk it?

DIET SODA

Photo: NPR

At this point, we all know that drinking diet soda is almost worse than drinking regular sodas. Staying fit and trim is usually good for your sex drive, but eating and drinking products with artificial sweeteners, especially aspartame, directly affect your serotonin levels, a vital hormone for the libido in both men or women.