There has been a lot of back and forth on whether negative calorie foods exist, or whether it’s all a bunch of crap. One thing I’ve noticed while doing detailed research on this subject is that often times the people adamant that “negative calorie foods” is a stupid concept seem to miss what the actual negative foods concept is about. Negative calories foods are not foods that don’t have calories-they’re foods that cause the body to burn more calories than ingested to process it. For example, if a slice of carrot had 10 calories, but took 12 to burn, that food would have -2 calorie effect on your body.
The idea with negative calorie foods, which are always certain types of fruits and veggies and are usually very high in fiber, and have a low number of calories to begin with. The theory with negative calorie foods is that the energy (calories) the body burns in order to process the nutrients of these foods is more than the number of calories that are actually in the food. If true, this makes these foods excellent choices for a diet, since they keep you full, but don’t add any calories whatsoever.
So once again, I repeat this because it’s important: no foods have negative calories. The lowest you can get is zero, which is basically water. But ice water requires the body to work to warm it up for use, meaning although the calorie amounts burned are paltry (an estimated 50 calories for the recommended 8 glasses of ice water a day), that still creates a negative calorie effect since your body burned 50 calories to process ice water, which gave back 0 calories.
This is what is meant by “negative calorie foods.” A more accurate description might be “Foods low in calories that produce a negative calorie effect because of how much energy it takes to burn them,” but that doesn’t sound nearly as snazzy or sexy as “negative calorie foods,” which gets the same idea across.
There is a heated debate, but the evidence seems to indicate that yes, there are foods that create a negative calorie effect. For people who automatically yell, “That’s impossible!” without looking at the facts, well consider this very well known piece of survival knowledge: if you eat nothing but wild hares and wild rabbits for a large amount of time, you will starve to death. There aren’t enough calories or nutrients because of the rabbits’ diet, and the body takes too much energy to break down the protein that isn’t giving anything back.
So the idea of negative calorie foods works for a few reasons, and most of these foods have a few things in common that make this unusual situation possible:
1) All of these foods are extremely high in fiber. This makes it much easier for your body to digest quickly, and use every nutrient while passing the rest straight on through quickly enough that it can’t stick around to become fat.
2) All of these foods are either fruits or veggies. There is no other type of food on this list that falls into another food group. These food groups are commonly the healthiest types of food for you anyway, and almost never have any fat, though there are exceptions (like coconuts, which definitely do NOT make the negative foods list).
3) Most all of these foods will have a high water content. This makes sense since no matter how strong a metabolic effect a food has, the higher in calories it is the harder it will be to burn all of them off. Water has no calories, so fruits and veggies that are particularly high in water will have less calories and thus there is less to burn off while digesting.
Now, sometimes the argument is over whether a food is truly negative calorie or not, and one such example of this is pineapple. Several lists you find online of negative calorie foods has pineapple on it, several lists don’t. In the cases where there is a dispute, to be on the safe side I put that food on the “maybe” list. Don’t shun away these foods, however. Many of these foods still are high in fiber, in the good natural sugar your body needs to burn fat, and they are still low in calories compared to other foods in other food groups. Having a diet high in foods in the “maybe” list still gives you a very healthy diet.
Here are the lists of negative calorie foods, and maybe negative calorie foods (keep in mind these are when they’re natural-canned versions often add sugars and preservatives that make them less healthy).
Negative Calorie Foods:
asparagus
celery
lettuce
beets
onions
broccoli
carrots (not baby carrots-added sugar on those)
spinach
garlic
apples
cranberries
raspberries
strawberries
ice water
Possibly Negative Calorie Foods:
green cabbage
cauliflower
cucumbers
papayas
turnips
zucchini
grapefruit
mangos
oranges
pineapple
tangerines
raw bell peppers
black berries
blue berries
lemons
limes
watermelon
cantaloupe
prunes
tomatoes
Like I said, most of the bottom list may very well be negative calorie foods, but if there was any argument, I put them there. I’m less inclined to believe cantaloupe and pineapples, but they are foods that are extremely good for you and low in calories, so I can always hope. If you have a diet heavy in these foods that cuts out the junk food and processed food, then the negative calorie foods effect can help.
I’ve lost 35 lbs. and counting by changing my diet, and granted, a lot of that also comes from giving up pop, switching out juice for ice water, and taking walks, but the weeks I ate less foods off this list, I did believe I noticed a difference than when my diet was heavy in these foods. Either way, these foods will help you lose weight, and will help you stay healthy and in shape. Good luck. I’m pulling for you.
List of Sources:
“Negative Calorie Foods! Are They For Real?” http://www.healthrecipes.com/negative_calorie_foods.htm
http://www.negativecaloriefoods.com/
http://www.squidoo.com/negative-calorie-foods/
