There are many questions, facts, myths, and arguments revolving around the concept of a negative calorie and what exactly the negative calorie foods diet entails. The negative calorie diet, also often referred to as the zero calorie diet (not to be mixed up with the cabbage soup diet, raw foods diet, or grapefruit diet, all of which are variations of the negative calorie foods diet), is as popular as it is controversial. It is popular because many dieters have had great success with this eating plan, and it's controversial mostly because of the concept of "negative calories" as well as many people's misinterpretations of what this phrase actually means.
The concept of a "negative calorie" isn't that a food has an inherent caloric deficit. That would be impossible. The idea behind the negative calorie diet is that there are certain foods (all of which are fruits or vegetables) that provide less calories to the body than the body uses to actually digest them. This is what the concept of negative calorie foods and caloric deficits are all about. The idea is that you can eat a lot of certain types of food and still lose weight because your body will spend more calories burning negative calorie fruits and negative calorie vegetables than they will receive from the food itself.
Is this information about the negative calorie diet correct? Are the lists of negative calorie foods really helpful, or is this all a scam? Well the answer is a little more complicated than that. As for the exact question of do foods have actual negative caloric values, the answer is no, they don't. This is most likely the result of a misinterpretation between "calorie" with a small c, and "Calorie," which is actually a kilocalorie. So while digesting an apple might take 200 calories (small c), that doesn't come close to the 100 Calories (kilocalories) that an apple provides. This is the difference educated people refer to when they say the concept of negative calories are a scam.
That being said, the negative calorie foods diet works! It doesn't work because there are actual foods with negative calories, but the diet has helped tens of thousands of people lose weight because these foods don't have fat, don't have cholesterol, and are loaded with fiber and digestive enzymes that help process the food through your system, and tend to be lower in calories. The foods that are labeled negative calorie foods are a who's who of the best fruits and vegetables that you can have in any fat busting diet.
So negative calorie fruits and negative calorie vegetables might not literally burn more calories than they give, but eating a diet full of these fruits and vegetables will make it virtually impossible for anyone to eat enough calories to actually gain weight, and eating a lot of raw fruits and vegetables makes sure that not only are you getting the vitamins you need for your body to work at maximum efficiency, but these raw foods also do a great job of teaching your body to liquefy and flush fat whenever your body has a caloric deficit during your diet.
In this way the negative caloric foods still will help any person lose weight. You don't gain love handles by eating apples, pineapple, oranges, carrots, cucumbers, blueberries, cabbage, lettuce, or other similar foods. The fiber in these foods, as well as the digestive enzymes, make them perfect diet foods. So even if technically there is no food with negative calories, "negative calorie fruits" and "negative calorie vegetables" as they are described, are the best foods you can possibly put into a diet to help you lose weight and flush fat out of your body.
So the truth about negative calorie foods is that actual negative calories don't exist, but this diet very much will be successful in helping people to lose weight. If you have any doubt about this fact, look at the food list. The most calorie rich food on the list is pineapple, which is hardly the type of food that makes people obese. If you want more evidence to prove that the negative calorie food diet is not a scam, look at all the imitators that use this basic diet plan, or parts of it, in order to help dieters lose weight.
The cabbage soup diet, raw foods diet, and grapefruit diet are all based on, or borrow heavily from, the negative calorie foods diet. The cabbage soup diet is a particularly popular version since it not only has the same benefits of its parent diet, but instead of not giving any help as to how to effectively implement this supplemental fat burning diet, the cabbage soup diet gives an effective one week meal plan that focuses on cycling calories, types of calories, and eating as much negative calorie soup as you want to stave off hunger.
When you hear about negative calorie soup or negative calorie diet soup, most likely these are both references to the soup recipe that is used in the cabbage soup diet. The idea here is that with an unlimited amount of tasty soup, there is no reason to cheat because you don't need to starve yourself. If you're hungry, go ahead and have another bowl! That's a great bonus that this type of diet provides over its competitors.
So even if this diet doesn't work exactly the way it purports to, isn't the main point whether or not you actually lose weight? That's the main point when looking at negative calorie diet foods. These are healthy foods that will help you to lose weight. So don't get duped into arguing about the specifics over whether or not the idea of a negative calorie is stupid or not. Just use the diet plan that works, and you'll be glad you did!