Is Celery A Good Diet Food?

Whether you're on a low-calorie, low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet, celery can fit into the plan. It's something of a wonder food, first used by the ancient Chinese in healing, then adopted by Romans and Greeks and included in recipes for its flavor. It's almost impossible to gain weight from eating it, so it's an ideal diet food.

Calories

The bottom line of any diet is that if you eat less calories than your body burns off each day, you will lose weight. If you eat more calories than you can possibly burn off in a given day, then you'll gain weight. One pound of body fat equals an accumulation of 3,500 unburned calories. Since a stalk of celery has about six calories, it only negligibly contributes to your daily intake.

Carbohydrates

Low-carb diets limit the grams or percentage of carbohydrates in your diet, although MayoClinic.com indicates that it doesn't matter where your calories come from as long as you eat less than you burn. But if you're counting carbs, celery is a good food for your diet. A stalk has only 1.19 g of carbohydrates. About .73 of those come from sugar. You need some carbohydrates in your diet for energy. Your nervous system and your brain particularly rely on glucose derived from carbohydrates to function optimally.

Fat

The low-fat diet premise is that eating foods high in fat can contribute to body fat. If you choose a low-fat diet, you could eat celery all day long because it has 0 g of fat content.

Fiber

Adequate fiber is a crucial part of any diet. Not only does it help to keep your bowels moving along as they should, it can regulate blood sugar and lower "bad" cholesterol as well. Each stalk of celery contributes about .6 g of fiber to your diet.

Nutrients

Celery also delivers some important vitamins and nutrients while it helps you stay within your calorie, carbohydrate or fat quotas. A stalk has 16 mg of calcium and .08 mg of iron. It offers 180 IU of vitamin A and 1.2 mg of vitamin C. It also has .28 g of protein, which your body uses for repair, growth and maintenance of muscle and tissue. A stalk of celery has 32 mg of sodium. This may sound high, but 1 tsp. of table salt is equal to 2,325 mg. Adding celery to your salad for flavor instead of using dressing, or to cut back on the dressing, can help you keep to healthy sodium levels.