Observing fasting, as the priests say, is not only about eating lean food; first of all, you need to watch your actions and thoughts. However, nutrition also plays an important role. Many people ask the question: what can you eat during Lent? What foods should be excluded from the diet?
Not every person can observe strict fasting in food according to the monastery charter, and priests do not require this either. Each of us has individual characteristics of the organism. Someone periodically arranges for themselves "fasting" days and is used to a sharp change in diet, and someone may have gastrointestinal diseases. In this case, the priest can indulge in fasting. You need to keep the fast for pleasure, you should not torture your body, cause yourself suffering. And it is also rightly said that the one who did not experience anger and negative feelings and emotions during the fast, fasted more than the one who ate the lean food.
In any fast, including the Great one, you cannot eat animal products, namely: meat and meat products, chicken, eggs, fish and seafood, any animal fats, dairy products. The priests explain this by the fact that animal products greatly fatten our body, satiety it, and fasting is the time when the soul must control the body, and not vice versa.
If we talk about the methods of heat treatment of food, then it is worth stopping at boiling, stewing, baking, and it is better to refuse frying. Fried foods make digestion difficult, and they also contain more carcinogens that are released during this heat process. It should also be noted that if a product is placed in boiling water, it retains more nutrients, vitamins and microelements than a product placed in cold water. When heated, structured water is removed from it, and with it useful substances.
It is necessary to abandon the use of large amounts of salt, sugar, spices and spices, they increase appetite and excite the nervous system. The coffee needs to be replaced with chicory. During the fast, you can drink hot drinks: compotes, infusions, teas and cocoa.
According to some sources, it is known that you can take alcohol. We are talking about a small amount of red church wine Cahors (50-100 g) on Sunday.
Permitted products include: bread, mushrooms, fresh and pickled vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, honey, berries, marmalade and jelly (you should pay attention to the composition - juice, gelatin), soy products (however, they should not be abused, they contain difficult-to-digest protein, unlike other legumes), cereals, pasta, which contain flour and water.
Nowadays, there is a wide variety of lean products from which you can prepare a wide variety of delicious, nutritious and healthy dishes. The purpose of fasting is to purify the mind and body, so the most important thing is to keep track of what and, most importantly, how much we eat and the time we eat, as well as to manage our affairs and actions.
