Every Orthodox person sooner or later thinks about how to organize his meals in fasting by day. He asks acquaintances, studies literature, and is often scared of the strict rules of eating and a monotonous diet. In fact, everything is not so scary.
Refusing for some time certain foods is a spiritual feat
Among our compatriots there are many who have recently decided to make their bloodless sacrifice to the Creator. These people have discovered many such products that they had not paid attention to before . In ordinary mundane life, the menu consists largely of protein foods of animal origin. Fasting prohibits meat and dairy products, as well as eggs.
How to prepare for the post?
What time and what is during fasting is not an idle question. The church permits seafood, vegetables, nuts, fruits, mushrooms and cereals. They can be eaten throughout the period of abstinence, with the exception of several special days on which it is impossible to eat at all, in particular on Good Friday, on Clean Monday, on the day of the beheading of the head of John the Baptist, on Christmas Eve - Christmas and Epiphany. Meals during fasting are daily painted on every Orthodox calendar. The degree of severity is regulated by canons. However, regulations sometimes change. In each church, priests must explain to parishioners what is possible during fasting and what should be abstained. The most correct thing is to ask a priest for a blessing before fasting. He will clarify what and when it is possible, and what will have to be abandoned. Some Christians rightly believe that the most exact rules are known and carried out by the monks. To copy their routine or not, every layman has the right to decide independently, after talking with his confessor of the dignity.
Do laity need to follow the monastic rule?
The nutrition of the laity and monks varies significantly. The monks fast according to all the rules - they eat food only once a day, on the days that are set, they strictly observe dry eating, and they do not eat meat even outside fasting. The main guideline for all Christians is the forty-day fasting of Jesus Christ. Before accepting the mission assigned by God the Father, the Lord secluded himself in the desert, where he prayed and fought against temptations, and supported the physical body with wild honey and acridas. Christ commanded us that you can save your soul only by fasting and prayer. Any post should be aimed primarily at the desire to comprehend and accept in your soul the commandment "Yes, love one another."
What products are allowed per post?
The daily fasting for the laity is usually as follows. Dry-eating was adopted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, that is, food can not be cooked. These days, groats are allowed, flooded with water and soaked to a mild state, and in the same way, soaked dried fruits and water.
On Tuesday and Thursday you can cook hot. This can be porridge on the water or vegetable broth, jelly, seafood, pasta. Do you often cook yourself jelly outside the posts? But they are very healthy. Jelly can be made from fruits, berries, cereal flakes.
What can be prepared from lean foods?
You can cook delicious soups from mushrooms, vegetables and marine life. Eating in fasting does not prohibit the use of seasonings and spices. And they are almost always not of animal origin. In fasting - it's time to learn oriental cuisine. Soy sauces, Indian spices, domestic herbs, nuts, honey - this is all that you can experiment with four days a week, and on Saturday and Sunday, vegetable oil is also allowed. Fasting every day will add variety to your life. At the end of the week you can bake strudel. This is a kind of rolls from a very thinly rolled exhaust dough. For its preparation only flour, water and a little salt are used. The filling for them can be sweet, for example, apple-apricot. Take fresh apples, dried apricots or apricot jam, flavor with cinnamon or vanilla, and to stuff the filling out, fix it with potato starch.
As a filling for unsweetened lean roll, you can use fresh cabbage. To prevent it from boiling, boil the water and put chopped cabbage leaves in it for 3-5 minutes, then fold it into a colander. After the water drains, use cabbage in any dish. For the strudel filling, fry onions in vegetable oil and mix with cabbage, to improve the taste, add one cardamom grain, salt and pepper.
Fasting meals can be varied with jelly and jellied dishes on agar-agar (seaweed). They can be done for the future, but if you are allowed to eat them on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you will have to check with the priest of your church.
Health Benefits of Fasting
Eating during fasting by day will not allow you to gain excess weight, but will allow you to eat those foods that you forbade yourself in ordinary life. For example, potato pies fried in vegetable oil. Say: "Death to the figure"? Not at all! You can only afford this pleasure on Saturday and Sunday. On other days, the weight will return to normal. In general, eating during fasting on days of the week is a rather fascinating affair. You will not only significantly expand your culinary horizons by adding new dishes to the diet, but also get rid of dysbiosis, establish the work of the gastrointestinal tract, cleanse your body of toxins and toxins. The food calendar in the post establishes a rather strict framework for believers, but it does not make their life dull and monotonous.
Posts vary in duration and severity. During the Apostolic or Petrov Lent, as well as at Filippovsky, that is, Christmas, fish is often allowed. Accordingly, the filling for baking, soups and main dishes become even more interesting. Even during Great Lent you can treat yourself to fish on the Annunciation and Palm Sunday and fish caviar on Lazarev Saturday.
The joy of successfully overcoming carnal temptations
Only those who have stood the Christian fast for many days have the opportunity to experience real joy from eating fast food. Usually the first week after a multi-day fast is continuous. Banned products for several weeks are perceived in a new way. Fresh cottage cheese with fat sour cream and condensed milk to the taste seems to be the most gentle ambrosia. And if you spread it on butter cake, the pulp of which is not white, but bright yellow from eggs generously added to the dough ?! Who can afford such luxury, if not those who for a long time deprived themselves of the joys of gluttony, abstinence from food and prayer?
The joy of the Incarnation of the Lord in the Only Begotten Son and His victory over death are noted very widely, no prohibitions overshadow these two holidays to those who are preparing for them correctly. Believers at this time completely indulge in the joys of life, not caring for the slimness of the figure, calories, the hour of eating, and more. A liberated and purified organism works perfectly. All useful substances are used to promote health and the construction of tissue cells of all organs, and harmful ones are removed away without delay.
You can no longer wonder when and what to eat. During the post, these issues had to be resolved every day, because it is no secret that, no matter how hard you try, the posts generally last a long time, and cooking is not always an opportunity. Snackers and cappuccino snacks are not allowed. So the Orthodox eat, most often, water, nuts and dried fruits. Honestly, this is not easy.
And if you could not cope with the prohibitions and regulations?
Attending services and reading prayers greatly help strengthen will and spirit. And if you still could not pass the test of fasting, do not despair. It didn’t work out now, it will work out another time. Most importantly, the Lord should see your efforts.