Negative Calorie Foods: 15 Foods That Actually Burn More Calories Than They Contain
Friday, December 7, 2007 at 1:36am by admin
By Laura Milligan
No, we’re not advocating the battle to see how few calories you can consume each day or promoting crash diets in any form or function; however, if you’re a snack-o-holic who can’t stop munching and crunching in between meals, try snacking on one of these negative calorie foods instead of gobbling down a cupcake or big bag of chips. Your body can burn more calories just by chewing and processing the snack than the food contains already. In other words, you’ll be able to keep eating throughout the day without packing on extra pounds.
- Celery: A staple on most party veggie trays, celery (without the ranch dressing) is a crispy snack that you can enjoy without worrying about taking in any calories. It is high in sugar and sodium, but still much healthier than pigging out on brownies or salty peanuts.
- Oranges: Before you leave for work in the morning, toss an orange into your bag for a mid-morning or late afternoon snack. An orange typically contains only 45 calories, so feel free to eat the whole thing!
- Strawberries: Strawberries are a popular negative calorie food because of their natural sweetness and juiciness. Sprinkle a few on your breakfast cereal to give your metabolism an extra jumpstart early in the day.
- Tangerines: A smaller, more tart version of the orange, tangerines are another negative calorie food that’s both tasty and portable. Enjoy one or two for a snack throughout the day to stimulate your taste buds without having to dig through the candy drawer.
- Grapefruit: As big as it is, grapefruit –without the extra sugar on top– is a surprisingly negative calorie food. One-half of a grapefruit only contains 36 calories but a whopping 78% of your daily value of potassium.
- Carrots: Carrots don’t just make your eyes sparkle; they also let you snack guilt-free. Snack on baby carrots instead of chips and salsa while you make dinner, or keep a bag in your office refrigerator when you feel the need to eat due to stress.
- Apricots: Indulge in nutrient-rich apricots for a sweet snack with negative calories. Your higher metabolism and thinning waistline will thank you.
- Lettuce: There’s a dirty little rumor in the magazine industry that the girls at Vogue keep lettuce in their desks to snack on when the hunger pains strike, but they can’t afford to compromise their stick thin figures. We’re guessing you’re not about to go through the day dizzy with starvation, but you can make yourself a hearty salad with lots of lettuce (and other negative calorie veggies!) once you get home. Don’t forget to take it easy on the dressing.
- Tomatoes: Chop up a tomato to give your sandwich, salad or egg whites omelet extra flavor without adding any calories.
- Cucumbers: Your salad can’t survive on lettuce alone. Cucumbers are another negative calorie food that are great for crunching on when your mouth is getting bored. Check here for tips on growing your own cucumbers.
- Watermelon: A traditional summertime treat, enjoying a watermelon is almost fun and delicious as eating candy because of its super sweet, super juicy nature. Plus, you’ll burn off all the calories crunching, digesting, and of course, spitting out the seeds.
- Cauliflower: Another party platter vegetable, raw cauliflower is naturally low in fat and of course, calories, so don’t be shy about piling up your cocktail napkin.
- Apples: An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but when eaten as a snack instead of candy bars or chips, apples will also keep the calories at bay. With only 81 calories per apple, your body also works a lot harder and longer to digest the fruit many other snack options.
- Hot Chili Peppers: Excess seasonings and dressings pile on lots of fat and calories to otherwise healthy meals. To avoid gaining weight simply because you’re a condiments junkie, experiment with more natural seasonings like hot chili peppers, which is a negative calorie food.
- Zucchini: Zucchini is a versatile, negative calorie food that can be baked, steamed, fried (not recommended), or prepared in many other ways. With just 15 calories per 100g, make zucchini your new diet staple.
Implementing negative calorie foods into your daily diet doesn’t just help you lose weight by cutting calories; it also speeds up your metabolism and introduces healthier items like fruits and vegetables into your regular food choices and favorite recipes. So no matter how you look at it, you’ll come out ahead.
Filed under: Resources
nice tips
Comment by ian — December 7, 2007 @ 10:43 am
Thanks for the good information!
Comment by flownmuse — December 7, 2007 @ 1:50 pm
Hi,
I have this blog on my rss feed and have recommended it to a number of people before, I think what you publish here is typically great.
But this post is just wrong. A quick visit to a site like Nutritiondata.com — a site that breaks down the caloric intake of pretty much any food— would dispel pretty much every food that you listed. For example, an orange contains on average 85 calories, has 2 calories from fat, and contains 17grams of sugar. That is not a negative calorie food item. Anything with a high amount of sugar is far from being a negative calorie item— and you list quite a few fruits. You didnt even list lettuce which has a very low calorie count.
Also, everyone’s metabolism isnt so universal that this can apply for everyone. This doesnt apply for anyone *period* but it certainly isn’t universal.
The only negative calorie food is ice.
Comment by igiveyoumylife — December 7, 2007 @ 3:13 pm
and a grapefruit contains only 10% of your daily value of potassium. And that is a WHOLE grapefuit.
The best source of potassium are apricots.
Comment by igiveyoumylife — December 7, 2007 @ 3:14 pm
The purest no calorie food is ice. The energy needed to melt it and raise it to body temperature is pure negative calories. Just dont get confused with the calories you burn; the values in textbooks for melting and heating a gram of ice are calories (small cal.) while food calories are kilocalories (1000 calories or Cal.)
Comment by rhodium — December 7, 2007 @ 6:00 pm
There is no such thing as a negative calorie food. Law of conservation of energy and all that.
Comment by proj — December 7, 2007 @ 6:57 pm
Huh, fruits and vegetables. Who woulda thunk it?
Comment by bobh — December 7, 2007 @ 7:44 pm
You’ve failed to explain why ANY of them are negative-calory food. You just mentioned they’re LOW ON caliories.
Comment by diets suck — December 7, 2007 @ 8:23 pm
This is untrue, there ARE no foods that contain less calories than you would burn just to eat them. That is absurd
Comment by Stephanie — December 7, 2007 @ 9:14 pm
What a fabulously simple article outlining foods that people can relate to and help to re-educate eating habits. Great. I will take pointers from this to write an article to help to educate my readers.
Thanks again for posting.
Zee Harrison.
http://www.blackwomanthinks.blogspot.com
Comment by ZeeHarrison — December 7, 2007 @ 9:55 pm
Wow, so eating fruits and vegetables is good for you?
Who woulda thunk it!
So glad someone made a list that tells me to eat fruits and vegetables…
Comment by Hobo740 — December 7, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
This is bullshit. There are no negative calorie foods. All foods have calories (except foods that we cannot digest), some are just more caloric dense then others. Saying a food is negative calorie implies that there isn’t a negative amount of energy in the food, which simply isn’t true.
Comment by Anonymous — December 7, 2007 @ 10:08 pm
are you kidding me? I left two comments about how wrong this post is and you deleted them?
amazing.
this site is so of my rss feed.
Comment by igiveyoumylife — December 7, 2007 @ 10:18 pm
oh they are still here. sorry!
Comment by igiveyoumylife — December 7, 2007 @ 10:19 pm
I did not know about these. I will think more when I will go shopping next time.
Thanks
Comment by THE CHEAPEST FLIGHT FINDER — December 7, 2007 @ 10:47 pm
while it’s true that these foods are very low in calories and certainly high in nutrients, you are aware that it is impossible to have negative calorie foods? the closest you could come to eating something with negative calories is swallowing cardboard.
Comment by eli skipp — December 8, 2007 @ 12:34 am
Adding these so called “negative calorie foods” into your daily diet is a good healthy think to do, but “negative calorie foods” don’t exist. Every kind of food contains calories. They really are healthy choice, but they don’t help you loose weight. They just cut your calorie intake when you don’t eat lot’s of junk food with it. This is the only “losing weight formula” - calories in(eating) - calories out(moving , living)=
Comment by Milan Stolicny — December 8, 2007 @ 1:06 am
Just correcting myself:
The only “loosing weight formula” is:
calories in(eating)-calories out(moving, living)=negative number
Comment by Milan Stolicny — December 8, 2007 @ 1:15 am
Thats a load of crap. There are given amounts of calories in everything. Celery produces X number calories which your body uses as fuel period.
Comment by Bob — December 8, 2007 @ 4:07 am
Negative calorie foods? Laura are you crazy, stupid, or just hoping to get hits by misrepresenting facts? Yeah the foods you list all offer some health benefits but negative calorie? No way
Comment by Dennis Byras — December 8, 2007 @ 6:46 am
thanks for the list of negative calorie foods.
Comment by gloria freeman — December 9, 2007 @ 11:34 am
I love this list and will share it! My focus is on caregivers - especially for in-home health care. You know, the family member who worked in the “outside world” but then was foist into the home by some unfortunate circumstance in the family.
Well, health is a major concern - and the impact on heart pressure, blood sugar, metabolism, and so much more from the poor eating habits (no time for YOU), missed meals, snacking to stave off hunger, etc…. well, weight gain can be a problem.
You have a great formula here to avoid some of those problems. Hey, half these things are already in my daily fruit-yogurt-flax seed blender drink (breakfast) and nightly salad!
Thanks for a great article.
Comment by Fran — December 9, 2007 @ 10:40 pm
Don’t know that I believe the “negative calorie” business, but these are all healthy foods and should be a big part of everyone’s daily diet.
Think in terms of adding foods (such as clean, wholesome foods), rather than “taking away,” and you can avoid the deprivation mindset completely.
Comment by Kathryn Martyn, M.NLP — December 10, 2007 @ 2:13 am
Thanks for reminding those of us who must watch our weight of these negative calorie foods which can keep hunger at bay while adding vitamins and minerals to our diet and jumpstarting our metabolism.
Comment by Helene Zemel — December 10, 2007 @ 8:43 am
okay everyone calm the FUCK down. obviously there is no such thing as “anti-calories,” otherwise there would be “anti-matter” and other “anti-substances.”
when food is digested, broken down and absorbed by the body, et doesn’t just passively leach into your system… the body expends energy to break down the organic and useful components of the food, and flush out the non-useful ones. thus, the body is BURNING CALORIES… not a lot, but when the food you eat doesn’t contain a LOT of calories, it is possible to burn more calories eating (chewing expends calories too…), digesting, and eventually passing the food out than there actually IS in the food itself. this is all she’s trying to say.
plus the complexity of the food adds a greater caloric requirement… like using raw sugar instead of refined white sugar or fructose.
hopefully everyone can shut up for a fucking second and realize that they aren’t roald hoffman or e.j. koary or someone brilliant… who actually matters.
Comment by richard — December 10, 2007 @ 11:30 pm
I didnt know about this. Thanks for the awareness
Comment by psychic readings — December 11, 2007 @ 1:21 pm
@ richard:
Thank you. I could not believe how many people misunderstood what “negative calorie” actually means. It does not mean the food itself has negative calories; it means your body burns more calories eating, swallowing, digesting, etc. than the food contains.
I am glad someone else understood that as well.
Thanks for the list!
Comment by Michael — December 11, 2007 @ 6:13 pm
How many times is someone going to post: “There are no such things as negative-calories”?
Comment by meredith — December 11, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
The comments have to be the best part of this list…
To think, that so many people take “negative calorie foods” as a literal meaning…
There are many, many foods where it takes more calories to consume the food (as Richard said, from picking it up, chewing, all the way through passing the food) than the food actually contains. This is but a small part of the list, and to whoever mentioned that fruits are /not/ in this list because of the high sugars, that person needs to review the many types of sugar that exist.
Sugar that one uses to bake (monosaccharide sugars) are indeed fattening (if you use too much, of course). However, there are more than simply monosaccharide sugars. There are also disaccharide sugars (two monosaccharide which form a bond together) and polysaccharide sugars, which are multiple monosaccharide forming a bond between each other.
Fruits and vegetables are predominantly polysaccharide sugars, which, along with di-sugars, the body cannot digest as-is. All di- and poly-sugars must first be broken down into mono-sugars, which takes energy (burns calories).
Many fruits are indeed negative-calorie foods, despite the sugars.
Comment by Y'arr — December 11, 2007 @ 11:24 pm
A-freakin’-men Richard. Kinda funny how nobody seems read the context in the introductory paragraph. My guess is that they have this on their rss reader (such as 4 comments by igiveyoumylife), read the title, and need to present themselves as superior to the poster. Must be horrible to be so in need of self-validation that you flame somebody who is trying to give helpful suggestions.
Comment by Xerxes — December 12, 2007 @ 3:32 am
The negative calorie concept is created in the belief that your body uses more (kilo)calories to digest the food than can be found in the food itself.
Comment by Brit — December 12, 2007 @ 4:50 am
Wow, I’m really surprised at how rude a lot of you people are. It may be true about the whole “negative calorie thing”, but it’s just a term it doesn’t have to be taken literally, it just helps to make the point that these foods don’t just add a lot of useless calories that your body will store up. So all of you who keep whining (mainly the heinously rude “igiveyoumylife”) should keep it to yourself and stop chewing this poor person out, because nobody deserves to be treated like that. And even if these aren’t right(and I’m not saying they are or they aren’t) but at least it will help someone to eat more fruits and vegetables and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Comment by Nato — December 12, 2007 @ 8:43 am
To everybody that simply doesn’t understand, nobody made the claim that they actually had a negative calorie content. The point was that in the process of digesting and eating you use calories, but in these cases that number is simply higher than the number of calories in the foods themselves.
For example, water is 0 calories, if you drink it your body USES calories to warm it up and get it through your system.
Now say that you have a 10 calorie item, if you use up 15 calories in the total process of consuming it, then you are in fact loosing calories.
It is in fact a negative calorie food, in the sense that it causes the SYSTEM to move in a negative direction.
Now stop being idiots.
Comment by Diane — December 14, 2007 @ 12:39 am
Okay, I’m sorry you guys but the negative calorie foods is a theory that yet needs to be proven. You guys needn’t be all that rude, if you guys don’t know about it just don’t talk about it, you guys aren’t infallible you know? It’s unbelievable how cocky some people can be.
On average a person needs a number of calories a day that their body uses to properly function, one of these functions is digestion. Let’s say one’s body uses 500cals a day for digestion (it’s way less than that and it depends on how much food the body’s got to digest.) If your overall calorie intake is less than 500 you’re burning calories by just eating as your body uses these 500 calories digesting but it doesn’t get them back. Moreover, vegetables are the hardest foods to digest (quite contrary to common belief) so there’s more calorie consumption if you’re eating veggies than if you’re eating other foods. Do notice all those foods are vegetables. By vegetables I mean belonging to the Plant Kingdom.
It is a theory, I repeat.
Comment by Lo — December 14, 2007 @ 4:31 am
I’m a fitness instructor at my college’s rec center and a nutritionist mentioned this in a lecture for the gym staff. According to Suzanne Leffler, R.D. there are no foods that burn more calories through digestion than they actually contain. If you eat more food, your caloric intake will go up, end of story.
I’m interested to know where the author of the article got her information from though, because I’m sure she didn’t just brainstorm a list of fifteen fruits and vegetables.
Comment by William — December 15, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
Thanks for participating in this week’s Carnival of Family Life, hosted at Adventures in Juggling. Stop by and read the other wonderful entries!
Comment by JHS — December 15, 2007 @ 7:06 pm
Well I for one enjoyed reading your article Laura and found it most interesting.
We all need to be aware of the value of eating raw fruit and vegetables as part of our daily diet.
Wanda
www.only-cookware.com
Comment by Wanda — December 16, 2007 @ 7:00 am
really nice & interesting tips thanx for sharing it
jasmine
tech-chek.blogspot.com
Comment by jasmine — December 17, 2007 @ 9:33 am
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
The only- and I mean ONLY- thing funnier than vehemently self-righteous know-it-alls… is vehemently self-righteous know-it-alls who are WRONG!
I’m mostly talking to you, “igiveyoumylife”.
lulz,
mêlée
Comment by Mêlée — December 18, 2007 @ 12:55 am
Rhodium explained it well. This common misperception stems from the confusion between calories and kilocalories. Food energy is measured in kilocalories but descriptions are commonly abbreviated to calories. The burn rates for digestion are in regular calories. So, you need to burn 1000 calories to equal 1 food calorie. The only food which is accurately described by the article title is water.
The apologists in this thread need to read the article title, understand the error, and acknowledge that the author’s credibility is shot to hell.
Comment by Jeff — December 18, 2007 @ 5:38 pm
Kilocalories vs. calories…finally, someone put it intelligently. igiveyoumylife, please do the entire world a favor, and do not reproduce. Also, what kind of name is that, anyway? I give you my life? Sounds like a cousin to All Your Base Are Belong To Us, and it’s funny for the same reason. The mentally challenged should not be allowed keyboards, at least, not unsupervised.
I have one more thing to say: Google. Use it before declaring something to be a fact, when you have no idea what you’re talking about. Even if you think you do have an idea…Google.
I give you my life…that sounds like some religious bull$hit, which would explain a great deal.
Comment by Ricky — December 19, 2007 @ 9:06 am
I’m with you, Ricky, about the Google thing. Between the shouting that’s going on about who’s right and who’s not, it can leave someone who is seeking to be healthier very confused. Google is basically a disinterested “third party” as it’s only a search engine.
Also, I noticed only one or two people mention exercise. Regardless of whether something’s a so-called “negative calorie” food, our bodies are meant to MOVE! They are not meant to sit around all day while our brain uses most of the food-energy we consume.
And gee…imagine yourself as an ancient tribes-person, having to literally hunt down your food, whether it be in meat (unprocessed, “free-range” meat, I thank ya!) or gathering nuts and berries: that sort of activity is what burns away the calories and saturated fats. The only reason diabetes and other metabolic/endocrine disorders came into being is the shift from lots of activity–especially farming and hunting–to sitting at desks being pencil (or pixel) pushers. Combine sedentary activities with refined sugars etc that are way too easy and convenient and you have a recipe for metabolic disaster.
I’ve said my piece.
Comment by Kat — December 19, 2007 @ 5:42 pm
SAD; VERY SAD; TO SEE THAT SOME FOLKS HAVE TO USE SUCH VULGAR;SINFUL WORDS IN THEIR ANSWERS ON THIS ARTICLE. PLEASE; IN THE FUTURE; WEED OUR THESE SENDERS!!! GOD BLESS…..joanne
Comment by joanne white — December 26, 2007 @ 10:55 am
So, who’s right?
Comment by Bill — January 1, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
I found the comments from stupid people more entertaining than the article itself.
Nett negative calories might be a better way to present this information.
What scares me is that of all the readers who responded, there are way more stupid, uneducated, people than there are people who actually read the whole article and understood it.
I would like to advocate for an Internet where you have to pass a literacy test before you may post anything.
Shame.
Comment by Bob — January 2, 2008 @ 8:43 pm
The concept of “negative calories” is dependent on a number of factors that aren’t counted here. No two bodies burn the same number of calories performing the same action. Metabolic rates, resting heart rates, etc. all play a vital role. But, yes, your body can ultimately burn more calories digesting than it gets from the food, and I was a prime example of that in my teens. Completely at rest for the entire holiday weekend, I would invariably lose weight during Thanksgiving even though I was eating ungodly quantities of food. I had a ridiculously active metabolism.
This isn’t going to work for everyone, obviously. But foods that are high in fiber, for example, are going to take more time to metabolize than a handful of candy, because your body needs to break foods down into nutrients, simple sugars and fats for storage. The more complex a food is, the longer it takes to break down and the more energy is spent on the task. If it’s already low in calories, you are *likely* (not guaranteed) to burn more calories digesting it than you will receive as a result of digestion.
Comment by Mike — January 5, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
Just for the record, the link that you provide in this post in the words “negative calorie” takes you to a site that says there is only one negative calorie food: cardboard.
I get the concept, but… perhaps you could re-label your article to be regarding low calorie foods… since that’s what it’s about.
Comment by Daniel — January 7, 2008 @ 7:20 am
Well I was all prepared to point out how silly “negative calories” was (or “negative net calories” as it should be called) and I went to Snopes.com for information to back me up.
http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/celery.asp
According to Snopes, it’s kinda true. At least it is for celery, or any food where we cannot extract the calories through digestion. However the amount you save is really negligible. You just won’t gain weight. You still need to move to lose weight.
Comment by DJ — January 12, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
All foods have a nutrient (carbohydrate, fat, protein), caloric and vitamin and mineral content. Vitamins stimulate living tissues to produce enzymes that breakdown the caloric nutrients of that food.
Foods with negative calorie contain sufficient vitamins and minerals that produce enzymes in quantities sufficient to break down not only its own calories, but additional calories present in digestion as well. This is called the “negetive calorie effect”. More information can be found at: http://www.negativecaloriediet.com/?hop=lifelight
Comment by Sandy — January 28, 2008 @ 11:33 pm
The people who said “negative calories” is crap are probably looking for another excuse to keep their pounds. I am living proof this works. This is a great plan to lose weight if you have limited time to exercise. I like to replace sandwich meats with roasted vegetables. Do them on your grill or under the broiler. I lost my baby weight gain within two months doing this after all four babies! The only exercise I get is playing with my kids. Just try it if you don’t believe! What have you got to lose??? Some weight maybe.
Comment by LK — January 29, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
Wow, so many people are leaving negative comments. She’s not saying foods have less than 0 calories. She’s saying it takes more energy from your body to burn these foods than the actual amount of calories IN THEM. She already says how many calories are in these foods… she never said that they have negative calories. Please read carefully before posting ignorant comments =)
Comment by Shannon — February 1, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
Everyone who doesn’t believe this, go to: http://www.fatfreekitchen.com/negative-calorie-foods and they’ll explain it.
Comment by ZW — February 3, 2008 @ 6:27 am
I understand the idea behind “negative calorie” foods. However, this is just hearsay until someone comes up with some research that at least attempts to prove this. Doing a google academic search on ‘”negative calorie” food’ comes up with…. nothing along the lines in this article. Searching for ‘”negative calorie” vegetables’ brings up:
http://www.mhfs.org.uk/mhfs/resources/nmhw2005/02LosingWeight.pdf
Which says:
“Negative Calorie Diet
The Negative Calorie Diet claims that
digesting some foods burns more
calories than they contain, and that
eating other foods actually speeds up
your metabolism. In addition it claims
that simple breathing exercises can ‘turn
your body into a fat burning machine’.
Advantages
A diet that is high in fruit and vegetables
will be filling and really healthy, even if
they are not actually ‘negative’ calories.
Disadvantages
If you really want to burn calories then
start exercising.
Conclusion
Does this diet really work? Negative.”
While this is only one source, granted, and I could not easily confirm it’s academic origin. I’ll trust google on this one but mind you it’s not infallible. The author of the article is
http://nationalobesityforum.org.uk/content/view/122/159/
As you can see he’s pretty credible
So any chance we can get some resources on the article @ hand?
Comment by Cris — February 3, 2008 @ 7:18 am
the article’s title was only meant to attract readers
and by hateing on her and leaving idiotic comments you did exactly what she wanted. lettuce should be #1
Comment by LOL DUDE — February 3, 2008 @ 9:20 am
since each person’s metabolism might be different, eating these foods could have a weight loss effect in some people with a fast metabolism (ex. a runner or bodybuilder) while in others it it may make them gain weight provided calories consumed > Calories expended due to a slowed metabolism (ex. low cal dieters that are plataued). so i think that eating just an apple only with a glass of water in the morning or before bed could actualy burn more caloies via. digestion of it than the apple contained provided that your metabolism is not in “calore conservation mode” and your maintainance calorie level is met. BUT fatloss is all about calorie in = calorie out. If your metabolism dosent have enough calories needed to digest that apple, it would A) go catabolic (used stored calories to digest the food) or B) Slow the metabolism. I eat lots and lots of vegies, fruits, and lean meats and i am gaining muscle right now and not fat. Gone from 148 to 151 and stayed at 5% BF so far. If i could provide anybody with any advice, it would be to make fruits and vegitables around 50% of your diet. The other half lean protien and healthy fat calories.
Hope this makes sense.
Comment by Kyle — February 8, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
I don’t know how old are the poeple who left those stupid comments. i am 18 and understand very well the meaning of this article. I am totally with richard and all (sorry can’t remember every name..). It works if you also exercise.
PLUS, what is the problem with this article if it is true or not. Vegetables and fruits ARE PROOVEN to be the best diet. Everyone knows that they are essential if you want to lose weight, so what’s the problem if it is still a theory that still needs to be proven ??? It only helps people to find motivation!
Also, if you don’t believe in the article why are you so interested in participating in the comments? just click on the close button and go do your business somewhere else!
Comment by Di — February 9, 2008 @ 12:48 am
its amazing how people are saying this is crap because all foods have calories. “Your body can burn more calories just by chewing and processing the snack than the food contains already.” some people need to learn how to read.
Comment by Meg — February 26, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
just for the record, I eat negative calorie foods and lean cuisines everyday and I continue to lose weight. I dont care what any of you people say, it works. it takes more energy to digest them and chew them than they actually contain. If you are skinny, dont worry about this. However, if you want to lose weight this is the way to do it. I previously lost 20lbs. in a period of 5 weeks. That was a year ago and I have kept all of it off. I just started it again about 2 weeks ago and I have lost ten pounds. THE SCALE SHOWS THE TRUTH. So all of you that are saying that it doesnt work, try it. You will find that you are very very wrong.
Comment by a girl — March 3, 2008 @ 2:18 am
i am student of food and nutrition. i like this information.
but i also want to know, that how much calories are burn by these foods when i eat them. if possible please suggest amount of food and calories burn by that amount.
Comment by sangeeta manwani — March 6, 2008 @ 9:36 am
I love how people keep claiming that you can get more than enough calories from nothing other than celery to sustain yourself for the long term. Try eating nothing but celery for two months… feel free to take a multivitamin, just to make sure you die from starvation and not a vitamin or mineral deficiency. You won’t have learned anything since you’ll be dead, but at least then you’ll have STFU.
Oh, and the great minds who say these things, are people like igiveyoumylife who proved himself illiterate when he said lettuce wasn’t listed… it’s #8 on the list dumbass. Learn to read!
Then someone brought up the laws of conservation of energy… as if the body was a closed system… if it were, our temperature by the time we were a week old would be well above boiling. Duh, your body loses energy all the time, moron. That’s why you can consume over 1200 calories a day without excercising and not gain weight.
Also, the body is not 100% energy efficient. Just because a food has x number of calories, doesn’t mean your body absorbs them all. Nothing is 100% energy efficient (THAT would be physically impossible). Food calories are measured as the total energy value of the food, not the total energy value your body aborbs from it. There’s no measurement for that because it changes from person to person. So even though you consumed those 3 calories in that stick of celery, your body might only absorb 1 or 2 of those calories. In the time it took to consume those 1 to 2 calories, your body was losing energy at a much higher rate. Not because you were eating the calories, but just because your body naturally uses a certain number of calories to function (that’s called metabolism for those of you who have shown yourselves to be dumber than a box of rocks).
By the way sangeeta manawani, nobody can give you those figures because it depends on your individual metabolism at the time you’re consuming that food, as well as the health of your digestive system (measured as your body’s ability to absorb those calories). That changes not only from person to person, but even in the same person it can change from morning to night, because your body isn’t a static machine.
For anyone else… while there are some problems with the article (like saying celery is high in sugar, I’m not sure you can really call 3 calories per stick, high), the title of it isn’t one of them. Just because you’re too stupid to read or figure it out, doesn’t make it wrong. It just makes you a dumbass if you post about it.
Comment by someone who is fed up with idiots — March 11, 2008 @ 5:17 am
Wow! I have never posted before so I am a little uncertain about what the norm is as far as posting etiquette. It seems to me that there are an awfull lot of people getting very rilled up about and more than a little rude over “Food”! One person is giving out healthfull information which may or may not have some significant impact on weight loss. We can choose to heed it or not. I am interested in the scientific validity of the theory that one can expend more energy eating a food item than that food item contributes. Intuitively it seems to make sense to me, but then maybe I am among the not so bright lights being refered to above (using much less charitable language).
Comment by Dominique — March 12, 2008 @ 6:49 am