Lost your sex drive? Then try pork, like the president

The people of Argentina are being asked to experiment with a new addition to the national diet: pork.

In response to a beef shortage which means her country will soon have fewer cows than people for the first time in living memory, Argentina's President Cristina Fernández has launched a bold campaign to persuade the nation that pig meat is "sexy".

She has given a speech touting pork as a cheap alternative to Viagra – and suggesting that she had personal experience. "I didn't know that eating pork improved sexual activity, [but] it is much more gratifying to eat some grilled pork than to take Viagra," she said at a meeting on Thursday where she unveiled new subsidies to representatives of the swine industry.

Tucking into a pork chop with her husband, former president Néstor Kirchner, Ms Fernández raised an eyebrow and declared that it was "all good", adding that rumours of the meat's aphrodisiac qualities ( for erectile dysfunction) "might be right".