Green diets for daughters, bananas and potatoes for sons?

LONDON - Women planning to have a baby who eat more fruits and green vegetables increase their chances of giving birth to a girl. And those who gorge on bananas and potatoes are more likely to have a son.

Researchers have found that consuming food with high levels of calcium and magnesium, such as green vegetables, in the weeks before conception is likely to result in the birth of a daughter.

Among the women who followed the diet drawn up by the researchers, 80 percent had daughters, the journal Reproductive BioMedicine Online reports.

Conversely, bananas and potatoes - foods rich in potassium and sodium - would likely help women to have a son, although this is yet to be tested, according to the journal, the Daily Mail reported.

The researches are convinced that following the right diet can help couples increase their chances of choosing the sex of their child, although they don’t know the exact role played by other factors such as the timing of conception.

Dutch scientists from Delft and Maastricht universities spent five years working with 172 couples, who wanted to add girls to their families. Among them they already had 358 sons and just two daughters.

Each began a diet rich in fruits, vegetables and rice during the nine weeks before they planned to attempt to conceive to increase the levels of calcium and magnesium in their bloodstream.

Besides, they were given daily tablets of the key minerals, had regular blood monitoring and had to learn as accurately as possible their moment of peak fertility each month.

At the end of the trial, out of 32 couples who completed the programme, 26 mothers gave birth to girls and only six had boys.

“People know that if they do everything we suggested, their chances of having a girl will improve dramatically,” said Annet Noorlander, biologist with Gender Consult, who worked with the Dutch scientists.

“This method is experimental, but we have proved it works.”