Negative Calorie Foods

[ers]

Hey everyone. My knowledge on the subject is very basic. Just wondering if any of you have any thoughts/insights as to how negative calorie foods fit into a primal diet.

Some questions to consider:

Can they be an effective tool for leaning out?

Would a caveman have wanted them? Wouldn't the negative energy balance they create be unwelcome (at least at times when food was scarce)?

Some fruits which are high in sugar are also negative calorie foods. Take watermelon, for example. If the sugar spikes insulin, but the overall energy balance is negative, what happens to our body in terms of fat storage, leanness, etc.?

I would love to hear your thoughts!

-ers

[BarbeyGirl]

I'm familiar with the concept of negative calorie foods, but haven't looked into its validity. For the sake of arguement, at the moment, I'll assume there's something do them. (In reality, I'm skeptical.)

It seems to me that negative calorie foods' usefulness as a tool for leaning out would be limited to the cessation of "mouth boredom;" that is, if you MUST cruch on something, celery is better than potato chips. Thermal effect of food notwithstanding, you aren't going to eat your way to 6-pack abs.

When it comes to sugary negative calorie foods, like grapefruit, I'd be a lot more suspicious. Insulin does more than just move energy into storage as fat; it also promotes inflammation, etc. That said, I doubt eating an occasional grapefruit is going to do much harm (in fact, it probably offers some nutritional benefit)...but why regularly choose relatively high sugar/carb options when you could eat insulin-neutral fat instead?

In short, I'd venture a guess that there's a lot more science to back up the detriment of insulin than the benefit of negative calorie foods.

[Acmebike]

I do think that a very low sugar, low cal, high water content food (like celery mentioned above) can be used for re-training one's self to prevent/control boredom eating. Just crunching away on plain celery would likely be net neutral at best. I'd very skeptical of any "negative calorie" magic in regards to weight loss.

A better focus, and this comes after decades of my own poor nutrition that has now evolved into a Paleo intake, would be to first and foremost eat nutrient dense whole/naturally sourced foods. Animal meats and fats, some organ meats, marrow, bone broths etc as the focus of the diet, then vegetables/salad fixings/non-starchy plants to your heart's desire, then drastically restricted low-carb fruits in small and rare quantities, and very limited nut intake rounds out the rest.

If that means a few months of snacking on a "negative cal" food like celery to retrain, that is fine, but don't expect some magic out of any food! Concentrate first on nourishment, and then try to end boredom or emotional snacking.