Low Energy Density Foods for Optimal Weight Management

Are you looking to shed some extra pounds and wondering if low-energy-density foods hold the key to successful weight loss?

In this comprehensive article, we’ll delve into the intriguing relationship between low-energy-density foods, satiety, and effective weight management. You’ll discover how incorporating low-energy-density foods into your diet can help you feel full and satisfied while consuming fewer calories.

But that’s not all – we’ll also explore essential factors that play a pivotal role in your quest for a healthier, more balanced lifestyle, ensuring you’re well-equipped with the knowledge needed to embark on a successful weight loss journey.

So, if you’re ready to uncover the secrets of achieving satiety, managing your weight, and making informed dietary choices, let’s dive right in.

What Are Low Energy Density Foods? 

To put it simply, low-energy-density foods contain fewer calories per gram (weight) of food.

Energy density = calories ÷ weight

The energy density of food is generally shown as calories per gram of food.

If it isn’t listed on the label, the weight of the food can be calculated by summing:

• water,
• protein,
• fibre,
• carbohydrates,
• fat, and
• ash. 

Weight, on the other hand, is always shown on labels and in food databases.  So, for the purpose of this article, we will look at calories per unit of weight.    

Which Foods Have the Lowest Energy Density?

Is apple low energy density?  What about potatoes, chard or grapes?

To give you an idea of what low-energy foods look like in practice, we have provided a list of low-energy-density foods below, sorted from lowest to highest energy density.

Plant-Based Foods – Low Energy Density Foods List 

It’s probably not surprising that plant-based foods have the lowest energy density, particularly non-starchy vegetables.  

food	calories/100 g
watercress	11
kimchi	15
cucumber	15
endive	17
zucchini	17
lettuce	17
Swiss chard	19
coconut water	19
sauerkraut	19
green peppers	20
asparagus	20
alfalfa sprouts	23
cabbage	23
cauliflower	25
broccoli	26
watermelon	30
chives	30
cantaloupe	34
parsley	36
onion	40
pears	42
butternut squash	45
oranges	47
kale	49
raspberries	52
apples	52
leeks	61
kiwifruit	61
cherries	63
grapes	67
green peas	81
sweet potato	90

These foods will be challenging to overeat, especially if you don’t add extra fat or dressings.   

Animal and Seafood – Low Energy Density Foods List

There are some lower energy-density seafood and animal-based foods.  

food	calories/100 g
milk (low fat)	42
oysters	51
egg white	52
Greek yogurt (low fat)	59
cottage cheese (low fat)	74
crayfish	82
crab	83
haddock	90
halibut	91
squid	92
tilapia	96
Greek yogurt	97
Canadian bacon	110
beef heart	112
shrimp	119
beef liver	135
lamb liver	139
whole egg	143
ground chicken	143

However, these foods typically contain more fat and less water than plant-based foods, giving them a higher energy density.

Note: Fat provides nine calories per gram, whereas carbohydrates provide around four calories per gram.

Low Energy Dense Recipes

To give you a feel for what recipes with fewer calories per gram look like, we have some example low-energy density NutriBooster Recipes below:

• green nutrient-boosting smoothie
• low-calorie panna cotta
• Sue’s salad
• cauliflower & spinach soup (pictured)
• roast turmeric cauliflower
• sautéed radish & watercress

You will note that these tend to be smoothies, soups, and salads.

High Energy Density Foods

For comparison, we’ve listed some examples of popular energy-dense foods.  These may be ideal if you are lean, very active and thus need more energy.  However, they are likely not optimal if your goal is to eat fewer calories and lose body fat.

Plant-Based – High Energy Density Foods List

Nuts and plant-based oils have the highest energy density.  These energy-dense foods would be much easier to overconsume. 

food	calories/100 g
coconut oil	900
olive oil	900
pecans	691
Brazil nuts	659
walnuts	654
nut butter	590
cashews	580
almonds	579
sesame seeds	573
pistachio nuts	560
flaxseeds	534
peanuts	599
prunes	339
turmeric	312
whole wheat bread	278
rye bread	259
oat bran	246
coconut milk	230

Animal-Based Foods – High Energy Dense Foods List

High-fat animal-based foods tend to have a high energy density, so the weight of food to reach your daily calorie budget would be fairly low. 

food	calories/100 g
butter	718
pepperoni	504
Parmesan cheese	420
bacon	417
Gruyere cheese	413
Swiss cheese	393
salami	368
Edam cheese	357
blue cheese	353
provolone cheese	351
cream cheese	350
brie	334
Braunschweig	327
liverwurst	326
egg yolk	322
liver pate	319

Some people report that they feel full quickly on these foods, but this may be because they have been able to consume a lot of calories quickly.  Unfortunately, without precisely tracking your food, it’s hard to judge satiety per calorie just by how you feel. 

How Much Do Low Energy Dense Foods Impact Satiety? 

But how much difference does moving from high to low-energy-density foods make?

The chart below shows the effects low and high-energy-density foods have on satiety. 

When we move from foods with less weight per calorie (more energy-dense) to more weight per calorie (less energy-dense), overall energy intake is reduced by 30%. 

• Foods with a higher energy density to the left of this chart mainly consist of fat.  
• Conversely, foods towards the right with a lower energy density consist mainly of carbohydrates, protein, fibre, and water. 

It’s worth noting that we get most of the benefits when we move from very energy-dense foods to moderately energy-dense foods. Moving to extremely low energy-density foods doesn’t provide much additional benefit.

Our data analysis also shows that as you reduce your intake of (energy-dense) fat-containing foods, it becomes harder to overeat these (low energy-dense) low-fat foods. 

But Is Low-Fat Really Where It’s At?

Reducing our intake of high-fat foods has been the cornerstone of ‘conventional nutritional wisdom’ for decades, particularly since the introduction of the 1977 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  

We have been advised to minimise our consumption of fat because it contains more than twice as many calories per gram as carbs and protein.  But sadly, in spite of trying to follow this lower-fat advice, we have just eaten more and gotten fatter.

Over the past half-century, our intake of both fat and carbohydrates has increased.

Food processing has enabled more of our foods to become a similar mixture of fat and carbohydrates. 

Do High-Volume Foods Make You Feel Fuller for Longer? 

People who promote a vegan or plant-based lifestyle point out that high-fat foods are not as filling as fruits and vegetables. 

Plant-based diet advocates like Joel Fuhrman and Neal Barnard emphasise low energy density as a critical element of program effectiveness.

Professor Barbara Rolls has also published the Ultimate Volumetrics Diet based on her research into low-energy-density foods.  Professor Rolls’ diet plan is based on the idea that people typically eat a constant weight of food.  While this is partially true, it’s not the whole story, particularly over the longer term.

Satiety vs Satiation

Before we examine the data more closely, it’s essential to understand the difference between satiety and satiation. 

• Satiation occurs when we feel full after eating and no longer want to eat.
• Satiety is a longer-term phenomenon that occurs when we obtain enough of all the essential nutrients, such as the vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and fatty acids we require. Thus, we don’t search for more or as much food for a longer time.  

Although low-energy-density foods might make you feel full in the short term, our analysis suggests that you might search for food again before too long.  While low-energy-density foods provide some essential vitamins and minerals, they don’t supply the complete array of nutrients you need, particularly amino acids, selenium and zinc.

Consider how a big bowl of watery soup may leave you feeling full immediately after you eat it.  However, there’s a good chance you’ll be hunting for some more energy-dense foods in only a few hours. 

Conversely, low-energy-density veggies alongside a lean steak may keep you from thinking of food for many more hours.  So, while this meal provides more calories, it’s likely to bring you satiation and satiety for long and short-term satisfaction that will allow you to eat less.

What Other Factors Align With Satiety? 

While low-energy-density foods tend to correspond to lower energy intake, our analysis shows that numerous quantifiable food parameters also affect whether (or not) we eat less throughout the day. 

The table below shows a selection of these parameters ranked by the most to least substantial effect each has on satiety based on our analysis of 125,761 days of data from 34,519 Optimisers. 

• For example, we tend to consume 55% fewer calories each day when we move from a diet with a low percentage of total calories from protein (protein %) to a very high protein % diet.  
• Energy density comes in at number 19 on this list of parameters that positively affect satiety.  

Rank	nutrient	satiety benefit
1	protein %	55%
2	potassium (g/cal)	49%
3	methionine (g/cal)	43%
4	valine (g/cal)	42%
5	diet quality	41%
6	cystine (g/cal)	41%
7	isoleucine (g/cal)	40%
8	phenylalanine (g/cal)	40%
9	lysine (g/cal)	40%
10	histidine (g/cal)	40%
11	threonine (g/cal)	40%
12	tyrosine (g/cal)	38%
13	phosphorus (g/cal)	38%
14	tryptophan (g/cal)	37%
15	cholesterol (%)	33%
16	folate (g/cal)	33%
17	calcium (g/cal)	33%
18	niacin (B3) (g/cal)	32%
19	energy density	30%
20	vitamin B5 (g/cal)	28%
21	riboflavin (B2) (g/cal)	28%
22	iron  (g/cal)	28%
23	selenium (g/cal)	26%
24	sodium (g/cal)	24%
25	vitamin A (g/cal)	23%
26	magnesium (g/cal)	22%
27	fibre: carb ratio	21%
28	vitamin B6 (g/cal)	20%
29	vitamin K1 (g/cal)	19%
30	leucine (g/cal)	18%
31	thiamin B1 (g/cal)	17%
32	vitamin E (g/cal)	17%
33	fibre	16%
34	manganese	15%
35	vitamin C (g/cal)	14%
36	zinc (g/cal)	13%
37	omega 3 (g/cal)	11%
38	vitamin B12 (g/cal)	9%
39	copper (g/cal)	8%

To illustrate, while a lower energy density diet will help you eat 30% fewer calories across the day, moving from low to high protein % aligns with a 55% reduction in calories.  That is, nearly twice the effect of a lower energy-density diet!

Does Adding Water to Your Meal Help? 

The problem with energy density arises when we consider foods like fruit, watery soups, or shakes that contain a significant amount of water.  

While they may be filling in the short term because of their volume, they, unfortunately, don’t keep us satisfied for long, and definitely not satiated for the whole day.

As shown in the chart below, foods with a very low energy density do not provide greater satiety throughout the day. Once food weighs more than about 500 g per 2000 calories, our energy intake throughout the day increases with these watery, low-energy-density foods.

Many people argue for drinking large amounts of water to ‘keep your stomach full’.  While this has some merit–as thirst can be mistaken for hunger—water has very few (if any) nutrients.  Thus, it does not satisfy your cravings for vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, or amino acids.

Many weight loss ‘gurus’ recommend drinking water with meals.  However, this might do more harm than good for your digestion from a physiological perspective.

Your stomach contains concentrated amounts of hydrochloric acid (stomach acid) to break down your food.  Similar to diluting acid in chemistry class, adding water when eating a meal tends to weaken your digestive ability.  In theory, this could leave you absorbing fewer nutrients.  

The bottom line is: liquid calories are not satiating over the long term.  So if you want to feel fuller for longer, chew your food and don’t drink it! 

Multivariate Analysis

The table above lists 39 factors that coincide with eating less across the day.  However, all these food parameters don’t act independently. 

Using multivariate analysis, we can tease out which factors affect satiety and have the most statistically significant, independent effect on satiety.

Energy Density with Protein and Fibre

We know from our previous analysis that protein % and fibre are two key parameters that influence satiety over the longer term. 

The table below shows the results of a multivariate analysis where we considered days of food with an energy density of fewer than 500 g/2000 calories (where we know energy density is actually helpful).  The results of the multivariate analysis below show that:

• Protein % has a highly statistically significant impact on energy intake throughout the day.  Moving from 22% to 44%, protein reduces energy intake independently by around 33%. 
• Fibre accounts for a significant but smaller 9% reduction in calories. 
• Once we account for protein and fibre, a higher weight of food per calorie (lower energy density) corresponds with a 5% increase in energy intake across the day.

Parameters	P-value	calories	%
protein (%)	0	-502	-33%
fibre (%)	2.4E-73	-130	-9%
weight (g/2000 cal)	7.4E-21	84	5%

The chart below shows the interplay between macronutrients and average daily energy intake.  It’s not just about reducing fat to increase satiety.  Instead, it’s about reducing energy from both fat and carbs while prioritising foods with more fibre and–most importantly–a higher protein %. 

Reducing either fat or carbs similarly impacts daily energy intake.  However, limiting energy from carbs and fat while increasing protein % has the most significant effect on satiety and will keep you feeling satisfied for longer!

Energy Density with Protein, Fibre, and Micronutrients

Next, we’ll examine our multivariate analysis of energy density, which includes protein, fibre, and various micronutrients. 

	P-value	calories	%
protein (%)	0	-418	-27.3%
potassium (mg/2000 cal)	2.9E-59	-137	-9.0%
calcium (mg/2000 cal)	1.7E-11	-50	-3.2%
fibre (%)	1.6E-08	-47	-3.1%
sodium (mg/2000 cal)	0.022	-13	-0.8%
weight (g/2000 cal)	5.5E-22	86	5.6%

The results of the multivariate analysis show that:

• Moving from low-protein to high-protein corresponds with a 27% reduction in calories. 
• Moving from lower to higher intakes of potassium, calcium, fibre, and sodium per calorie also corresponds with a lower calorie intake.  
• The multivariate analysis shows that some of the satiety benefits previously attributed to protein are actually due to other micronutrients.
•  Once the other parameters are considered, a lower energy density has an overall disbenefit to satiety.  
• Lower energy-dense foods correspond to a 6% increase in calories throughout the day.

The bottom line:  Once you accurately account for other factors that have a statistically significant effect on satiety, the benefit of lower energy density disappears. 

Once you have dialled in nutrient density, worrying about a lower energy density appears to be a bad idea!  

Diet Quality Is King! 

If you want to improve your satiety across the day, it’s better to focus on foods and meals with a higher nutrient density to ensure you get the protein, vitamins, and minerals you require at the expense of minimal energy.  

The chart below shows the micronutrient profile of the top 50 NutriBooster Recipes in terms of nutrient density. It shows that we easily meet the Optimal Nutrient Intake stretch for all of the micronutrients.

By comparison, if we rank the recipes by energy density, we get a much lower overall nutrient density score.  We end up missing out on several essential nutrients, including selenium, zinc, thiamine, niacin and all of the amino acids. 

Short-term feelings of fullness from soups and shakes are not particularly helpful if your body craves the other essential nutrients it needs to thrive and goes in search of more food as soon as the bulky meal clears through your stomach.

The chart below illustrates how improving diet quality by optimising nutrient density will significantly enhance satiety, reduce cravings, and lower the quantity of food one tends to eat.

How Can I Reduce My Energy Intake?

If you want to increase your satiety and reduce how much you eat across the day, targeting nutrient-dense foods is more effective than low-energy-density foods.

You can optimise your nutrient density by increasing your intake of foods that contain more nutrients with less energy.  This is illustrated in the nutrient-dense foods chart below (download printable .pdf version here).  

Simply focusing on low-energy foods might not supply you with an adequate amount of the essential micronutrients.  As a result, only eating low-energy-density foods can increase calorie intake because they are less satiating over the long term.  

Nutrient-Dense Foods

Finally, the lists below illustrate what nutrient-dense foods look like. As you can see, they still have a fairly low energy density but a high nutrient density, ensuring you get everything your body requires from the food you eat. 

Plant-based foods

names	nutrient density	energy (kcal/100g)
watercress	86%	15
asparagus	82%	25
chard	80%	24
parsley	80%	44
broccoli	78%	33
chives	77%	37
endive	74%	20
lettuce	70%	21
cauliflower	69%	30
zucchini	66%	20
alfalfa	63%	31
green peas	58%	83
green peppers	57%	24
sauerkraut	55%	22
cucumber	54%	18
cabbage	53%	28

Animal-based foods

names	nutrient density	energy (kcal/100g)
beef liver	76%	130
chicken liver	76%	165
lamb liver	72%	134
ground pork	60%	185
whole egg	60%	139
duck eggs	59%	181
pork ribs	59%	216
milk	57%	42
roast beef	57%	219
egg white	49%	48

Seafood

names	ONI score	energy (kcal/100g)
crab	77%	78
crayfish	76%	78
anchovy	70%	203
oyster	70%	49
cod	69%	273
shrimp	67%	113
squid	67%	87
caviar	65%	276
salmon	64%	156
haddock	63%	85
tilapia	63%	96
herring	63%	210
trout, cooked	61%	183
halibut	61%	86

Nutrient-Dense Recipes

Some examples of our most nutrient-dense NutriBooster recipes are listed below:

• quick mackerel salad
• salmon tray bake
• salmon, chicory, sauerkraut & greens (pictured)
• turkey & spinach egg white omelette
• prawn, salmon, shiitake & cabbage stir fry

How Can I Calculate My Nutrient Intake?

If you’re interested in how ‘nutrient-dense’ your current diet is, you can see your nutrient profile for free using our 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge. 

After tracking your current diet in Cronometer for a week, our Nutrient Optimiser software will give you a prioritised list of foods and NutriBooster recipes to help you plug any nutritional gaps you may currently have.

Level Up Your Nutrient Density

To help you level up your nutrient density, we’ve prepared a Nutritional Optimisation Starter Pack to ensure you’re getting all the essential nutrients from your everyday foods.

This free starter pack includes:

• Maximum Nutrient Density Food List
• Sample Maximum Nutrient Density Recipe Book
• Sample Maximum Nutrient Density Meal Plan.

To get started today, all you have to do is join our new Optimising Nutrition Group here. 

Once you join, you will find the Nutritional Optimisation Starter Pack in the discovery section here.

More

• The Most Satiating Foods to Crush Your Hunger More Efficiently
• Energy Density vs Protein % for Satiety and Weight Loss
• Nutrient-Dense Foods
• Satiety: How to Lose Weight with Less Hunger
• Nutrient-Dense Meals and Recipes
• What is Nutrient Density?
• Micronutrient Foraging: Where to Get What Your Body Needs
• Manifesto for Agnostic Nutrition
• Macros Masterclass
• Micros Masterclass