fasting

[FireDragon76]

Taken from this thread:

Monastics and vegetarianism

(posting in fellowship) I did not want to go off topic in another thread, but I was wondering, why Orthodox monks and nuns tend to be vegetarian and only eat fish? Are they also not allowed to eat cheese, dairy, yogurt, wine, oil et al? What other foods do they avoid? I remember reading...

www.christianforums.com

Abstaining from meat is fairly common in many cultures as an ascetic practice, from Hindu brahmins, Jains, and Buddhists, Chinese Taoists, animistic cultures, to eastern Christians, so I'm guessing there's something universal about it being spiritually beneficial that is understood intuitively. Anecdontally, some people who have gone vegan or vegetarian sometimes mention having spiritual intuitions or interest, despite previously having no interest.

Living on a diet of only plants isn't inherently unhealthy, the main risk is that in modern agricultural practices, there's a complete deficiency in B-12 (cobalamin), which means with prolonged abstinence from meat (usually measured in years, not days, depending on body stores) there's a risk of serious anemia and nerve damage, however this can be solved by taking a simple supplement, or eating exotic foods like chlorella or duckweed (which is actually consumed by poor Thai peasants as a traditional food in Thailand).

 

[ArmyMatt]

sure. forgive me, but I don’t think there’s much to debate here.

 

[Seraphim .]

When I lived in England, it was easy to be vegan because I had enough energy from vegan foods like tempeh, ground pea protein(s) and fava bean curd and many other things like that. They had enough amino acids in them to make you feel OK the next day.
It makes being a vegan much easier.

It's different here when it comes to pre-made food that you have to cook at home.

It's better to just soak various types of beans and cook with that instead if you want to go vegan; this appears to be alright for many people – monks are strong and live without meat on a mostly plant-based diet their entire lives; even the old ones.

I wish I had the strength of the monks as well as their recipes, but I feel even more sluggish and lethargic than I currently do when I live on such foods day-in day-out. The struggle becomes much worse when I do that. And giving up coffee (which is an addiction and I do count it as a sin given I'm addicted to it, you shouldn't be addicted to such things to the point where you're reliant on them to function) is extremely hard and I can barely think at all without it.

I guess my point is that they can do and live on extraordinary things that we poor souls struggle with, I really honestly don't know how they do it - and I really do mean I don't know how they do hard work day in day out eating that diet.

It proves that the Holy Spirit works within them and that God provides all their nourishment and food isn't what sustains you. Not really.