Such a thing as "free" foods?

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servingthealiens
servingthealiens Posts: 144 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I know a lot of diet plans say things like fruits and veggies are "free" foods, that you can have as much as you want, as often as you want, and it doesn't count toward your overall weight loss plan.

I know that most fruits and veggies are GOOD food. Low calorie, most are fat free (unless you're going to binge on avocados), natural sugars, tons of vitamins and minerals and things like that, but I still think if you ate 500 extra calories a day in fruit, you're not going to lose weight.

Anyone have any thoughts or evidence to back up either theory?

Replies

  • aproc
    aproc Posts: 1,033 Member
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    I agree with you. I don't really believe in the 'free' foods and log everything. It all adds up..
  • dawnsant
    dawnsant Posts: 44
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    I know that green beans in weight watchers is considered a free food. They say that it takes more calories to burn them than you get from eating them. No idea if that would go with the way things are figured on here. I count everything and do not have a free food on here.
  • lordrahvin
    lordrahvin Posts: 20 Member
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    I believe the argument is not that the food itself is free of calories and such, but that the very act (and work) of the body digesting the food uses up the energy (calories) that the food supplies. So the end result is that you gained no calories.

    At least that's what I've heard in regards to celery.

    I've read a few internet articles on the subject since reading your post, but this is the one I found most relevant: http://caloriecount.about.com/negative-calories-myth-explained-b349703

    For purposes of managing your own diet though, I agree with Aproc and Dawnsant. Log everything.
  • nanubr
    nanubr Posts: 9 Member
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    I believe that free foods are the ones you burn more calories digesting them than they actually have, just google negative calories foods.
  • tinasullens
    tinasullens Posts: 203 Member
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    I believe that free foods are the ones you burn more calories digesting them than they actually have, just google negative calories foods.

    That is correct!

    Additionally, eating too much of anything adds up and if you eat more calories (even of "free" foods) than what you burn off with exercise, you will gain weight. Period.
  • Mirlyn
    Mirlyn Posts: 256
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    I log everything regardless but I do get the idea of free foods. I like to think in terms of guilt free instead of free. I still charge myself calories but if I go over my calories because I ate 1 too many cucumbers for the day then I don't feel guilty about it.
  • iamdesiderata
    iamdesiderata Posts: 95 Member
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    sure, water.

    thats it tho. and the "negative calorie" foods is a myth, and eating only foods that supposedly take more calories to digest than their actual caloric value doesn't work. It all adds up.
  • xarrium
    xarrium Posts: 432 Member
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    I approach food from a "big picture" standpoint--them number of calories themselves are significantly less important than where they come from--so it's important to me to get my calories from fresh, unprocessed foods rather than something really energy-dense and with relatively few nutrients (other than fat, of course). As such, I view all non-starchy veggies as "free" foods because they're so full of vitamins and fiber that the calories that come with them are "worth" eating... I also suspect that really high-fiber foods (like carrots and celery) act as a sort of "credit"--fiber pushes food through the GI tract faster, so the fiber in those foods "makes up" for the calorie hit. I still log all my veggies, and I always log dips/dressings, but I never think twice about eating them (like I would with other foods).

    With respect to fruit, I completely agree that those aren't "free", 500 cals is 500 cals, whether it's from refined sugar or fruit sugar--obviously it's better for you to eat the natural fruit sugars, but if what you really wanted was a 100 calorie brownie, eating 500 calories of fruit is somewhat counterproductive.
  • Panda86
    Panda86 Posts: 873
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    I hear that lettuce is a "free" food, because you burn whatever calories (maybe 10-15) it has by just chewing it. Kinda neat.
  • lilmissy2
    lilmissy2 Posts: 595 Member
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    It is true that you will burn more energy eating some foods than they have in them. The difficulty when you are counting calories (as opposed to other eat less, move more type plans) is that those 'diet induced thermogenesis' calories are usually ALREADY included in your limit for the day. So in that sense, you should be counting them.

    I don't, but then I'm not much of a believer of exact counting in general since everything is based on estimates.
  • HealthyChanges2010
    HealthyChanges2010 Posts: 5,831 Member
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    I hear that lettuce is a "free" food, because you burn whatever calories (maybe 10-15) it has by just chewing it. Kinda neat.
    I bet that's iceburg lettuce, and I'm not sure that's a food/veggie:tongue:

    No offense to you:flowerforyou: , just razzin on the Iceburg :noway:

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