Most lists of natural testosterone booster foods give you twenty items and no numbers. This one is shorter. Each food below is here because a named study measured something in men: oysters and zinc, fatty fish and vitamin D, whole eggs and dietary fat, pomegranate juice. The last one, pine pollen, comes from the first plant in which testosterone itself was isolated in a lab.
If you came here typing "foods that increase testosterone in men" into Google, you'll find the study, the year, the number of men and what changed in their blood work for each food.
Natural testosterone booster foods and the studies behind each
Oysters (and red meat) for zinc
Three ounces of cooked Pacific oysters hold 28.2 mg of zinc, according to the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. The daily target for an adult man is 11 mg, so one plate covers more than two days. Roast beef sirloin comes a long way behind, at 3.8 mg per 3 ounces.
The zinc and testosterone link comes from Ananda Prasad's group at Wayne State, published in Nutrition in 1996. Four young men put on a zinc-restricted diet for 20 weeks saw serum testosterone fall from 39.9 to 10.6 nmol/L. Nine older men who were marginally low in zinc took zinc gluconate for 3 to 6 months, and their testosterone went from 8.3 to 16.0 nmol/L. In 40 healthy men aged 20 to 80, the more zinc in their cells, the higher their testosterone tended to be.
Trout, salmon and other fatty fish
Fish is where most men get vitamin D from food. A 3 oz fillet of farmed rainbow trout has 645 IU and sockeye salmon has 570 IU (NIH figures), against a daily target of 600 IU for men up to 70.
In 2011, Stefan Pilz and colleagues reported on 54 men in a year-long trial in Hormone and Metabolic Research. The 31 men taking 3,332 IU of vitamin D a day went from 10.7 to 13.4 nmol/L total testosterone. The placebo group showed no significant change. Those men took a supplement, but the fish on your plate is the food source of the same vitamin.
Whole eggs, yolk and all
Every bit of an egg's vitamin D sits in the yolk (about 44 IU in a large egg), along with its fat. Throwing yolks away to eat lean has a cost men rarely hear about. Joseph Whittaker and Kexin Wu pooled six controlled diet studies covering 206 men in a 2021 meta-analysis in the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Men on low-fat diets had lower total and free testosterone than men on higher-fat diets. The gap was largest in men from Europe and North America.
Olive oil, butter, avocado and the fat on a steak all count toward that side of the ledger.
Pomegranate juice
At Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Emad Al-Dujaili and Nacer Smail gave 60 adults pomegranate juice every day for two weeks and presented the results in 2012. In the 22 men, average salivary testosterone went from 242.1 to 298.4 pg/mL.
Is there a food that contains testosterone itself?
Pine pollen. In 1971 the researcher M. Šaden-Krehula analysed the pollen of Scots pine and found testosterone, epitestosterone and androstenedione in it. It was the first time any of the three had been isolated from a plant.
Pine pollen has a longer history as food than as a lab sample. In China it is song hua fen, recorded in herbal texts since the Tang dynasty and listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia (2020 edition). Koreans press it with honey into small tea cakes called songhwa dasik and stir it into a cold honey drink, songhwa-milsu.
Two pilot studies have now measured it in men. In the 2024 study by Wolkodoff and colleagues, 10 men aged 47 to 78 took a pine pollen extract for 8 weeks. Their average total testosterone rose from 362.5 to 448.4 ng/dL, and their scores on the qADAM, a questionnaire about drive, energy and erections, went from 23.9 to 31.7. A 2025 pilot in 11 men found free testosterone going from 10.48 to 11.72 ng/dL while SHBG, the protein that binds testosterone and keeps it out of use, fell.
What men who take it every day describe lines up with those questionnaire scores. The two things they mention most are stronger morning wood and more drive, in the gym and in bed. Our guide to pine pollen, from the tree to the bottle covers the plant, the history and both studies in more detail.
Total testosterone rose from 362.5 to 448.4 ng/dL in 8 weeks.
Why Mara's Pine Pollen is the daily pick
Oysters are a once-a-week meal for most men, and nobody eats trout every night. Pine pollen is the item on this list you can have every morning without cooking anything.
Mara's Pine Pollen comes from Pinus radiata, wild-harvested and cracked-cell. Each grain of pine pollen has a hard outer wall with two air sacs, and cracking that wall opens the grain to the extraction. The tincture is then made the spagyric way. The pollen is extracted, and the minerals left behind are returned to the liquid, so the whole plant ends up in the bottle.
The taste is soft and lightly earthy, with a faint sweetness. Most men take 1 to 2 droppers a day, held under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallowed, or stirred into water, coffee, juice or a protein shake. At that amount a 50 ml bottle lasts 30 to 50 days.
The glass matters if you're comparing brands. Dark amber is a step in the right direction. Dark Miron glass is the gold standard, and it is what Mara uses. It keeps light off the extract for the life of the bottle. A dropper bottle also beats a bag of powder for daily use, since there's nothing to measure, nothing to clump, and it goes in a gym bag.
Pine Pollen – Spagyric Pine Pollen Tincture
50 ml dropper bottle. Wild-harvested, cracked-cell Pinus radiata pollen.
Add to bagA testosterone foods list for a normal week
This is how the list above fits into seven days without turning dinner into a project.
- Every morning: 1 to 2 droppers of Pine Pollen under the tongue or in your coffee, and three whole eggs.
- Twice a week: trout or salmon for dinner (around 570 to 645 IU of vitamin D a fillet).
- Once a week: a dozen oysters, or a steak if oysters aren't easy to get where you live.
- Most days: olive oil on salads and vegetables, and a glass of pomegranate juice if you like it.
Keep fat in the diet. In the Whittaker and Wu analysis, the men on low-fat diets had the lower numbers.
Pine Pollen considerations
Contains alcohol. If you're pregnant, nursing or taking medication, ask your doctor before using it.
Questions men ask about testosterone foods
Which food has the most zinc?
Oysters, by a wide margin. Three ounces of cooked Pacific oysters hold 28.2 mg, more than double the 11 mg a man needs in a day.
Are whole eggs better than egg whites for testosterone?
The yolk carries all of the egg's vitamin D and its fat. In the 2021 Whittaker and Wu meta-analysis of 206 men, low-fat diets went with lower total and free testosterone than higher-fat diets.
How do you take pine pollen tincture?
Take 1 to 2 droppers a day. Hold it under the tongue for 20 to 30 seconds and swallow, or stir it into water, coffee, juice or a shake.
What does pine pollen tincture taste like?
Mara's Pine Pollen tastes soft and lightly earthy, with a faint sweetness. It disappears into a coffee or a protein shake.