We’ve all heard the rumours about celery: eat it and you’ll burn more calories than you ingest.
But what if we told you that celery is just one of up to 20 foods that have the same effect?
According to a list published in The Sun, raspberries, kale, apples and lettuce are among the fruits and vegetables that could be said to contain zero calories. That’s right: zero, nada, zilch.
The idea is that due to these foods’ high water content, they contain less energy than it takes to consume them * adds chewing and digesting to daily exercise tally *
Dr Donald Hensrud from the Mayo Clinic breaks it down: “Foods that contain few calories, such as celery and other non-starchy vegetables, provide a small number of calories but still require energy to digest,” he says. “That means it is theoretically possible to have a negative-calorie food.”
He does add, however, that here are no reputable scientific studies to prove the theory actually works. “[But] even if non-starchy vegetables are not negative-calorie, they are still low-calorie, and a smart choice to include in a predominantly plant-based diet,” he says.
Of course, no-one’s advocating you eat only the foods on this list – that would be plain crazy. But if you were looking for an added incentive to eat more fruit and veggies, this is it.
The 20 ‘zero calorie’ foods
1. Apples
2. Apricots
3. Beetroot
4. Broccoli
5. Cauliflower
6. Celery
7. Watercress
8. Cucumber
9. Garlic
10. Grapefruit
11. Green beans
12. Kale
13. Leeks
14.Lemons
15. Lettuce
16. Onions
17. Raspberries
18. Strawberries
19. Swede
20. Watermelon
