Negative Calories?

cunnins4

Anyone ever heard of this? My brother's on a weight loss buzz and he was saying that "apparently" some foods (apples) require more energy to digest than the food itself? I find it hard to believe, but i guess some food could only have a small net amount of calories after digestion?

Is there any truth in this?

BTW: I've no intention on going on an apples only diet or anything, i've no weight to lose, but he might!!!:rolleyes:

Jimbo

Celery is definately a negative calorie food, but you wont be wanting to eat too much of that Id imagine

cunnins4

That's interesting. Never heard of that before. I only eat because I'm hungry! Why the fúck would you eat something that costsyou energy!??! Madness!

biko

cunnins4 wrote: »

That's interesting. Never heard of that before. I only eat because I'm hungry! Why the fúck would you eat something that costsyou energy!??! Madness!

Note, it is still theory but these foods may be consumed within a weight-loss diet to potentially relieve the feeling of hunger without contributing to total caloric intake.

List of Negative Calorie Foods
asparagus
beet
broccoli
green cabbage
carrot
cauliflower
celery root
celery chicory
hot chili peppers
cucumber
dandelion
endive
garden cress
garlic
green beans
zucchini
apple
cranberries
grapefruit
lemon mango
orange
pineapple raspberries
strawberries
tangerine
lamb's lettuce
lettuce
onion
papaya
radishes
spinach
turnip

crotalus667

biko wrote: »

Note, it is still theory

Wrong :rolleyes:it is a disproved theory / myth , sorry to disappoint you:D , if I recall correctly it was a study quoted in flex that conclusively proved that there is no such thing as a negative calorie

biko

crotalus667 wrote: »

Wrong :rolleyes:it is a disproved theory / myth , sorry to disappoint you:D , if I recall correctly it was a study quoted in flex that conclusively proved that there is no such thing as a negative calorie

Link?

Time Magazine

biko wrote: »

beet

Damnit biko, I read that as "beef".

Cadrach

biko wrote: »

Note, it is still theory but these foods may be consumed within a weight-loss diet to potentially relieve the feeling of hunger without contributing to total caloric intake.

List of Negative Calorie Foods
asparagus
beet
broccoli
green cabbage
carrot
cauliflower
celery root
celery chicory
hot chili peppers
cucumber
dandelion
endive
garden cress
garlic
green beans
zucchini
apple
cranberries
grapefruit
lemon mango
orange
pineapple raspberries
strawberries
tangerine
lamb's lettuce
lettuce
onion
papaya
radishes
spinach
turnip

Just in case somebody on a weight loss diet reads this and gets the wrong idea... it's not what it looks like. For example, if you're on a low carb diet and eat carrots and beets with every meal, you might find out that there is more to it. These all look like pretty safe foods, and most of them I think of as "all you can eat" foods (spinach, garlic, lettuce) but even apples and papaya, even though they're good for you, are sugary and it's not like you'll lose loads of weight if you eat hundreds of them in a day.

davyjose

Cadrach wrote: »

Just in case somebody on a weight loss diet reads this and gets the wrong idea... it's not what it looks like. For example, if you're on a low carb diet and eat carrots and beets with every meal, you might find out that there is more to it. These all look like pretty safe foods, and most of them I think of as "all you can eat" foods (spinach, garlic, lettuce) but even apples and papaya, even though they're good for you, are sugary and it's not like you'll lose loads of weight if you eat hundreds of them in a day.

I think if anyone ate as many apples as they could (a lot less than hundreds) in a day, they'd lose weight

Sangre

I can't imagine any fruit i.e stuff with sugars in them, could have negative calories.

g'em

There is no such thing as a "negative calorie".

There are foods that may require an energy output that is greater than the energy yielded from the food itself creating a net negative calorie expenditure (this will be individual specific).

All those foods are fibre rich so they pass through the body easily.

All those foods have high water content meaning volume for volume they contain less calories than other foods.

All those foods are either fruit or veg... work it out, it ain't rocket science :rolleyes:

Where are the proteins? Where are the fats? It's a diet in the sense that you will reduce your calorie intake by eating nothing but those foods, but it's not necessarily healthy.

crotalus667

biko wrote: »

Link?

as I said i think it was in flex

davyjose

g'em wrote: »

Where are the proteins? Where are the fats? It's a diet in the sense that you will reduce your calorie intake by eating nothing but those foods, but it's not necessarily healthy.

Yeah but if 99% of the people in this country incorporated these foods into a large part of their diet, it would improve dramatically.

biko

crotalus667 wrote: »

as I said i think it was in flex

I had a look in the online version, couldn't find it. If you could locate another link that be great.
In the meantime Snopes

rubadub

Snopes had the point I was going to mention about cold water requiring energy to reheat and process it.

Calorific values of food are calculated in labs and have nothing to do with human digestion systems. They burn a substance and calculate how much energy was released, usually they heat a fixed mass of water and calculate its temperature increase. So petrol and alcohol have quite high calorific values and when ignitied will release this energy. However studies have shown that humans do not get the use of all these calories from alcohol, i.e. they put one study group on say 500kcal additional calories from sugar drinks, the other from alcohol, the sugar group got fatter. Ancedotally I know this is the case, I drink a lot and used to drink almost everyday, and know others who did. One guy was a constant 65kg 6'1'' yet was consuming about 1900kcal everyday ontop of normal amounts of food and did not put on weight.

Walking to the shops to get your food everyday is a good way to use up calories

lizzyvera

davyjose wrote: »

I think if anyone ate as many apples as they could (a lot less than hundreds) in a day, they'd lose weight

That is true, I read years ago about an apple detox and tried it because it was before I'd heard of these detox things and wanted to see if it did anything.
At most I could manage about ten a day which is only about 500-600kcal coming mostly from sugar.

Pretty boring but my eyes did get shinier. I only did it for 5 days and didn't weigh myself before or after unfortunately.

Cadrach

I meant in addition to a balanced diet. The concept of a negative calorie implies that eating it actually makes you lose weight and logically the more you eat the more you lose. Anyway, if you only eat 600 calories a day you're going to lose weight regardless of where those 600 calories come from... but obviously it's the wrong way to lose weight etc. etc.