There are no products with “negative” calories.

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Scientists have debunked the myth that it takes more calories to digest celery than it contains. All low-calorie foods are suitable for weight loss.

There has long been a view that certain foods have so-called “negative” calories. This means that the body spends more calories to digest them than they actually contain. But a new study suggests that all this is nothing more than a myth. When lizards were fed a diet based on celery, they retained up to a quarter of the calories they consumed after the food was digested and excreted from the body. So the concept of “negative” calories has failed. Celery is one such food, and others include cucumbers, lettuce and broccoli.

Researchers at the University of Alabama used lizards, flying dragons, whose metabolic rate, or the amount of energy they burn to perform basic functions, was carefully calculated. The lizards were fed chopped celery equivalent to 5% of their body weight—about the same amount they would consume if they lived in the wild. Their feces and urine samples were collected for analysis, and the amount of energy expended was determined from them.

The study showed that the lizards used about 33% of the calories in the food for digestion, and 43% were excreted from the body. So, about 24% of the calories the lizards received from celery, but this was the equivalent of just one minute. Taking into account the metabolism of lizards, these calories were burned in 60 seconds. And although the study was conducted only on animals, experts believe that it will be confirmed in the course of experiments on humans.