Feasting and Fasting

Feasting and Fasting

We are entering the traditional season of feasting and it reminds me how much we seem to have become obsessed with food. We are a country that discards more food than any other country on earth, a whopping 60 million tons every single year. It represents about 30-40% of the national food supply and close to $473 billion. When you think of the work and resources that go into providing food in this country, this should really make you sit down and cry. Especially when you look at the fact that in this country 47 million people face hunger every day including 1 in 5 children.

When you think about the number of restaurants that provide an "all you can eat" option such as a buffet, it boggles the mind that this is acceptable when just down the road there may be someone wondering where their next meal will come from. This is a time of extremes ... those with too much and those with too little and this is clearly true with food. Obesity is at an all time high and the truth about obesity is that it is evidence of too much food while nutritionally starving. Food is not seen as fuel for the body, it is used as a reward, as a treat, as entertainment, as a salve for boredom, as identity, but rarely is it seen as it was throughout history, as a human essential.

When seen as essential each person would eat just enough to be satisfied and would usually eat when hungry. Babies and children were given what was available, so the choice of food for little ones was limited simply because the food availability for adults was limited. Now we live in a society where food is proffered on every corner, at every gas station, in vending machines, drive-throughs, multiple grocery stores, restaurants, cafes, huge chain stores and even dropped on our doorstep. We are encouraged to eat, snack, treat ourselves, treat others and enjoy foods from all over the world every month of the year regardless of growing season. So food has almost become trendy. We may even see the meals of our childhood or the recipes of our parents as old-fashioned and unnecessarily time-consuming.

How many of us do not put aside time in our day for preparing and eating food? How many of us eat when you have a few minutes between tasks, in the car on the way to work, in front of the television at home in the evening right before bed? How many people do you know that have an eating disorder? In fact this is the core of our problem - our relationship to food.

We need to return to a healthy and appropriate view of food. So let's take a look at the ancient concept of feasting and fasting for a reminder. Fasting is a tradition that crosses religions and societies. It provides a break for your body from the digestive process, but more importantly it resets your relationship to food. It also gives you a very small insight into the idea of hunger because we live in a society where hunger is something most of us have never experienced. We have been encouraged to eat so frequently we never have a chance to feel hunger. Many of us grew up with parents who insisted we had to clean our plate in order to leave the table. But when we look at religious traditions going back thousands of years we see a common use of fasting as a tool to experience limitation, going without and devotion.

Judaism has Yom Kippur, Buddhism encourages fasting from noon to dawn of the following day, Catholicism has numerous fasts including Lent, Hinduism commonly practices fasting on new moon days and during festivals such as Shivaratri. Mormons fast on the first Sunday of each month, Muslims fast for Ramadan and Baha'is fast during Ala.

It was also notable in history that periods of fasting would then be followed by feasts because once one has been reminded of the role of food, feasts provided the opportunity to remember the incredible gifts of food that the earth provides as well as respecting those gifts by providing food to others at the feast. This idea of fasting and feasting also reminded us to see food as something we need, not just what we want. And this is where I believe we have lost our way.

Even starting in childhood we are encouraged to think of food emotionally. When we look at the number of babies with digestive problems, eczema, delayed speech and learning difficulties, we are often looking at issues with food both physically and emotionally. Young people and teenagers with mood disorders, ADD, ADHD and eating disorders can all be traced to their relationship to food. At least 50% of my patients have spent months or even years restricting their eating to specific diets, avoiding huge segments of foods, using food as a crutch, as a reward, as a punishment or as a salve and yet their symptoms remain or they return as soon as they step "out of line" on their diet.

Now I think we can all agree that there is definitely an issue with our food quality which is what drives the idea of organic vs. conventional, but the growth of food is just a small part of this. We also have problems with how we store and transport food, how food is made "acceptable" in order to be sold, how food is altered to lengthen shelf life, genetically modified to look desirable, irradiated to cross borders, fumigated to prevent pestilence, wrapped in plastic, preserved with chemicals and even completely imitated. All of these create chemical and physiological imbalances that drive unhealthy reactions to food. But we also have an even larger issue with our relationship to food itself. When we should eat, how we should eat, what we need to eat and especially why we should eat. Food allergies are now as commonplace as food addictions, both of which point towards the idea that we need a new relationship to food. All of this is the real reason for digestive distress and your gut microbiome is so wonderfully adaptable that it will go right along with your choices, all the way to disease.

So how can we change this? How can we restore our health and the health of our children through food?

We need to start with understanding that variety is essential and that groups of foods have effects and nutrients for our bodies. That way you choose things that meet all of your body's needs. We need to move away from the idea that we should use food to mold our bodies into a particular vision we may have. It's one thing to realize less sugar is better, but it's quite another to think you have can't ever have a piece of birthday cake again as long as you live. If you look at how we feed babies, you will see the start of the problem. The truth is that just about any food can be for babies and the more variety the better to create a broad microbiome for life. Don't think of baby food, think of the flavors of our food ... things that are sour, sweet, tangy, soft, crunchy. Just because you may not like beets does not mean you should avoid beets for your child. If you really want your children to be better and healthier than you are, then start with food and start at the beginning. And don't use food as a punishment, nor as a reward. After all children are not pets...

Once we are adults we have ingested not only the diet of our ancestors, but the diet of our friends, the diet of the fast food places we went to after a ball game, the diet of college when we couldn't be bothered eating at all, the diet of our first months of work when we could only eat for five minutes at our desk. We have to first reset our body's digestive capability in order to create our own healthy relationship with food and the best way to do this is fasting. This allows us to begin to eat consciously. It allows us to think of a "meal", not just something on the fly. It is a discipline and an idea that will serve us for the rest of our life. It is a connection to historical humanity by acknowledging food as essential, as a fuel. It is amazing to see what your digestion can do when given a chance.

Start slowly with a 16 hour fast, which may be easiest by skipping breakfast or eating breakfast later. It is the first marker on your historical connection because this was a traditional meal to break the fast from the evening before. Once you have done this for a couple of weeks and it does not need to be done every day, then try fasting for one entire day and night. During this longer fast take an intestinal clay to clear the gut 2-3 times.

Once you feel you have a reset and a renewed view of food, start supporting your food choices with a digestive enzyme that includes all the pancreatic enzymes but does not include HCl unless you have been vegan or vegetarian for longer than a few months. Eat a fermented food at least once each day. Make sure you are choosing foods with fiber (juicing may be a great health support, but it won't provide any fiber and it will spike your insulin). Don't view shakes, smoothies, bars or boxed foods as real food choices. Choose live, healthy food (think of what the earth provides) and have as wide a variety of foods as you can, a process that may need to be done gradually over time.

You will want to continue fasting in whatever frequency works for you and use fasting as a time to listen to your body. Give attention to meals, meal preparation and foods. Try new foods and see how you like them and how your body responds to them. Think of sugar as a special occasion, not as a reward nor as a daily staple. Experiment with foods you may have avoided in the past. This is where the digestive enzymes can really help!

Once your relationship to food has become truly conscious, share the transformation with friends and loved ones through the joy of a feast. Often when a group of people devote themselves to revising their relationship with food, it creates changes and realizations that can be amazing. It gives you the opportunity to reconnect with the true purpose and essence of food instead of viewing food as a salvation or an enemy.

Healthy food shared among people gives food its rightful and historical place as a human essential. When this truly happens, then watch the waste of food disappear and the supply of food to those in need be restored.

Karen Clickner, C.C.H., is the owner of Conscious Body Natural Medicine, Inc., in Westborough, MA. For more information visit www.consciousbodynatmed.com