Possibly there are no foods on earth that contain no calories. There are no foods that can be named as negative calorie foods in the sense that they contain calories with negative valence. However, the overall effect that is produced by these foods in our body is that of 'negative calorie'. Actually, the negative calorie foods consume more calories during their digestion process than the amount of calories these foods possess.

The body puts more effort in breaking up and processing these foods compared to other foods in terms of calorie consumption. The body needs to work harder for extracting calories from these foods. This is where the term 'negative calorie' is concerned. Due to this property, the negative calorie foods possess a remarkable fat burning benefit, and are also referred to as fat burning foods.

Negative Calorie Concept

Say, you are having a dessert that consists of 400 calories. It needs roughly 150 calories to digest the dessert. That means, a net gain of 250 calories will be added to our body as a body fat. Following the same norm, say, for example, you are having a specific kind of foods that consist of 100 calories, whereas 150 calories are needed to digest the foods. That means, you have in effect burnt an extra 50 calories from your body simply by adding these foods in your diet.

The example of negative calorie foods may include the name of broccoli. If you eat 100 gm of broccoli, it provides you 25 calories. However, you need 80 calories to digest 100 gm of broccoli that means you are burning (80-25) = 55 calories from your body fat. Hence, we can easily understand that negative calories foods can be a great addition to weight loss diet program.

Negative Calorie and Weight Loss

In practice, there are a great variety of negative calorie foods available in the market. These foods come with a commitment that if you eat more of these foods, you are able to lose more weight in turn. The specialties of these foods are to offer low calories, and brilliant negative calorie qualities in addition to yummy flavor. Hence, to fight against obesity, you need not depend on fasting any longer. Rather you may eat as much as you can to reduce your weight. Some of these foods may include the names of chili, cucumber, carrot, cauliflower, apple, cabbage, broccoli, asparagus, papaya, pineapple, lemon, beet, grapefruit, zucchini, celery, spinach and many more. In reality, there are more 100 foods that belong to this category.

Possible Side Effects

Considering theoretical aspect, it can be said that if you stick yourself on negative calorie diet only, it may create health hazards in long term. It is mainly due to the reason that these foods are unable to provide certain nutrients inevitably needed by our body. These foods offer plenty of vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber, but profoundly lack few significant nutrients like fat and protein. Although we need to stay away from fatty foods, but a minimum level of fat consumption is actually needed by our health system. Same thing is true for protein substances. Without the presence of these two substances, many of the bodily functions may not work properly.

However, there are few individuals who prefer to eat fish especially when they are on their negative calorie diet. It is a good decision indeed. Adding fish in your diet along with negative calorie foods may help you to stay healthy even in long term. It offers low calorie consumption in addition to the supply of essential nutrients to the body.

Another important thing is, the individual who is on his negative calorie diet must know his limitation. If we stay aligned with theory, it implies that these types of foods burn calories. Thereby, if the individual continues this diet for a prolonged period of time, it may result in dangerous health hazards including excessively underweight and mortality.

Written by Dr. John Anne