‘Foods contain calories and some (delicious, tempting) foods contains lot of them, if you don’t burn most these calories, you end being fat’. That’s our normal perception about foods in general. But what if the foods you eat, burn calories, what if you lose more calories than you burn from them…Excited? These foods, ladies and gentleman, are called as ‘Negative Calorie foods’ which have taken the entire dieting population by storm.
Now, where were these foods and how come you never heard of them before? The answer is that these foods are not some exotic variety of foods that were just discovered in the jungles of Amazon. These foods were in fact a regular part of our diet. Confused? Don’t be… Here is the concept of negative calorie foods explained.
Negative calorie foods, what are they?
Any food you eat contains calories, for example a slice of cake that contains 400 calories requires about 150 calories to be digested. So the amount of calories that you get is 400 minus 150, i.e. 250 calories. For some foods for example raw cabbage only contains 25 calories in 100 grams but we use more energy to chew it and some more to digest it. Thus cabbage burns more calories than it actually gives, which makes it a negative calorie food.
So which are these foods?
Apple, Asparagus (Shatawari), Beet, Broccoli, Cabbage, Carrot, Cauliflower, Celery, Cranberry, Chili (hot), Cucumber, Garlic, Grapefruit (Chakotra), Green beans, Lemon, Lettuce (Sasmisaag), Lime, Mango, Onion, Orange, Papaya, Peach, Pineapple, Radish, Spinach, Strawberry, Tomato, Turnip (Shalgam) and Watermelon are some of the common fruits and vegetables which are included in the Negative Calorie Foods mentioned by various websites.
How does it work?
Unlike what we assume, you do not always have to walk for an hour or workout to burn calories. We are constantly burning calories as we are living, so even while we sit or just sleep, our bodies are burning calories. The process of digestion also takes energy, from the time the food enters the stomach when food is broken down by the gastric juices as well as the time when food reaches the intestines, the process continues. Thus for foods like cabbage, celery and lettuce which contain a higher content of fiber, which takes longer to be broken down, the energy we spend to break them down and finally expel them, is greater than we get from them.
Negative calorie foods are thus excellent for losing weight because since they are high in fiber, they keep us full for long and reduce our consumption of other high calorie food options. Most foods included in the negative calorie foods contain essential vitamins and nutrients as well that aid weight loss and improve health.
Critics
In spite of many hype around Negative calories, many health experts are not convinced of its claims. Dr. Shweta Iyengar, Nutritionist, says “Negative Calorie foods are a gimmick. There is nothing such as negative calorie, the least number of calories that a food can have is zero and only water can provide you that.” There are lot of factors along that determine the effect of these foods, like what did you eat with it, how did you prepare it and how much you had, she further explains her distrust regarding ‘negative calorie foods’. Here are some other arguments against Negative calories.
Other than Dr. Neal D. Barnard, M.D who published this theory in his book in 1990, there has been no independent study or research into the theory. Some experts believe that since there has been no research into the phenomenon, it cannot be substantiated.
Even if these foods in themselves contain negligible calories, some of them are really difficult to find and even those you manage to get your hands on, how do you prepare them so that they are edible and still remain ‘negative calorie’? Dr. Shweta adds, “If you add sugar, spices or oil to these vegetables, you are increasing its calories, so it is impractical to call them negative calorie foods.”
But it still works
There are however a large number of people who have lost weight through this negative calorie diet. Some experts believe that people managed to lose their weight not because they were eating foods that burn fat but because the foods they eat were healthier and contained less calories than those they were replacing, which were mostly junk foods.
