Live off of negative / zero calorie foods for a short time ?

donyellemoniquex3

I got thinking this the other day. Not that I want to do it, but is it possible ?

Ready2Rock206

Anything is possible for a short time. Is it healthy, is it sustainable, will it do anything for you, is it crazy? Those are the real questions. All food has calories, but I'm assuming you mean like eating nothing but celery until you go insane and punch a goat? Because seriously - that would take me like a few hours before I got to that point....

Yanicka1

There is no negative or zero calories food. Water is zero calories. So no not possible.

Acg67

I got thinking this the other day. Not that I want to do it, but is it possible ?

There no negative calorie foods, but you could fast for an extended period of time, but it would not be recommended without a docs supervision

shammxo

No.

EndlessSacrifice

Negative calorie foods do are non-existent.

FabMrFox

nice filling bowl of crushed ice and splenda? meh I'll stick with oatmeal

RachelSRoach1

Were you meaning eat very low calorie foods then exercise what few calories you gained? Sounds dangerous without doctor supervision.

Gimpdogg

Technically celery is a negative calorie food...it takes more calories to digest than it contains. BUT no calories equals no energy wich equals DEAD. As long as the rest of your diet is nutritional and well balanced eating an *kitten* load of celery should help you lose weight...in theory.

stillnot2late

I'm not suggesting you do that, but there is the shirataki pastas and rice with about 0 to 8 calories per serving. There is a salad dressing in the refrigerated part of the grocieries that is zero calorie.

Mokey41

Only zero calorie "food" I know is water and you supposedly can live 30 days on water only. You probably won't feel very well but you most likely will cave long before it becomes dangerous.

mynameiscarrie

I'm not suggesting you do that, but there is the shirataki pastas and rice with about 0 to 8 calories per serving. There is a salad dressing in the refrigerated part of the grocieries that is zero calorie.

I'm not disagreeing with you....but just for the record (for anyone), usually these things are only 0 calories because there are not enough calories per serving to have to legally put a number in the calorie section. You wouldn't be able to eat 4 servings worth and still be eating 0 calories. A lady sued Parkay for that reason. She would pour half a bottle of Parkay on her pasta thinking it was 0 calories because it says 0 calories per serving. She gained weight and sued. Splenda is another good example. It's 0 calories per 1/2 teaspoon, but a cup of it has almost 100 calories.

Just saying

rgrange

lol negative calorie foods

wolfchild59

So, you want to live off of water? Because nothing else out there is actually zero calories, just allowed to say zero calories because a serving size is under five calories.

And there's definitely no such thing as negative calorie foods. So a fast would pretty much be the only way to do what your subject line implies.

wolfchild59

Technically celery is a negative calorie food...it takes more calories to digest than it contains.

An excerpt from my favorite explanation of why this isn't true (from http://www.answerfitness.com/269/negative-calorie-foods-fact-fiction/ ):

Is Celery Really a Negative Calorie Food?
While the list of negative calorie foods has ballooned to include everything from beets to strawberries and mangoes (yes, I’m being serious here), celery is the most commonly cited negative calorie food.

From a nutritional standpoint, celery is pretty much empty. It’s basically made up of water, sodium, some trace minerals and something called cellulose — which is a form of vegetable fiber than the human body cannot digest. It contains no protein or fat and marginal carbohydrates. Any other nutrition in celery is in the form of vitamins, minerals and enzymes, which contain no calories.

In fact, aside from iceberg lettuce and cucumbers, you probably couldn’t find a less nutritious, lower-calorie vegetable to eat. These foods are already about as close as you can get to eating zero calories. Close, but not quite, as we’ll see in a moment.

A large, stalk of celery weighing in at 2.2 ounces contains only nine calories. Negative calorie diet advocates claim that the mere process of chewing and digesting celery requires an expenditure of energy that exceeds the 9 calories present in the celery. Therefore, the argument goes, celery has “negative calories.”

Again, this all sounds good in theory, but what about in practice?

Issues with the Negative Calorie Foods Theory
There are some flaws with the negative calorie food theory, however.

First, the reason that certain foods like celery are already low in calories is exactly because of their high-non-caloric nutritional content. The fact that cellulose, water and minerals like sodium contain no calories is already figured into the food’s caloric-content. That’s why it has minimal calories in the first place. Negative food advocates want to double-dip here, and have you believe that the non-caloric nutrients like cellulose lower its effective calorie levels even more, but that’s just not how it works. This is already baked-in.

Second, the whole argument that the body burns more calories chewing and digesting negative calorie foods like celery is also suspect.

Yes, the body does expend a certain amount of energy to digest food, but that expenditure — even with foods that contain a high-percentage of non-caloric nutrients like cellulose — is actually fairly minimal.

Typically, the body will expend 10 - 15 percent of the calories you consume each day to fuel digestion. Let’s just throw the negative calorie food gurus a bone and say that for foods that are rich in non-digestible nutrients like cellulose, that number is actually as high as 50 percent of calories consumed (I have no evidence for this claim — I’m just being generous to prove a point.)

In the case of celery — the poster child of all negative calorie foods – you would be burning an extra 4.5 calories per each 9 calorie, 2.2 oz serving of celery. That would put your effective net calories at 4.5 (9/50% = 4.5 calories) — hardly “negative calorie” territory.

And because the amount of energy expended on digestion of foods is always expressed as a percentage, to have a negative calorie effect, digestion would have to constitute at least 101% of the energy consumed in order to create a negative calorie environment — something which is physically impossible.

So it appears that the food that is the best candidate for qualifying as a negative calorie food — celery – can’t even hit the break-even point, let alone become “calorie-negative.”

stillnot2late

mynameiscarrie - thanks for the info. thats really funny, she sued huh? wow.

mynameiscarrie

mynameiscarrie - thanks for the info. thats really funny, she sued huh? wow.

I know! you'd think it would be common sense... I'm not sure if she won the lawsuit lol

kmhenry84

I got thinking this the other day. Not that I want to do it, but is it possible ?

Only if you ride a unicorn backwards while holding a leprechaun.

seriously.. I joke.. but no only zero calorie food is water. Like stated earlier, there are no negative calorie foods and labels can put it as zero if its under 5.

robin52077

donyellemoniquex3

mynameiscarrie - thanks for the info. thats really funny, she sued huh? wow.

I know! you'd think it would be common sense... I'm not sure if she won the lawsuit lol

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- A Nebraska woman has filed a false advertising lawsuit against ConAgra Foods, accusing the packaged food company of intentionally misrepresenting its Parkay Spray butter substitute as fat-free and calorie-free.

The lawsuit filed by Pamela Trewhitt, of Gretna, Monday in Omaha's federal court seeks class-action status to represent thousands of people it says have been deceived by the company's product labeling.

While the spray is marketed and sold as fat-free and calorie-free, it contains 832 calories and 93 grams of fat per 8-ounce bottle, the lawsuit says. Parkay Spray's nutrition information label also uses artificially small serving sizes of one to five sprays to understate the amount of fat and calories in the product, according to the complaint.

"Defendant knew or should have known that its product was mislabeled and engendered confusion among consumers," the lawsuit says.

Kansas City attorney Ureka Idstrom, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Trewhitt, did not return calls Thursday from The Associated Press seeking comment.

But her lawsuit points to Internet complaints about the spray.

"For example, a contributor to (a) website ... writes, 'I could not figure out why I simply could not lose hardly even a pound, even though I was working out hard ... and monitoring calories ... for a couple of years,'" the lawsuit relays. "Well ... I was also literally taking the top of the 'fat and calorie free butter' spray and pouring it on all my carefully steamed veggies when I found out that a bottle of that stuff is 90 fat grams. I was going through two bottles a week, and working out and getting fat and unhealthy."

The company stands behind the accuracy of its labeling and "has a long-established commitment to marketing our food responsibly," ConAgra spokeswoman Becky Niiya said Thursday.

"We intend to vigorously defend this litigation," Niiya said.

The lawsuit accuses ConAgra of violating the Nebraska Consumer Protection Act, reaping ill-gotten profits from the product, intentional and negligent misrepresentation, and fraud. It seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages, although it expects those damages to exceed $5 million, as well as court and attorney costs. It also seeks an injunction to keep ConAgra from labeling its product as fat-free and calorie-free.

Ready2Rock206

"For example, a contributor to (a) website ... writes, 'I could not figure out why I simply could not lose hardly even a pound, even though I was working out hard ... and monitoring calories ... for a couple of years,'" the lawsuit relays. "Well ... I was also literally taking the top of the 'fat and calorie free butter' spray and pouring it on all my carefully steamed veggies when I found out that a bottle of that stuff is 90 fat grams. I was going through two bottles a week, and working out and getting fat and unhealthy."

That's seriously gross. That couldn't even taste good! On top of the fact she's a moron, that's just disgusting.

zaph0d

I got thinking this the other day

seems like whenever this happens, hilarity ensues

gdnt

It's actually pretty normal for people to write off "zero calorie" foods as some sort of strange chemical concoction, in order to convince themselves that they're labeled honestly. Many people are NOT aware of the 10 (10, right?) calorie limit for labeling foods as "zero calorie", and it's human nature to get excited about something like that.

If the actual calorie content of the whole container being sold was very low, I'd say sure, suing is a bit ridiculous, but arguing that marketing something which, as a whole, contains close to 1,000 calories as "0 calories per serving" is extremely irresponsible and misleading. Is there a reason to allow companies to market products in that way? They do it for profit, not in the best interest of consumers.

There's virtually no education program that aims to educate the public about that little loophole. I did a bit of research as soon as I heard about "zero calorie" foods, but I think it's silly to defend businesses rather than consumers, in this case.

Anyway, from what I've read, under certain circumstances it's possible to go without food for quite a while, maybe even without causing yourself any harm. Healthy people usually have some ability to withstand physical hardship. The problems are that it would likely: be less than "safe" without a doctor's recommendation and supervision, interfere with your ability to go about daily life, or backfire due to inability to resist the urge to eat after returning to a normal diet. I've also seen a few studies which suggested that people who restricted their intake for long periods of time may develop disordered relationships toward food, even if they had not previously had any food issues. Of course, a lot of different factors could come into play with this.

MoreBean13

Here's the thing- if food had no calories, it wouldn't be food. I guess we can consider dirt and rocks 'negative calorie foods' too.

AlsDonkBoxSquat

negative/zero calorie foods . . . . . hahahahahahaha!! Thanks for the early morning laugh! :laugh:

cdpark617

Here's the thing- if food had no calories, it wouldn't be food. I guess we can consider dirt and rocks 'negative calorie foods' too.

Actually dirt does contain calories ;-)

TheSink

I'm really confused by some of the posters this morning. I had a big glass of oxygen this morning for breakfast, and now I'm having a helium bagel followed by my invisible banana. And I'm full.

secretlobster

I heard that if you do this, time starts to move backward

KitchenAbs

I'm really confused by some of the posters this morning. I had a big glass of oxygen this morning for breakfast, and now I'm having a helium bagel followed by my invisible banana. And I'm full.

Helium bagels sound delicious!

Captain_Tightpants

Sure it's possible. Yesterday I filled my car's gas tank up with air and it still got me to work on time this mornng.

Lisah8969

Anything is possible for a short time. Is it healthy, is it sustainable, will it do anything for you, is it crazy? Those are the real questions. All food has calories, but I'm assuming you mean like eating nothing but celery until you go insane and punch a goat? Because seriously - that would take me like a few hours before I got to that point....

LOL! I want to punch a goat now!!!