“A hamper of bread, a few dates, some water, the Bible. A day’s march: a cave.”

—Carlo Carretto, Letters from the Desert

“Perhaps the best part of matpakke is the fact that it is over with so quickly. This sounds like a backhanded compliment, but it’s really a celebration of food as sustenance, pure and simple.”

How to pack a Norwegian sandwich, the world’s most boring lunch

“Calorie restriction” has repeatedly been shown to slow aging in animals, and many researchers believe it offers the single strongest link between diet and cancer prevention.

—Michael Pollan, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual

Keep the body properly slim so that you reduce the burden of the heart’s warfare, with full benefit to yourself.

—St Philotheos of Sinai

He ate only bread and salt, and even that not every day.

A Discourse on Abba Philimon
Philokalia

Break the bonds of your friendship for the body and give it only what is absolutely necessary. 

—St. Thalassios the Libyan

Cited alongside these results are estimated calculations of the caloric sum of St. John Cassian’s suggested diet for monks, which amounted to approximately 930 calories daily.

Fasting Reconsidered: St. John Chrysostom and Modern Science on Fasting
Stephen M. Meawad, Ph.D.

Being a King, David had opportunities for temporary pleasures, but after he tasted the sweetness of inner blessings, he even forgot to eat his bread.

—Hieromonk Makarius of Optina

What I eventually found out was that as soon as I started to fast and deny myself pleasures and devote time to prayer and meditation and to the various exercises that belong to the religious life, I quickly got over all my bad health, and became sound and strong and immensely happy.

—Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain