I like to eat when I'm bored, feeling lazy, watching TV or generally sitting upright in the house. (exaggerated but stay with me here)

Even eating desired amounts of carrots, beet chips, or cabbage leaves (w/ salsa) ends up making our hypothetical dieter get too many calories.

Grass and in general cellulose like tree pulp, alfalfa, weeds, etc do almost nothing for human digestion. (if only I knew how to get calories out of cellulose in the human body... ruminal bacteria?)

Since it doesn't digest to energy, use grass and similar to make no-calorie baked 'potato' chips. Add some dye and flavoring, viola- mindless, face-stuffing food without the guilt. And only minor digestive tract problems, compared to Olestra oil (that stuff gives me diarrhea and tastes too oily).

The problems: simulating real deep fried taste and texture; cohesive force to keep the chips from falling apart.
-- Bcrosby, Aug 25 2008

Baked. http://www.lorebran...om/potatochips.html
Carb-free potato chips. [daydreamlab, Aug 31 2008]

(-) I'm missing an actual new idea here. This is an existing product category, and "Add some dye and flavoring, viola-" really doesn't begin to cover it.
-- jutta, Aug 25 2008


we're led to believe that the act of eating celery uses up more calories than is in the celery stick itself.
-- po, Aug 25 2008


Yes, [po], but all that does is confirm the widely-held belief that celery is not a food, but some sort of pennance ...
-- 8th of 7, Aug 25 2008


I so agree! a bit like cucumber. <makes face>
-- po, Aug 25 2008


Removing a few calories of potato chips and drinking diet cola drink does not make you slimmer.

You need change of lifestyle and diet.

I was eating all the wrong foods few years ago.

Then I made a discovery tha almost all the unhealthy foods were made of wheat or potatoes!

So I cut out wheat and potatoes off from my diet and now I am slimmer, healthier and have more energy.
-- Pellepeloton, Aug 25 2008


Why add a viola?
-- Murdoch, Aug 25 2008


The idea, restated:

mulch grass to make potato chip replacements.

I am not aware of anything like that on the market now. Veggie chips have a lot of calories; baked potato chips do too.

Pellepeloton- Yes life style changes are needed to lose weight if you are overweight to start with. I suggest this could enable losing weight, not cause it. Clearly exercise in general is better than 'eating less', and short of starvation the body can live on low calories (say 500) for a long time (especially a fat body!!), etc, etc. Yet with this idea a 'binge' of 1000 calories of chips could be held to something like 50 calories and a bit of stomach pain.
-- Bcrosby, Aug 25 2008


No, ultimately what you need is energy from food, and it's what your body "expects", so it will use up various other resources if you give it "food" which is indigestible. You can't get something for nothing. In the process of passing this through your digestive system, the mechanical side of digestive reflexes will be stimulated and the musculature of the alimentary canal will expend energy, which will gradually consume coenzymes and other nutrient-derived compounds in the process, mainly glycolysis and the Krebs cycle, essentially leaching them from your body without replacing them. The expenditure of energy could lead to weight loss but it will also do things like increase the likelihood of osteoporosis and depression owing to the loss of calcium and magnesium respectively.

If you want to lose weight, one way to do it is to fill up on relatively low-carb foods which are high in water and fibre content such as green vegetables.

Incidentally, it is possible to juice non-poisonous green parts of plants and coagulate the remainder to produce a highly nutritious tofu-like food, which is sort of the opposite of what you suggest.
-- nineteenthly, Aug 25 2008


Are you unaware of the effects of large quantities of dietary fiber? You would need to move the TV adjacent to the toilet if you went on a binge! Eating more than a few tablespoons would shift your gut into overdrive.
-- WcW, Aug 25 2008


There is an article about the urban myth of cellery and cucumbers taking more callories to digest than they possess in this month's Discover mag. Final verdict; Not guilty.

.

m'just sayin.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 26 2008


so pleased, fries, I am now relieved of the guilt involved in not wanting to eat celery.
-- po, Aug 26 2008


//I so agree! a bit like cucumber. <makes face>//
[slices celery and applies to [po]'s eye] Comme ça?
-- coprocephalous, Aug 26 2008


what about wheat grass???
-- r_kreher, Aug 28 2008


In my case, being wheat free, I will not touch wheat grass. I could try barley grass perhaps.

Filling your belly with empty calories like potato chips fills you up but starves you from vitamins, minerals and other useful micro nutrients.

Popping vitamin pills is not the answer because there is not enough research done who how much and what ratio of vitamins and minerals you need. Some vitamins inhibit absorption of others. Too complicated and expensive

So I believe it is best to try to eat healthy food rather than filling up the required calorie intake?

Easier said than done but I believe in eating quality rather than quantity. Eating healthy food is expensive but you need less food to satisfy the needs of the body.Supplements are not required and reduced health costs are balancing out the higher food costs.

Cutting of wheat and potatoes from one's diet eliminates most fast foods and counting calories becomes pointless.
-- Pellepeloton, Aug 29 2008


I'd need a further 3 stomachs to eat grass chips.
-- skinflaps, Aug 29 2008


All wheat and all gluten is not created equal. Whereas there may be problems with gluten, if you leave dough to rise overnight rather than for just an hour or two, it becomes easier to tolerate and the likes of spelt is also not so much of a problem. Eliminating gluten is a complete bloody pain. I've tried every diet i recommend, and that was by far the most difficult. The only worse one would be the anti-Candida one, which i don't believe in to be honest.

Concerning potatoes, yes, and there are a lot of cheap options there, such as plantains, parsnips and casava. That one's feasible.

You also have more control over what you eat if you have to prepare it yourself. You then have to address the time issue, which is pretty major for most people.
-- nineteenthly, Aug 29 2008


THE ANSWER Lean Cuisine Frozen Dinners. Open them, Pour a sizeable portion of frozen veggies on top, nuke them for 6 or 7 minutes.

Eat them all day and night. Eat all you want. Delicious. Anything with portabello mushooms are fabulous. Drink (too much) water or soda water with lemon or lime. RealLemon is fine.

Drive far away and go for a walk in a brand new place. Maybe even ride a bike.

Enjoy.
-- r_kreher, Aug 30 2008


I don't trust microwaves. I think they do weird things to micronutrients.
-- nineteenthly, Aug 30 2008


There are many good reasons to dislike microwaves (uneven heating of food; 802.11 interference; no crunchy surfaces), but I'm not sure this is one of them - I'd expect conventional baking or cooking to be more destructive than microwaving.
You're not the only one believing that, though. Do you remember any experiment or published claim that set you on this line of thought?
-- jutta, Aug 30 2008


microwave schmikerowave. The benefits of microwaving vegetables so far outpace the disadvantages that it isn't even a horse race.

Frozen vegetables are much healthier for you for 6 reasons:

cut, color, shape, clarity, carrot weight and certification.
-- r_kreher, Aug 30 2008


[Jutta], no, i don't remember it and thanks for pulling me up on that. I may be able to turn up something. Raw food can be good of course, though i'm aware of the benefits of destroying cell walls in some cases.
What i've heard is that some compounds become different isomers. I don't know if that's true. The other thing, and i'm more definite on this, is that nematodes become more fertile on exposure to microwaves, whereas even mild heating makes them sterile, so there seems to be some effect other than heating. What that effect is, i don't know. I tend to "undercook" food generally and i use microwaves quite a lot, but i advise people not to use them for the Rx i dispense on the grounds of precaution. Actually, i only did that once because it's only come up once. It was probably in the June edition of 'THE ALARMIST REPORT' or something.
I never wanted to be a herbalist you know. I wanted to be a lumberjack.
-- nineteenthly, Aug 30 2008



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