The Most Filling Low-Calorie Foods

The most filling low-calorie foods are the ones heaviest with water. Holt and colleagues, in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1995, found water content predicted fullness best at r = 0.64, ahead of fiber at 0.46 and protein at 0.37, while fat worked against it at r = -0.43.

Key takeaways

• Boiled potatoes scored 323% on that satiety index and a croissant 47%, for servings of identical calories.
• Serving weight tracked fullness at r = 0.66, which is the same finding restated: for a fixed number of calories, the heavier plate wins.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts it practically: vegetables and fruits cut the calories in a meal without cutting the amount of food.
• Two cups of cucumber and a cup of shredded cabbage add about 55 calories and close to 300 grams of weight to a plate.
• Popcorn and plain nonfat Greek yogurt are the exceptions, filling on volume and on 23 grams of protein per cup rather than on water.

This is general information for healthy adults, not medical advice, and it does not replace a doctor or a registered dietitian.

What actually makes a food filling for its calories?

Bulk. Holt and colleagues fed volunteers matched 240-calorie servings of 38 foods and rated fullness every 15 minutes for two hours, scoring each food against white bread at 100%. Their satiety index reported four correlations that explain the whole category:

Property	Correlation with fullness
Water content	r = 0.64
Fiber content	r = 0.46
Protein content	r = 0.37
Fat content	r = -0.43

Serving weight correlated with fullness at r = 0.66, which is the same finding stated differently: for a fixed number of calories, the heavier plate wins. Boiled potatoes scored 323%, the highest in the study, and a croissant scored 47%, the lowest. The two servings contained identical calories.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states the practical version on its page on fruits and vegetables: vegetables and fruits help you feel full and can reduce your hunger, and they can reduce the total calories in a meal without reducing the amount of food you eat. The CDC gives one comparison worth holding onto. A single serving of macaroni and cheese can carry the same calories as a cup of strawberries plus an apple plus carrots with hummus.

Which filling low-calorie foods give the most volume per calorie?

All figures below are from USDA FoodData Central for the portion named. Water is grams per 100 grams of food.

Food and portion	Calories	Fiber	Protein	Water
Romaine lettuce, shredded, 1 cup (47 g)	8	1.0 g	0.6 g	95%
Spinach, raw, 1 cup (30 g)	7	0.7 g	0.9 g	91%
Cucumber with peel, sliced, 1 cup (104 g)	16	0.5 g	0.7 g	95%
Cabbage, raw, shredded, 1 cup (89 g)	22	2.2 g	1.1 g	92%
Zucchini, cooked, sliced, 1 cup (180 g)	27	1.8 g	2.0 g	94%
Cauliflower, raw, chopped, 1 cup (107 g)	27	2.1 g	2.1 g	92%
Watermelon, diced, 1 cup (152 g)	46	0.6 g	0.9 g	91%
Strawberries, halved, 1 cup (152 g)	49	3.0 g	1.0 g	91%
Carrots, raw, chopped, 1 cup (128 g)	52	3.6 g	1.2 g	88%
Broccoli, boiled, chopped, 1 cup (156 g)	55	5.1 g	3.7 g	89%
Apple with skin, 1 medium (182 g)	95	4.4 g	0.5 g	86%
Air-popped popcorn, 3 cups (24 g)	93	3.6 g	3.1 g	4%
Greek yogurt, plain nonfat, 1 cup (227 g)	133	0 g	23 g	85%
Baked potato with skin, 1 medium (173 g)	161	3.8 g	4.3 g	75%

The top half of the table is close to free in calorie terms. Two cups of cucumber and a cup of shredded cabbage add roughly 55 calories and close to 300 grams of weight to a plate, which is more than twice the mass of a 4-ounce roasted chicken breast for less than a third of its calories.

Two entries break the water rule and deserve the explanation. Popcorn is dry and still filling, because 3 cups of it is a genuinely large volume of food and carries 3.6 grams of fiber. Plain nonfat Greek yogurt is filling on protein rather than on bulk, at 23 grams per cup. Both routes work; they just work differently, which is why the best foods for weight loss list is not a single category.

How do you actually use them in a meal?

Add before you subtract. The reliable move is to put the high-volume food on the plate first and let it displace part of what was already there, rather than eating a smaller version of the same meal.

• Half the plate, then the rest. Fill half with non-starchy vegetables, then serve the protein and starch onto what is left. The portion shrinks without a decision being made.
• Start with soup or salad. A cup of broth-based vegetable soup runs about 70 calories and occupies real stomach volume before the main course arrives.
• Bulk out what you already cook. A cup of zucchini or cauliflower stirred into a pasta sauce adds under 30 calories and noticeable weight.
• Swap the dry snack for the wet one. Three cups of air-popped popcorn cost 93 calories; 1 oz of potato chips costs about 152 for a far smaller volume.
• Keep the fiber going up. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health states on The Nutrition Source that adults need at least 25 to 35 grams of fiber a day and that most Americans get about 15 grams.

Where this strategy stops working

Volume is not the same as nutrition, and low calorie is not the same as filling. Rice cakes, diet soda and low-fat crackers are all low in calories and score badly on every property Holt and colleagues measured, because they contain little water, little fiber and little protein. A plate built only from the top of the table above provides bulk and micronutrients but not enough protein or fat to be a meal.

This article covers fullness per calorie for healthy adults. It does not prescribe a diet, does not set a calorie target, and does not apply to pregnancy, breastfeeding, children or adolescents, or to anyone with a history of disordered eating. It promises no particular amount of weight change. To work out the number these foods are meant to fit inside, see what a calorie deficit is; for the between-meal version of the same question, see these high-protein snacks.

Kalo.Quest is an app on Google Play and the App Store that returns calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat from one photo of the plate, straight into the day’s journal. It is free and ad supported, with a limit of 30 photo analyses a day and an optional rewarded video that adds one more. There is no account to create.

FAQ

Can you eat unlimited amounts of vegetables?

In practice, non-starchy vegetables are difficult to overeat, because the volume becomes the limit before the calories do. Four cups of raw spinach is 28 calories and a very large bowl. That said, no food is genuinely unlimited, and dressings, oil and cheese added to vegetables often carry more calories than the vegetables themselves. Measure what goes on top rather than what goes underneath.

Is a potato a filling low-calorie food or a starchy one it is best to avoid?

It is the single most filling food in the Holt satiety index, scoring 323% against white bread at 100%. A medium baked potato with the skin is 161 calories, 3.8 grams of fiber and 4.3 grams of protein according to USDA FoodData Central. What raises the calories is the preparation: frying, butter and sour cream. The potato itself is one of the better options in this category.

Does drinking water before a meal have the same effect?

Not the same effect, and the evidence is weaker. Holt and colleagues measured the water inside foods, which is bound up with the food and empties from the stomach more slowly than a glass of water taken alongside. Drinking water before a meal is harmless and may help a little, but eating watery foods is the mechanism the satiety index actually measured.