This topic is dedicated to the Christian tradition of fasting. It is worth noting that this is not so much a tradition as a duty of every person who wants to come to the Kingdom of Heaven after death.
Any food, any kind of product that is excluded during the fast, is called fast food.
What is fast food
Every Orthodox believer knows that in fasting you can not eat any meat, drink milk and dairy products, eat eggs in any form. It would seem that one can endure one day or several without eating chicken or beef. It's no secret that modern meat processing plants make sausages and sausages most often from soy and other products that have little to do with real meat. So sausages are not fast food? On the one hand yes, on the other hand no. Later we will try to understand why.
If eggs, milk, kefir, yogurt are added to baking in addition to water, flour and sunflower oil, then we can safely answer that it is modest. It is not used in fasting.
The same goes for chocolate, for example. As a rule, in itadd albeit dry, but milk. Various biscuits, white bread are all fast foods.
What to eat then
Often, especially with the beginning of Lent, people start fussing instead of praying, they are looking for those foods that can be consumed during the meal. This is the wrong approach. It’s better to make a menu in advance, see what you can eat and what not, so that you don’t think about food during fasting, but pray hard, spend time in repentance, and go quietly to church services. What does fast food mean and how not to mix it up?
Let's start with the bread. It is on the table for every Christian. The Lord Himself blessed the bread. If you are embarrassed by the "Nareznoy" loaf or "Borodinsky" bread, for example, then you can buy Armenian pita bread: it contains only water, flour, yeast and s alt. Not an ounce of milk.
Homemade pies made from flour, water, sunflower oil and yeast are an excellent substitute for a quick muffin. Indeed, as a filling, you can add raisins, prunes, poppy seeds, cinnamon or an apple.
What to drink
Of course, you can’t drink dairy products in fasting, which ones:
- milk;
- yogurt;
- kefir;
- curdled milk;
- ryazhenka.
You can not add milk to coffee or tea. And you can drink these drinks themselves, but not in large quantities.
Fast food: cocktails, wine, beer, carbonated drinks such as Fanta, Duchess and so on. Remember that during fasting you can not drink vodka or wine. Ideally, there should be only water, juice, fruit drink, compote.
Why is it impossible to drink alcohol, because it is not dairy,not from eggs or meat? The point here is not physical food, but spiritual. After drinking alcohol, a person relaxes, worst of all - loses his mind. And drunkenness is a serious sin. In order to relax or expand blood vessels in fasting, such things should not be used. As the Holy Fathers explain it: temptation and sin.
The meaning of the post
And now let's talk about why we need fasting and abstaining from fast food. This is both difficult and simple at the same time. The simplicity lies in the fact that you can give up meat, milk and eggs for a while, the main thing is to want to. And the difficulty is that a person understands the spiritual meaning far from immediately. He cannot refuse his favorite food, dish, dessert for the sake of the Lord, for the sake of his salvation and the Kingdom of Heaven.
It is important to understand that your favorite food, drink, without which it is impossible to live fully, can also be attributed to modest food. For example, you are very fond of coffee, although you do not add milk to it. It is worth abandoning it during fasting for the sake of rapprochement with God. Now let's talk about the meaning of the post.
A person is attached to earthly goods, it is hard for him to give up what he likes. But when he dies, his soul will be freed from this world. What will happen? She will be constantly hungry, but not because she wants a piece of meat or drink coffee (there is no body), there will be spiritual hunger. Such a soul wants to return to the joys of earthly life, and not to strive for God. But, alas, this will not happen. As a result, such a soul will fall to the demons that tempted it. And fasting is a rapprochement with God and a distance from the devil.
Lean alternativefood
Often, contemporaries want to indulge themselves: they buy sausages, soybeans, bacon-flavored chips, marmalade. What can be said about this? If you fast, then do it properly. After all, you need to wean yourself from your favorite sensations, familiar tastes. No need to look for a replacement. Otherwise, it will not be a post for you, but an ordinary game called “find an alternative”. The same goes for those who think they are fasting but are actually dieting.
Any search for a replacement, concessions, reasons is best left and not wasted time. Fasting should be from a pure heart, a free choice. What does fast food mean for a fasting Christian? As a rule, a voluntary desire to give up favorite dishes for the sake of communication with God. Those who fasted for real probably noticed that after a meal it becomes easy, joyful, does not pull you to sleep, there are strengths for prayer and other useful things.
How much to consume
The Orthodox Church always says that food should be eaten in small portions. There is such a sin of overeating. That is, when a person overeats. As a rule, it becomes difficult, pulls you to sleep, you want to eat more. Often such a meal ends with pain in the stomach, hepatic colic. We can say that the person in this case punished himself.
On the contrary, eating just a little, you can feel full a few minutes after lunch or dinner. And it doesn’t matter if it’s fast food or lean, but you need to eat in moderation.
It is worth noting that the abundance of vegetable salads on the table,fruits and boiled potatoes with mushrooms - this does not mean a fasting table. Meals should be scarce and far from varied.
How to prepare for fasting
People often ask priests, believers: “What is it like: fast food without meat? What it is? . Let's take a closer look at this point.
There is a meatless week before Lent: you can eat everything except meat products. And when fasting comes, you can’t eat the rest.
Let your table be boiled potatoes, rice or buckwheat, millet or porridge on the water. In the morning, you can drink tea / juice, pita bread or a lean bun.
For lunch, mushroom soup, for example, or vegetable broth, is suitable. For the second, you can drink compote, eat nuts or dried fruits.
Various salads, Korean-style carrots, pickles, sauerkraut, greens - all this will become a source of vitamins, vitality, strengthening immunity.
Unfortunately, modern agricultural firms add nitrates to vegetables and fruits, process greens so that they can be stored for a long time. Buy all products better from trusted sellers.
