No food requires more calories to be assimilated than it provides, there are only foods that help you lose weight if eaten instead of others.
It would be nice but no, no food (not even the least caloric ones, rich in fiber and water such as celery, apple and lettuce) requires more calories to be assimilated than those it provides.
The study. It has been tested experimentally on an animal that has no problem eating a lot of celery and digests in a similar way to us: in 2019, scientists from the University of Alabama (United States) analyzed the amount of energy that the bearded dragon lizard (Pogona vitticeps) uses to digest and absorb a quantity of diced raw celery equal to 5% of its body mass. On average, about 33% of the calories ingested with this meal are used for digestion and about 43% are expelled in feces and urine.
A full load of Celery. The lizards therefore retain around 24% of the energy from the meal. “Regardless of the calories contained in a food, you will always be able to get something out of it,” commented Stephen Secor, author of the study.
While not negative calorie, foods like these can still help you lose weight if consumed at the expense of others. «A 60 kg woman would have to consume 12.6 kg of raw celery daily just to fuel her basal metabolism, and it would not be a nutritious or appealing diet»
