Ah, negative calorie foods. You know, the ones that actually burn calories because it takes more energy for you to digest them.
Yeah, it’s a load of hot garbage.
I’ve been seeing this information circulate a lot recently for some reason, so I feel it’s my responsibility to help you.
The idea of negative calorie foods is that they are SO low calorie that you actually burn calories when you eat them, because digestion burns calories.
Digestion (the thermic effect of food) does burn calories, but it only accounts for roughly 10% of the calories you consume. That’s to say that if you eat 2000 calories per day, you probably burn about 200 calories from digestion alone.
But to burn those 200 calories, you need to actually eat 2000 calories.
While it would be very difficult to eat 2000 calories of only fruits and vegetables, if you did, you would still only burn about 200 calories from the digestion.
These “negative calorie” foods can help you lose weight because they are low calorie and more filling than some other options, helping you to achieve a caloric deficit overall. But on their own, I’m sorry, but they’re not burning any extra calories.
And in case anyone is curious, Dr. Oz did in fact say that apples have negative calories. He also said “the more you eat, the more you lose,” which goes against literally everything we know about dieting. So, there’s that.
