What Makes the Difference in the Taste of Blood for Vampires?

What's a vampire's favorite food? You guessed it-BLOOD! But what's the best kind of blood?

Some books, movies, and sites will insist that the blood of an 18-year-old virgin is the best stuff ever. Let me ask you one simple question.

What the hell does sex have to do with the taste of your blood? I mean, come on, now. If we're talking about someone who just recently did the dirty, then I can see different hormones and stuff being in the blood, but if you have an 18 year old girl who had sex last week and an 18 year old girl who never had sex, can you really justify that one will taste better than the other based on the fact that one is a virgin? I think not.

Ruling out virginity, let's look at age. Let's take that 18 year old virgin girl and pit it against a 38 year old virgin girl. Now, assuming such a thing exists and the 38 year old isn't stark raving mad or have some kind of weird disease preventing her from gettin' jiggy, the blood in both of these women are most likely the same age. The heart cleans and recycles the blood, making it all new and better each time it cycles through. Plus, we lose blood over the span of our life, so maybe the 38 year old has newer blood. Stupid point.

Let's have a gander at things that might actually make a difference.


Defects/Disease. I'm willing to bet that diseased blood or the blood of someone with a genetic defect will taste different, probably a lower quality. The blood of a healthy person would be worlds better than someone with diseased blood. No offense to anyone, but would you rather drink fresh orange juice or some with bacteria in it?

Hormones. Let's face it, teenage blood would probably be better because of the raging hormones, but then again, a pregnant woman's hormones are completely jacked up too. As long as it's good hormones, it can enhance the flavor of the blood, much like those MIO water enhancers. Water is good, but flavored water is better, and some flavors of MIO taste better than others. I don't like grape. Perhaps the grape hormone would taste great to someone else, but it would taste like poo to me.

Nationality. (I need to preface this one with a warning-if you get offended, it was not intentional. I'm not being prejudiced or racist or discriminating, so anything implied by my words is completely your own imagination creating things that aren't there.)You would have to assume that where you or your parents were born is going to influence your blood taste. The culture, the way of life, even returning to the idea of genetic differences. My hubby is Korean, and Koreans have a higher rate of certain disorders than my own mutt mix. My Scottish roots might give our future kids ginger skin like mine, or my Native American roots might give them a certain shape to their face. Who's to say your nationality won't affect the flavor of your blood?

Diet. This is a biggie. If you live a diet of fast food and prepackaged processed garbage, chances are it will lower the quality of your blood. It'll end up tasting fatty and greasy, and without proper nutrients and vitamins that are important. Likewise if you eat nothing but healthy foods and organic foods, you'll have pure blood without the fat, but then it can make it very very bland. You have to balance everything out. Everything in moderation.

Physical Activity. This links back to hormones in a way, because exercising releases certain hormones into your blood. When you get hurt, your body releases endorphins. If you sit on your butt and never really do anything all day, you end up having less of these hormones and endorphins and stuff.

Blood Type. Probably the biggest determiner of blood flavors. A+, A-, B+, B-, O+, O-, AB+, AB-...all of them will taste different. Why? Different antibodies and antigens. Basically, a completely different structure of the blood. I think I have A- (or maybe A+, I can't properly remember, lol!), so my blood would taste completely different from someone with B+ blood. I'm biased here, but I'm willing to gamble and say A blood tastes the bests. The mosquitos sure think so...




But Ashley, what does this all mean? Why should I care?

Great question. You should care because if you ever find yourself in a situation with, oh, let's say a vampire from the Daughters of Night, and you find yourself falling for a vampire, you should know what kind of blood they like and how to make your blood more appealing to them.

Find out in later posts what kinds of blood the vampires from DON prefer!