Is it true that celery consumes more calories than it contributes?

Throughout this text we are going to know what happens with celery and what is negative calories. Throughout the Internet there are hundreds of thousands of data that swarm about celery, but it is not a superfood, nor is it miraculous to lose weight, nor should we base our diet on it, unless we want to suffer some kind of disorder or nutritional deficit.

The Internet is full of articles that promise a list of hypocaloric foods, and it is true that they exist, but we should not feed only on that, since our body needs energy to function at full capacity 24 hours a day, every day of our life . And among all those celery has always been present for having “negative calories”.

We are going to explain what negative calories are, what they consist of and what happens with our friends, celery. This vegetable is very nutritious but its reputation is preceded by being a perfect food to lose weight, and it is true, since almost 97% of a stick of celery is water, the rest is fiber and other nutrients such as vitamins and minerals.

What are negative calories?

For starters, there is no scientific research to support this term, so the only thing we can rely on is the real data of how much the human body consumes when digesting and how many calories celery provides.

Una mujer lavando un apio

We know that the human body needs between 5 and 10% of the total calories for a day to digest and we also know that 100 grams of celery provide around 16 kilocalories per 100 grams. In other words, 10% of 2,000 calories is already more than that percentage provided by eating a serving of celery.

Hence, celery is considered a vegetable with negative calories, but it is not the correct thing, there is simply the anecdote that it consumes more digestion than what the portion itself provides. This is because celery does not have starch, so there are several other vegetables in the same situation.

Eat celery, yes or no?

Of course, what we have to avoid is extremely low-calorie diets, since that puts our health at risk. What happens when we consume fewer calories than our body needs is that we will be constantly hungry, we will feel tired, weakened, we will always be cold, we will be in a bad mood, etc.

Having a hypocaloric diet is a good option to lose weight, but it is not recommended to take it to the extreme, and if someone recommends it, it is better to flee from there before causing an eating disorder.

We have to change our lifestyle to lose weight in a healthy and conscious way, it is useless to go on a hypocaloric diet if it lasts a long time because it becomes counterproductive, or it is not accompanied by physical exercise.

Therefore, the answer is yes, we can eat celery as many times as we want, but not base our diet on it or other foods with negative calories, nor be extreme with low-calorie diets.