[Abba] Moses’ advice is notable in prescribing unwavering uniformity even on Sundays and days when guests visit.  Monks maintaining this pattern would need no additional food on Sundays or other special days. If additional food were taken on these days, a smaller ration would be required during the rest of the week, or quite possibly nothing at all, as a result of the additional sustenance previously received. Why not opt, therefore, for this latter option, frequently practised and previously described, of complete abstinence through the week with a feast on Sunday? Cassian rejects this option on the grounds that it would establish a cycle of excessive abstinence followed by indulgence that would over time, be likely to promote gluttony. This is illustrated by the example of brother Benjamin, who on alternate days ate none of his bread ration in order to enjoy a feast of four loaves once every two days, so that he might ‘give way to his appetite by means of a double portion’. Abba Moses continues: ‘Through the two days of fasting he was able to acquire his four rolls, thereby getting the chance both to satisfy his longings and to enjoy a full stomach.’ Benjamin ultimately forsakes monastic life, returning ‘back to the empty philosophy of this world and to the vanity of the day’ because he ‘obstinately chose his own decisions in preference to what had been handed down by the fathers’.

Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet
by David Grumett, Rachel Muers

Cassian also discusses dietary discipline in his fifth book of Institutes, in which he presents the common goal of spiritual abstinence as best served by varying levels of abstinence for different people. In so far as an objective measure of degrees of abstinence is possible, some community members will be suited to a stricter degree than others owing to differences in mental steadfastness, bodily health, age and gender. Indeed, when specific foods are discussed, this is often in order to show the difficulty of forming general prescriptions: moistened beans do not agree with everybody, for example, and fresh vegetables and dry bread will suit some people but not others. In defining gluttony, Cassian does not therefore focus solely on the specific types of food eaten, but adopts a broader perspective which takes account of their simplicity and ease of preparation. He advises:

Food should be chosen not only to soothe the burning pangs of lust, still less to inflame them, but which is easy to prepare and which is readily available for a moderate price, and it should be held in common for the brothers’ use. Now there are three types of gluttony: one is compulsion to anticipate the regular time of eating; another is wanting to fill the stomach with excessive amounts of any sort of food; the third is delighting in the more delicate and rare dishes. A monk therefore must take threefold care against these: firstly he must wait for the proper time of meals; then he must not yield to overeating; thirdly he should be happy with any sort of common food.

Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet
by David Grumett, Rachel Muers

Cassian’s teacher at Constantinople has been John Chrysostom. Although he does not lay down guidelines for monastic formation in the same systematic way, Chrysostom promotes a similar spirit of moderation, which appears to have had an effect on his pupil. He writes:

Fasting is a medicine; but a medicine, though it be never so profitable, becomes frequently useless owing to the unskilfulness of him who employs it. For it is necessary to know, moreover, the time when it should be applied, and the requisite quantity of it; and the temperament of body that admits it; and the nature of the country, and the season of the year; and the corresponding diet; as well as various other particulars; any of which, if one overlooks, he will mar all the rest that have been named.

By characterizing fasting as a medicine, Chrysostom makes clear that it exists to remedy human weakness.

Theology on the Menu: Asceticism, Meat and Christian Diet
by David Grumett, Rachel Muers

When we eat and drink all the time, our stomach and all our other digestive organs never get a rest. When we never let ourselves become truly hungry, our enjoyment of food decreases. Isn’t it ironic? We think that by eating more we are enjoying eating more, but this is not true. It is when we allow ourselves to become truly hungry and then take time to eat slowly and with attention, that we find the most enjoyment.

— Jan Chozen Bays MD, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food

Many people are aware that they eat in attempt to fill a hole, not in the stomach, but in the heart. We eat when we are lonely. We eat when a relationship ends. We eat when someone dies, taking food to the home of those who are grieving. These are the ways we try to take care of ourselves and others, but we must understand that food put into the stomach will never ease the emptiness, the ache in a heart.

—Jan Chozen Bays MD, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food

If we were able to perceive and respond just to cellular hunger, in the way wild animals do, we would feed ourselves in a sane and straightforward way. When hungry we would just eat. When not, not. Life would be simple.

— Jan Chozen Bays MD, Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food

“If I’m not going to pay full attention to it, I’m not going to eat it.”

—David Cain on mindful eating

“A vivid remembrance of death cuts down food; and when in humility food is cut, the passions are cut out too.”

—St. John Climacus