Strictly speaking, almost no food has literally zero nutritional value. Even the most vilified junk foods contain at least some calories your body can use for energy. But when most people ask this question, they’re really asking about “empty calorie” foods, ones that provide energy from sugar, fat, or alcohol without delivering the vitamins, minerals, fiber, or protein your body actually needs. Several common foods and drinks come remarkably close to that definition.
What “No Nutritional Value” Actually Means
Nutritionists evaluate foods by their nutrient density: the ratio of beneficial nutrients to calories. A food with high nutrient density packs vitamins, minerals, fiber, and protein into relatively few calories. A food with low nutrient density does the opposite, delivering plenty of calories while contributing almost nothing else. The worst offenders are foods where the calorie count comes entirely from added sugars, refined starches, or processed fats, with 0% of any recommended daily vitamin or mineral on the label.
This matters because your body has a calorie budget. If a large share of that budget goes to foods that supply nothing but energy, you end up overfed but undernourished. A meta-analysis of nationally representative dietary surveys found that as ultra-processed food intake rises, intake of fiber, protein, potassium, zinc, magnesium, and vitamins A, C, D, E, B12, and niacin all drop. At the same time, free sugars, total fat, and saturated fat go up. The pattern is clear: the more empty-calorie foods you eat, the less room remains for foods that keep your body functioning well.
Foods Closest to Zero Nutrition
Sugar and Candy
Pure table sugar is the textbook empty-calorie food. It contains 4 calories per gram, zero vitamins, zero minerals, and zero fiber. Hard candy, cotton candy, gummy bears, and similar sugar-based confections are essentially sugar with coloring and flavoring. They offer energy your body can burn, but nothing to support immune function, bone health, or cellular repair.
Sugary Soft Drinks
A 12-ounce can of regular soda delivers roughly 140 calories from added sugar alone. There is no fiber to slow absorption, no protein, and no meaningful amount of any micronutrient. Your body processes this sugar rapidly, producing a sharp rise in blood glucose followed by an insulin spike. Over time, this pattern contributes to insulin resistance and metabolic problems. Diet sodas swap sugar for artificial sweeteners, bringing the calorie count to zero, but they also provide nothing your body can use.
Alcohol
Pure ethanol contains 7 calories per gram, nearly twice as much as sugar, yet most alcoholic drinks have little to no nutritional value. Beer provides trace B vitamins, and red wine contains small amounts of antioxidants, but the quantities are too small to matter in a normal diet. Spirits like vodka, gin, and rum are essentially just ethanol and water. Mixed cocktails made with sugary mixers combine two empty-calorie sources into one glass.
Processed Fats
Vegetable shortening is nearly pure fat with zero vitamin A and only a small amount of vitamin E (about 2 mg per tablespoon). Margarine sticks and hydrogenated oils fall into the same category. These fats provide 9 calories per gram but contribute almost no micronutrients. They show up in baked goods, fried foods, and packaged snacks, adding calories without adding nutrition.
Packaged Snack Foods
Many chips, cheese puffs, and frosted snack cakes are made from refined flour, added sugar, and processed fat. Industrial processing strips away the fiber, vitamins, and minerals that were present in the original grain. What remains is a calorie-dense product with very little else. Cookies, candy, and chips are frequently cited as the foods people should replace with nutrient-rich alternatives like fruit, nuts, whole-grain crackers, or vegetables.
Why Refined Foods Are Worse Than They Look
When whole wheat is milled into white flour, the bran and germ are removed. Those are the parts that contain fiber, B vitamins, iron, and magnesium. The remaining starch behaves very differently in your body. In animal studies comparing diets based on whole wheat flour versus refined white flour (both combined with high fructose), the refined flour group developed insulin levels nearly six times higher than the whole wheat group within four weeks. They also developed high blood pressure, elevated blood sugar, and reduced levels of protective HDL cholesterol. By eight weeks, triglycerides were significantly elevated and blood vessel function was impaired.
The whole wheat group fared much better, likely because fiber slows sugar absorption and improves insulin sensitivity. This is a useful illustration of what “no nutritional value” really costs you. It’s not just that refined foods fail to give your body nutrients. They actively create metabolic stress that whole foods would have buffered against.
Foods That Seem Nutritionless but Aren’t
Celery is the classic example. People often call it a “zero-calorie food” or claim it takes more energy to chew than it provides. A medium stalk does contain only 6 calories, but it also provides 1 gram of fiber, small amounts of vitamin A and vitamin C, and 32 mg of sodium. It’s low in calories, but it’s not nutritionally empty. The same goes for cucumbers, lettuce, and other watery vegetables. They’re low-energy, high-nutrient foods, the opposite of empty calories.
Shirataki noodles are another food often labeled “zero nutrition.” They’re about 97% water and 3% glucomannan, a soluble fiber from the konjac plant. A typical serving contains only 1 to 3 calories from fiber fermentation. But that glucomannan fiber can absorb up to 50 times its weight in water, forming a gel that promotes fullness and supports digestive health. So while shirataki noodles are extremely low in calories, the fiber they contain is genuinely useful.
The Real Problem With Empty Calories
The issue isn’t just what empty-calorie foods lack. It’s what they replace. Higher consumption of ultra-processed foods is associated with lower intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, eggs, legumes, and seafood across population-level data. Each percentage point increase in ultra-processed food consumption corresponds to measurable decreases in fruit, cereal, and vegetable intake. The cumulative effect of eating more processed food while eating less produce likely explains the drops in fiber, vitamin, and mineral intake seen across multiple national dietary surveys.
If you’re looking at a nutrition label and seeing zeros across the vitamin and mineral lines while the sugar or fat content is high, that food is as close to “no nutritional value” as you’ll find. The shortest list of the worst offenders: soda, candy, alcohol, shortening, and snack foods made from refined flour, sugar, and oil. Your body can extract energy from all of them. It just can’t build or repair anything with what they provide.