With “Chronic diseases“, “their adverse effects on health” and “Nutrition” making guest appearances on newspapers almost every alternate day and “Obesity” turning out to be the villain in most stories, it’s but natural to have people looking for nutritional advice mostly to lose (weight ofcourse) and not gain (overall good health??!).Here’s something that’s an upcoming craze amongst all health (rather weight!) conscious earthlings…Negative calorie diets!!
For those who’re yet unaware…. Frankly the term “Negative Calorie Foods” is a misconception. Gotcha?? All foods provide calories…..just that some foods in particular, require more calories to digest than what is actually provided by them. Result? Lesser calories provided than required in breakdown, hence a net negative of calories! For example: a 90 Kcal (appx) apple may burn around 110 Kcal and a 25 Kcal piece of broccoli would burn around 80 Kcal.
So, which all foods fall under this category? Fruits like apples, grapefruit, raspberries, pineapples, oranges, papaya, lemons, peaches, melons and vegetables like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus, lettuce, spinach, turnips, cucumber, carrots, zucchini, beetroots etc belong to this group. I’m sure you noticed something here…well if you didn’t…then….none of the non-vegetarian foods are negative calorie foods which means non-vegetarians are at a disadvantage here…another reason for having plenty of vegetables and fruits!:)
But how do these foods work? Well simply stated, all foods are commonly made up of carbohydrate, fat, protein, vitamins and minerals. Of those, the first three provide calories while the last two stimulate enzyme production which breakdown the food’s calorie components. Interesting to note here, that “empty calories” often meaning junk foods, have little vitamin and mineral content and more calorie content, hence produce lesser enzymes to breakdown those calories, so the body has to produce it’s own enzymes which otherwise would have been put to other uses. In the case of negative cal foods, not only are sufficient vitamins and minerals present to stimulate enzymes for calorie breakdown, there’s actually a surplus hence not only are the host’s (ie: food) calories broken down, additional calories in digestion are also burnt.
So do we see these foods as a potent tool for weight watchers? Not so soon friends….even though it is coming up as a fad….there is, well… a kind of a flipside…if you keep having only negative cal foods, though high in vitamins-minerals and fibre, you’ll be robbing yourself of calories which your body requires for growth, maintenance and activity, since these foods are often low in carbohydrate, fat and protein. Basically short term weight loss transcends to long term ill health! Also keep in mind that fad diets have never worked for long….they are difficult to sustain and could rebound with a vengeance soon! Nothing works better than balanced eating and exercise! But yeah…. These fruits and vegetables should definitely form a part of the diet because afterall they do provide much needed essential vitamins and minerals…. “Balance” is basically the mantra!
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