Category: FOOD

  • “Remember that, in the Biblical narrative, humanity’s estrangement from God is first manifested in relation to food. Our unruly appetite is a prime example of our enslavement to our own desires, of our addiction to getting what we want when and how we want it.”

    —Fr. Philip LeMasters, Fasting for Fulfillment

  • “Fasting is a commandment that was given for human nature to observe from the beginning and the First-Created fell from there.”

    —Saint Isaac the Syrian

  • Did nature give us bellies so insatiable, when she gave us these puny bodies, that we should outdo the hugest and most voracious animals in greed? Not at all. How small is the amount which will satisfy nature? A very little will send her away contented. It is not the natural hunger of our bellies that costs us dear, but our solicitous cravings.

    —Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

  • by overloading the body with food you strangle the soul and render it less active. Accordingly, limit the flesh as much as possible, and allow free play to the spirit.

    —Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

  • and how he was able on account of his sparing diet to hold out to the evening, not even requiring to relieve himself by any evacuations except at the usual hour;

    —Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

  • Overeating makes people logy in a different way from the apathy induced by too little nourishment, but I feel sure that it takes the edge off perception. Many of us are literally weighed down.

    The House by the Sea: A Journal
    May Sarton

  • He possessed nothing of his own and would have nothing to do with invitations and banquets. He always ate alone, just enough to sustain his sick, emaciated body, and he did not accept invitations because they would involve him in worldly conversations.

    The Life of Saint John Chrysostom
    On the Vanity of Riches

  • Propound to thyself (if thou beest in a capacity) a constant rule of living, of eating and drinking: which though it may not be fit to observe scrupulously, lest it become a snare to thy conscience, or endanger thy health upon every accidental violence; yet let not thy rule be broken often nor much, but upon great necessity and in small degrees.

    —Rev. Jeremy Taylor, On Christian Sobriety – Rules for obtaining temperance., The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 3. THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING AND DYING….: The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying

  • Be severe in your judgment concerning your proportions, and let no occasion make you enlarge far beyond your ordinary. For a man is surprised by parts; and while he thinks one glass more will not make him drunk, that one glass hath disabled him from well discerning his present condition and neighbour danger. 

    —Rev. Jeremy Taylor, On Christian Sobriety – Rules for obtaining temperance., The Whole Works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, Volume 3. THE RULE AND EXERCISES OF HOLY LIVING AND DYING….: The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying

  • Take example the person who fasts. In his fast he may perhaps abstain from many foods, yet he cannot abstain for one particular food, which he desires. What does such a person gain from his fast so long as he is weak and lacks the power to control himself at the point when he is being attached with the desire of food? Do we not say that if he abstains from this food in particular, he will be successful in his fast and in his spirituality? However, if he falls in this, then he has fallen in all. The Bible reminds us of this, saying: “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2.10). What is the meaning of this statement by the apostle? How should we understand it? You will understand by answering the following question: Do you love God, so that nothing can keep you away from Him? If you find anything at al, then this is the problem in your life; it is your point of weakness.

    —H.H. Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity