Depending on who is counting, somewhere between 5 million and 50 million Americans are on low-carbohydrate diets \u2014 give or take a few million.<\/p>\n\n
Trend watchers are even tossing around this monster statistic \u2014 one in four Americans has caught the low-carb bug. That\u2019s a lot of bacon, sausage, eggs and cheese for the Atkins disciples and turkey, fish, egg substitutes and low-fat cheese for those who walk the way of the South Beach Diet.<\/p>\n\n
This also means \u2014 with 5 million Eastern Orthodox Christians in America \u2014 that lots of people are trying to reconcile low-carb diets with the fasting discipline of Lent.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI know that I\u2019m struggling and everywhere I go I discover I\u2019m not the only one,\u201d said Chuck Powell of the national Orthodox radio program Come Receive the Light (www.receive.org). \u201cLent is always a challenge and that\u2019s a good thing. But combine Lent with trying to stay on a low-carb and it\u2019s like, \u2018What is there left we can eat?\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
This leads to new questions, he said, such as: \u201cWhat is the purpose of food anyway? What is the spiritual lesson to be learned here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Fasting is a part of life for many religious believers, including Jews at Yom Kippur and Muslims in the season of Ramadan. During the 40-day season of Lent, which precedes Easter, faithful Catholics will abstain from meat to varying degrees. Christians in other flocks may give up sweets or some other favorite food.<\/p>\n\n
But Eastern Orthodox churches urge their members to follow an ancient fast that means abstaining from meat, eggs and dairy products. Orthodox believers do eat shrimp, scallops and other shellfish, but avoid meats with bones. There are subtle fasting differences between Greeks, Russians, Arabs and other Orthodox.<\/p>\n\n
Nevertheless, these traditions tend to push those keeping the fast toward rice, pasta, corn, potatoes and bread \u2014 the very foods shunned in low-carb diets. For many dieters the fear is real: What if they strive to keep the fast and, with a burst of carbohydrates, start regaining the weight they have struggled to lose?<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt seems like everybody in America is concerned about their weight and their health right now and you\u2019d have to say that is a good thing,\u201d said Father Christopher Metropulos of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., founder of Come Receive the Light. \u201cAt the same time, it seems that this is making everyone totally consumed with food and the reason we fast is to try to learn not to be consumed with food. \u2026 The goal of the fast is to learn to crave God, not food.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
And it\u2019s not just the lay people who are struggling with the fast, or being tempted to deny that these diet conflicts are real.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cI know priests who doing these diets and they are working for them,\u201d said Metropulos. \u201cBut I asked a priest who is doing the Atkins Diet, \u2018What are you going to eat during Lent?\u2019 And he said, \u2018I\u2019ll be busy. I just won\u2019t eat. I won\u2019t have time to eat.\u2019 I told him, \u2018Good luck. You\u2019ll need it.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n\n
Some Orthodox people cope by sharing recipes for tofu desserts, falafel, oriental salads (the key is the right sesame-seed dressing) and every imaginable casserole that can be made with beans. They know the microwave properties of every soy product on the market. They can read food labels like scientists.<\/p>\n\n
In the end, many find it easy to lose sight of what Lenten fasting is supposed to be about in the first place, said Father Matthew Streett of Saints Peter and Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church in Potomac, Md. The goal is to discipline the will and to encourage repentance. Anyone who thinks of fasting as a form of dieting is missing the point.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cFasting from food is only one aspect of fasting,\u201d he said, in a commentary written for strugglers. \u201cLent is a time for turning away from the emptier pleasures of our society: television, video games and the other forces that often do more to harm family communication and bonding rather than help.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIn Lent, we should examine our lives and isolate the influences that are destructive or silly, the habits that draw us away from God.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Depending on who is counting, somewhere between 5 million and 50 million Americans are on low-carbohydrate diets \u2014 give or take a few million. Trend watchers are even tossing around this monster statistic \u2014 one in four Americans has caught the low-carb bug. That\u2019s a lot of bacon, sausage, eggs and cheese for the Atkins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[308,352,437,503,627,676],"class_list":["post-1273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-easter","tag-fasting","tag-holy-week","tag-lent","tag-orthodoxy","tag-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n