Negative Calorie Foods?



TheAndyDudE

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Feb 6, 2004
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i've seen a couple things on the net about 'negative calorie foods'... this merely implies that the efforts it takes to digest the food, burns more calories than the food actually possessed.

Anyone ever tried a strict diet of this?

If so, what kind've foods were the best to concentrate on?

I tried this for a couple weeks but found it very hard indeed to get energy out of these foods while exercising. It was also hard because most of these foods are only found tasteful after eating them in conjunction with a type of food that is NOT helpful. ex: carrots and ranch, or celery and peanut butter. kinda sucks that the majority of this neagtive foods group is mostly vegetables...:(

any thoughts?
 
I don't think there is such a thing as negative calorie foods. Why not just eat a health and balanced diet; then reduce the calories.
 
Originally posted by TheAndyDudE
i've seen a couple things on the net about 'negative calorie foods'... this merely implies that the efforts it takes to digest the food, burns more calories than the food actually possessed.

Anyone ever tried a strict diet of this?

If so, what kind've foods were the best to concentrate on?

I tried this for a couple weeks but found it very hard indeed to get energy out of these foods while exercising. any thoughts?

following on from what 2Lap said, i.e., they don't exist. however, even if they did exist, how would you get energy out of them if they were a negative energy? Surely all the energy would have disappeared in digestion...

ric
 
Originally posted by ricstern
following on from what 2Lap said, i.e., they don't exist. however, even if they did exist, how would you get energy out of them if they were a negative energy? Surely all the energy would have disappeared in digestion...

ric

Actually they do exist. what it means is the the amount of energy required to digest the food is more then the food itself provides.
 
They don't exist...the calculations used to claim that a food has negative calories is flawed as it mixes the units used. Remember that when you see the caloric values for a food listed as Calories they are actually referring to kCals. So when someone shows that food is a negative calorie food they typically count the energy cost of digestion in kilocalories but the energy value of the food as calories, even though those calories are really kilocalories. For instance, they will claim that a stick of celery has 20 calories (actually 20kCal or 20,000 calories) and takes 100 calories (0.1 kCal) of energy to digest (made up values for illustration ONLY). Yes, it is confusing...that's what happens when calories and kilocalories both refer to the same units.
Not everything on the internet is true.....try looking for peer-reviewed sources for reliable info......and even then it doesn't mean it is true.
 
How much energy in water?
How much energy used to 'digest' water?
Which has more energy - warm or cold water?
Perhaps eating ice would cause you to burn more energy?
Is water food?

[Do not take the above questions seriously]
 
Originally posted by skillerv
Actually they do exist. what it means is the the amount of energy required to digest the food is more then the food itself provides.
I agree with nhorscro, but will you give us some examples and the values that demonstate they are 'negative calorie'?
 
Originally posted by 2LAP
I agree with nhorscro, but will you give us some examples and the values that demonstate they are 'negative calorie'?

A single stalk of celery is said to contain about 6 to 8 calories since celery is about 95% water which contains no nutrients. I'm not sure how to go about measuring exactly how many calories one would burn in chewing swallowing and digesting a stalk of celery but I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that it might require more than the 6 to 8 calories ingested. Perhaps not too oddly, when looking for such foods the list usually starts and ends with celery.

I think one of the tricks to this is that a stalk of celery probably contains significantly more than the listed 6-8 calories if you could fully digest the stuff. As most of us know, celery is mostly roughage. We can't digest a large part of the fiber in the celery so we only extract a portion of the available calories.
 
Agree, these examples confuse kcal's with calories. When you say celery has 6-8 "calories", that's kcals.

Using this slight of hand, it's fun to "prove" that ice cream at 0*F will actually require more calories to warm to body temp than the food value it supplies....the perfect "negative calorie food".
 
Very interesting. About 17 years ago, a housemate of mine was sold on a special negative calorie soup that included lots of carrots and celery. I found the soup perfectly tasty. I wasn't faint from hunger after eating it.

However, she lost weight like mad. Considering that she found it difficult to lose weight to begin with, it seemed proof enough. However, to balance that, she exercised all the time. She did find it hard to lose weight even with her exercise routine, but this soup and her total absolute belief in it seemed to work for her.

Personally, I think much of it is psycological, and whatever boosts your motivation and dedication is just another step in the right direction.

And then, a soup that is mostly vegetables, that has that miracle myth of being able to shed your pounds for you has still got to be better for someone trying to lose weight than the average american diet would be....

blah blah blah..
 
This homemade veggie soup was a big crash diet for many years. You cooked up a big batch, and could eat as much as you wanted...but very little else. It works of course, since most of us probably can't drink more than 1000 calories of this stuff a day no matter how hard we try.

But, it's basically a starvation diet, since you're not getting enough protein to sustain your body, much less recover from exercise. Agree with you that motivation is the key.
 
Originally posted by dhk
This homemade veggie soup was a big crash diet for many years. You cooked up a big batch, and could eat as much as you wanted...but very little else. It works of course, since most of us probably can't drink more than 1000 calories of this stuff a day no matter how hard we try.

But, it's basically a starvation diet, since you're not getting enough protein to sustain your body, much less recover from exercise. Agree with you that motivation is the key.


I don't suppose you know exactly what was in the soup, do you? I'd be interested since it's really quite difficult to put together any kind of reasonable meal with just vegetables that is deficient in protein. Studies have shown a fairly vast differential when it comes to human dietary requirements of protein but even at that the range is 2% - 10% of total calories.

I suppose the problem would be, as you say, most people could only consume about 1000 calories of the soup and most people require in the range of 2000 calories per day to maintain a healthy weight.
 
Originally posted by Beastt
I don't suppose you know exactly what was in the soup, do you? I'd be interested since it's really quite difficult to put together any kind of reasonable meal with just vegetables that is deficient in protein. Studies have shown a fairly vast differential when it comes to human dietary requirements of protein but even at that the range is 2% - 10% of total calories.

I suppose the problem would be, as you say, most people could only consume about 1000 calories of the soup and most people require in the range of 2000 calories per day to maintain a healthy weight.

The base was cabbage on the recipe I remember, with lots of carrots, celery, and some onion. No beans in the soup, which would of course boost the protein.

Most nutritional advice I've seen for cyclists in training recommend around 0.8-1.2 gram of quality protein daily per kg bodyweight. That's pretty hard to get with any restricted-calorie diet unless you choose carefully from good low-fat sources.
 
Originally posted by Beastt
I suppose the problem would be, as you say, most people could only consume about 1000 calories of the soup and most people require in the range of 2000 calories per day to maintain a healthy weight.
You are right, this is a low calorie diet rather than a negative calorie diet.

As for celery here is some nutritional info; it doesn't look calorie negative to me. Please also see nhorscro's post...

Celery, Raw

Nutritional information per 100g of celery

Calories 6.4kcal
Carbohydrate 0.8g
Protein 0.5g
Fat 0.2g
Fibre 1.0g
Alcohol 0.0g

Calories per serving (40g) celery: 2kcal
 
Originally posted by 2LAP
You are right, this is a low calorie diet rather than a negative calorie diet.

As for celery here is some nutritional info; it doesn't look calorie negative to me. Please also see nhorscro's post...

Celery, Raw

Nutritional information per 100g of celery

Calories 6.4kcal
Carbohydrate 0.8g
Protein 0.5g
Fat 0.2g
Fibre 1.0g
Alcohol 0.0g

Calories per serving (40g) celery: 2kcal

Thank you for the information. I suppose before anyone can know if celery is a negative calorie food, (bad name for it), one would have to know how to determine how many Kcals the body burns in processing the celery and if the body is able to extract all 6.4 Kcals from the celery.

I have no clue how to calculate calories burned in chewing, swallowing and I would guess most importantly, digestive processes relating only to the celery while excluding all other basal processes.
 
HA.

The info on negative calorie food studies is out there and nobody could find it?

It would take 1hour of chewing to make celery a zero calorie.

Enjoy it.

Sugarless gum would be a negative calorie food.
 
Originally posted by Chemicalanarchy
HA.

The info on negative calorie food studies is out there and nobody could find it?

It would take 1hour of chewing to make celery a zero calorie.

Enjoy it.

Sugarless gum would be a negative calorie food.

Is that if you plan to burn all the calories in the celery by chewing alone or does it assume some mean factor for calories consumed during digestion and elimination? Does it also assume that every calorie in the celery will be extracted by the body? If so, that's not likely to happen.
 
sounds like that would be just chewing alone, there's no way that can be for digesting, chewing, etc.
 
I have one word, 'BULK' is that word.

6 calories in 100 grams of Celery. Imagine 1kg of Celery, just 60 calories. The body must move an entire 1 KG bulk of ingested substance, for a mere 60 calories in return. Compare that to 1 slice of white bread, 105 calories in a 40 G slice of white bread, no real BULK there.

Surely handeling and moving bulks must require some energy, even if that doesn't cause a negative effect, it will surely be close enough when we're talking about foods that are primarily fiber, like celery.

There's a reason why carbohydrates from wheat and grains have been integrated into diets for hundreds of years, all around the world.

These foods may or may not cause a negative calorie effect while digesting, but it won't be a simple process digesting lots of BULK with very little energy in return.

I know this is an old thread, but I thought it to be my purpose to inform people of the effects of such a diet. It sure as hell works, and it is NOT HEALTHY! Do it only for short terms, and combine these foods with a balanced healthy diet, consisting of whole grains as opposed to processed ones.
 
I do have a recipe for the soup (the cabbage base one) you asked about, I also have the complete diet that goes with and it worked for me, if you can stick to it for a week I don't think you'll be disappointed. Email me if you would like more info. [email protected]