Does Celery Break a Fast? Can You Have Celery While Fasting?

Celery may or may not break your fast, depending on the amount and how it’s consumed. It also depends on the purpose of fasting. Although very low in calories, celery may induce an insulin response if consumed excessively. However, if you’re fasting to cleanse your gut, even chewing a single stalk of celery may technically break the fast by stopping what is called Migrating Motor Complex (MMC).

Whether you’re fasting for weight loss or gut health, avoiding eating raw or cooked celery during fasting is recommended. You don’t want to risk breaking your fast, as celery does contain carbs and proteins.

How Many Calories in Celery?

Celery is generally light in terms of calories because it’s a nutrient-dense, healthy vegetable. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), a small stalk of celery (17g and 5-inch) contains less than 3 calories and 0.5g of carbs. A medium stalk (40g and 8-inch) has 5.6 calories and 1.1g of carbs. A cup of chopped celery (101g) gives a little over 14 calories and 3g carbs.

As a leafy green vegetable, celery is low in calories but chockful of essential nutrients. It’s a good calcium, magnesium, potassium, and vitamin C source.

If you want to track calories in your diet, the Fastic app is the answer. Users can add what they’ve eaten or drank with an intuitive menu. But that’s not all. With the built-in AI-powered meal scanner, you can track calories and nutrients with just a quick picture of your food.

Celery and Fasting: Potential Impact

For most people, the simplest logic to whether something can break a fast or not is calories. If a food or drink has more than a few calories, it breaks the fast. If it doesn’t, it won’t. While that’s true in most cases, it’s not a rule.

Celery may impact your fast in various ways, depending on what you’re trying to achieve with your fast. Let’s dig in:

Fasting for Weight Loss

If fasting for weight loss, a small single stalk of celery may not have enough calories, carbs, and proteins to stimulate an insulin response, which technically breaks the fast. However, anything more than that will have enough carbs to activate insulin production, which stops the ketosis process (burning fat for energy).

Even when juiced, celery may pack in enough calories to break the fast. And you won’t get much juice from pressing a tiny stalk, so it’s best to avoid it altogether.

Fasting for Gut Health

If you’re fasting for gut health, things get a little bit more complicated.

One of the benefits of fasting is that it cleanses the gut with MMC. This process flushes out any food remnants in the gut, including toxins and bacteria that often result in bloating and other digestive issues. It’s a normal process that kicks in a couple of hours of fasted state. Eating anything may stop this process. So even chewing on that small stalk of celery, which may not spike insulin, may stop MMC.

It’s best to avoid eating celery during such a fast to ensure the gut-cleaning process continues.

Can You Drink Celery Juice While Fasting?

A cup of celery juice would have enough calories, carbs, and protein content to break a fast, regardless of the purpose behind it. To produce celery juice, you’ll need more than a single stalk of celery, which easily takes the calorie content above 5 kcal. The carbs in the juice will quickly stimulate the body to produce insulin, bringing it out of a ketosis state.

If you find juicing celery is an easy way to consume more of it in your diet, do it in your eating window during intermittent fasting.

Health Benefits of Celery

So what if you can’t eat celery during a fast, you can and should consume it once you’ve broken your fast. Here’s why:

A Galore of Antioxidants: Most vegetables contain antioxidants that have numerous benefits, but celery takes it to the next level. Every stalk contains over 12 different types of antioxidants. Antioxidants are known to reduce oxidative stress, which damages cells in the body and causes a variety of health conditions, like heart disease and cancer.
Anti-inflammatory Effect: Eating celery can be great for those with conditions that involve chronic inflammation. Its leaves, in particular, have been found to have anti-inflammatory properties.
Good for digestion: It’s hardly a secret that vegetables aid in digestion. However, celery’s carbon content is mostly fiber, which is excellent for the gut and may help maintain weight. One cup of celery packs 1.62g of fiber.
Low Glycemic Index: Like many other leafy green vegetables, Celery has a low glycemic index. While it does raise the glucose levels in the blood, it does so gradually. This makes it ideal for those with type II diabetes.

How to Consume Celery While Fasting?

You want to consume it after you’ve broken your fast. Whether doing 16:8 or 20:4 intermittent fasting, you should eat celery during the feeding periods. You can eat it raw or cook meals with it. If eating it raw isn’t for you, try steaming it. To get all of its nutrients, eat both the stalk and the leaves.

Celery leaves tend to lose their freshness in a few days. So, eat them within five days of purchasing them and putting them in the refrigerator.

If you’re looking for fast-friendly meal ideas that include celery, check out the Fastic app’s recipe book. It includes hundreds of delicious and healthy recipes that help make fasting less boring.

Disclaimer: Speaking with a health professional before beginning intermittent fasting or a diet program is advised. There may be side effects for people with certain medical conditions.