Why is it that drinks but not food can have 0 calories?
As someone who has been counting calories and trying to minimize caloric and fat intake for several months I have to ask this question.
Why is it that drinks but not food can have 0 calories?
Best Answer
Drinks are mostly water. If besides that it's just flavorings and artificial sweeteners, there's nothing with calories in it. So zero-calorie drinks are a really obvious thing to make: just take some existing drink, replace any sugar with artificial sweeteners, replace any actual food content (e.g. fruit puree) with flavorings, and it'll be zero calorie.
To make zero-calorie food, you'd need a solid edible zero-calorie thing to provide the bulk, and there's not an obvious choice for that, certainly not something common like water. On top of that, if you want it to be anything like the food it's based on, it has to be a very specific substance.
That said, it's not impossible. There are indigestible carbohydrates (fiber, generally), and some foods like shirataki noodles made basically completely out of that so they end up low- or zero-calorie.
I'm sure with enough modern industrial food science, we could make a lot more things in that vein. But it's definitely not nearly so easy as with drinks. And you wouldn't want to eat massive quantities; the water that makes up virtually all of a zero-calorie drink is easy to get out of your body, but giant amounts of indigestible solids won't be as pleasant.
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How is it possible for food to have 0 calories?
Ice water is the only exception. Water has no calories, but since your body has to expend energy to keep at a constant 98 degrees, you do end up burning about eight calories per eight-ounce glass of ice water.Is water the only thing with 0 calories?
Plain water is calorie-free. Calories come from three nutrients in your diet \u2014 carbs, fats, and proteins. Alcohol \u2014 while not considered a nutrient \u2014 contributes calories as well. Plain water is devoid of these nutrients and thus contains no calories.Why does water contain 0 calories?
In fact, with the exception of water, any zero-calorie food or beverage you consume can lead not to weight loss, but to weight gain. They dampen your natural fat burners. The body burns a lot of calories trying to turn a pat of butter into a pat of you.How Can Something Have Zero Calories?
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