# No Calorie Food **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 8, 2012, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062 "2012-10-08T04:57:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![IceQube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@IceQube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IceQube)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/1 "2012-10-08T04:57:45Z")
Are there any good-tasting no calorie foods? Like something with the flavor of pizza, but with no calories? Is this even theoretically possible? Can we one day stimulate our tastebuds without actually ingesting food? ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/2 "2012-10-08T05:19:38Z")
Salt tastes pretty good. ---
**Author:** ![brainstall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@brainstall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brainstall)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/3 "2012-10-08T05:27:50Z")
Celery. Not quite as tasty as pizza, though. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/4 "2012-10-08T05:33:02Z")
> [@brainstall](#): > > Celery. > > Not quite as tasty as pizza, though. It gets close with ranch…which sort of defeats the purpose, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/5 "2012-10-08T06:07:25Z")
> [@IceQube](#): > > Can we one day stimulate our tastebuds without actually ingesting food? Scientists working for the major players are almost there, however they have gone for stimulating our taste buds without us ingesting actual food. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/6 "2012-10-08T06:11:26Z")
Besides ‘salty’, we can get ‘sweet’, ‘fatty’, and ‘meaty’ (I think)\* without calories, although calorie-free fat is an insoluble oil that literally passes right through you. That’s a pretty good range of flavor right there. \*(MSG doesn’t seem to have any calories. Does it? Can we use it in foods without adding calories to those foods?) ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/7 "2012-10-08T06:39:11Z")
A friend of mine used to make a 0 calorie milkshake out of a variety of artificial stuff. Something actually advertised less than 1 calorie so it wasn’t quite 0. It was a long time ago and I don’t remember what he put in it, but nobody else wanted to even taste it. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/8 "2012-10-08T06:47:26Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > \*(MSG doesn’t seem to have any calories. Does it? Can we use it in foods without adding calories to those foods?) MSG is physiologically an amino acid. Pound for pound it has the same calorific value as pure protein. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/9 "2012-10-08T07:18:51Z")
I’ll be the first to nitpick whether it would be appropriate to actually call such a thing ‘food’ then. But yes, it’s theoretically possible - I’ve seen experiments at making a zero-calorie\* cake - fluffy cellulose in place of flour, sweeteners in place of sugar, non-digestible gums in place of egg, etc. The result was apparently ‘not entirely inedible’. \*(That is, zero calories available to the human digestive system, of course). ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/10 "2012-10-08T07:36:02Z")
> **[Olestra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra)** > > Olestra (also known by its brand name Olean) is a fat substitute that adds no calories to products. It has been used in the preparation of otherwise high-fat foods thereby lowering or eliminating their fat content. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) originally approved olestra for use in the US as a replacement for fats and oils in prepackaged ready-to-eat snacks in 1996, concluding that such use "meets the safety standard for food additives, reasonable certainty of no harm".: 46399  I Ole... Are you ready for uncontrollable oil leakage from your rear?? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/11 "2012-10-08T08:03:42Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > [Olestra - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olestra) > Are you ready for uncontrollable oil leakage from your rear?? I was going to report this but it isn’t spam for some new rear end treatment is it? ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/12 "2012-10-08T08:45:33Z")
It’s an indigestible (ie 0 calorie) substitute for cooking oils by P&G ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/13 "2012-10-08T10:43:57Z")
I remember the olestra potato chip craze. Man, were people buying _those_ in droves the first year. There are various zero-calorie sodas, and actually I believe it takes more calories to _consume_ a piece of celery than you get from eating it (making it a negative-calorie food). [citation needed] ---
**Author:** ![saje](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saje/32/3631_2.png) [@saje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saje)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/14 "2012-10-08T10:47:24Z")
> **[Food Archives | Snopes.com](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/category/food/)** > > The hunt for food is the dominant activity in the lives of all animals, and the collection, growing, and hunting of food was the primary occupation of human beings for thousands of years. Although technological advances mean far fewer people take... ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/15 "2012-10-08T12:57:32Z")
Shirataki noodles, found in asian grocery stores and made from the root of the konnyaku plant, have essentially no calories. They consist of glucomannan and water. The glucomannan is water soluble fiber. They can’t be said to taste good however, or at all. They will pick up the flavors of whatever they’re cooked with, like tofu. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/16 "2012-10-08T13:04:49Z")
> [@Bill\_Door](#): > > Shirataki noodles, found in asian grocery stores and made from the root of the konnyaku plant, have essentially no calories. They consist of glucomannan and water. The glucomannan is water soluble fiber. They can’t be said to taste good however, or at all. They will pick up the flavors of whatever they’re cooked with, like tofu. If you cook shirataki noodles with tofu, which one ends up tasting like the other? 😉 I don’t see how it would be possible to replicate, to use the OP’s example, the experience of pizza with no calories. Look at attempts (with calories) to imitate the flavor of pizza elsewhere. Pizza flavored chips, for example. Something to consider is the experience of eating, itself. Part of eating pizza, or a fat cheeseburger, or a plate of pasta with cream sauce is sensual. Even if we could hit your taste buds with a very close approximation of the complex flavors of pizza, 90% of the experience would still be lacking. No perfect crust? No greasy pepperoni? Stringy cheese? Pungent garlic? I can imagine that eventually it will be possible to directly stimulate a part of the brain that would reproduce your experience eating pizza, though. If you can vividly re-experience eating your favorite pizza ever, while actually eating some kind of 0-calorie, tasteless ‘food’, that would be pretty close. Stomach is screaming for pizza at 8:00 a.m.! Well, this sucks… ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/17 "2012-10-08T13:09:43Z")
Cabbage is good. I love it sauteed lightly in a little butter or good olive oil. But I prefer it raw. It works like an anti-calorie for me too. It’s almost perfect. I haven’t tried it on pizza. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/18 "2012-10-08T13:24:15Z")
> [@IceQube](#): > > Can we one day stimulate our tastebuds without actually ingesting food? Sure you can. Chew the pizza, roll it round your mouth, savour the meaty, cheesy gooeyness - then spit it out. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/19 "2012-10-08T14:01:32Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > Are you ready for uncontrollable oil leakage from your rear?? Sure. At least it’s better than some football. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062/20 "2012-10-08T14:20:10Z")
Yeah a football from your rear would sting. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-calorie-food/637062.md?page=2)