The Myth of Negative Calorie Foods
Filed under: General Health, Nutrition
There is a school of thought out there that some foods, namely celery and cucumbers, are negative calorie foods. That is, it requires more calories to digest them than they contain. This is false. While it is true that these are incredibly healthy low calorie foods that I highly recommend, they are certainly not negative calorie foods.
The ideas put forth usually revolve around either the Thermic Effect of Food, or due to their high fiber content (and since fiber is calorie-free right) these foods require more energy to digest than they provide.
The problem with these two ideas is that the Thermic Effect of Food only makes up about 10-15% of your total energy expenditure. Carbohydrates only require about 4 calories to digest for every 100 they provide, so no matter how low-calorie the carbohydrate-based food may be, it will never take more energy to digest than it provides.
There is also the matter of fiber being calorie free. This is a common belief, unfortunately it is a false one. Soluble fiber can and will be fermented by the body to create short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which clearly has caloric value. The actual caloric value of fiber is therefore considered to be between 1.5-2 calories per gram. This is an average, and they type of fiber makes a difference, but no food is negative calorie!
Having said all that, cucumbers and celery still provide little to no calories at all, and are an excellent food choice. An entire cucumber only provides 45 calories, 11 grams of carbs and 2 grams of fiber while providing plenty of water, some vitamin C, vitamin K, magnesium, potassium and manganese. 4 large stalks of celery will provide about 40 calories, 9 grams of carbs, 4 grams of fiber and 1 gram of protein while providing plenty of water, some vitamin A, vitamin K, folate, and potassium.
Whether they are negative calorie or not, the more fruits and vegetables you eat, the better!
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Posted on April 7th, 2010 by Brian St. Pierre
2 Comments
May 5th, 2010 at 3:03 pm
[...] Brian St Pierre wrote an excellent article recently about the myth of negative calorie foods. [...]
December 8th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Can i have a list of foods short or long that has negative cazlalores that i can eat with out gianing any fat really .. like celery or cabbge .. but more losing fat u know ?.