At the beginning of time, God created man. The Bible speaks of him not as an angel, but as a creature of flesh and blood who needs air, clothing, food, society, etc. Man is an angel in the flesh, i.e. spirit and flesh at the same time, in which these components are correctly balanced.
Human needs food every day. In the time of Christ, the food set of an ordinary person did not shine with variety. Even the modern student eats better. Currently, we have a fairly varied table, and the amount of food consumed is not small.
In the East, there is a proverb: "Sleep with the Arabs and eat with the Jews." The implication is that Jews cannot have bad food. What he ate can be eaten by everyone. Some foods are forbidden by religion (for example, pork and shrimp). They have a special cooking ritual (kosher food) aimed at being gentle with animals.
How a person treats his smaller brothers
In our slaughterhouses, animals are dealt with without ceremony. In such places, you can even feel animal fear. As a result, a colossal amount of biologically active substances that enter the meat are thrown into the blood of the unfortunate. Hygiene experts do not even advise eating such meat. Kosher food is specially prepared in such a way that the animal experiences as little suffering as possible. So the Christian will not be defiled by this food, but will only be healthier.
Animals are service creatures called to serve man. They have their own soul. For this reason, by direct instruction from the Holy Scriptures, a Christian is forbidden to eat their blood (blood sausage, steak with blood, hematogen, etc.).
Based on modern realities, we can conclude that man was created in order to spoil and absorb everything around him. But it is meant for something else. He is a king, not a tyrant. The church has nothing against people eating meat, but the scale of meat-eating is growing every year, instilling concern. Meat is on our table every day. Modern civilization is gradually turning into a stream of animal blood. It is possible that sooner or later human blood will join it, since gluttony is mystically dangerous.
The UN organization believes that there are four products without which humanity cannot survive. These are rice, corn, potatoes and wheat. UN experts are confident that these products are food for humanity. For a Russian person, bread is an indispensable product. This is the name of the Lord. He said: "I am the bread of life." For Jews, an invitation to the table sounds like “to eat bread,” and there may be a variety of foods on the table. When they bless food, they do it with bread. Once the bread has been broken, all food on the table is considered holy.
Believer's attitude to food
Fasting is called complete abstinence from food, but the way we fast can be called fasting, because fasting is there is simply a substitution of products. Fasting is easy today. There are a lot of lean foods now. The difficulty is that there are many temptations around. For example, you can not eat meat, but not part with a chocolate bar, which will indulge the womb. Can such food be considered fasting? This is a big question.
A person should have an attitude towards food as a gift from God, and it does not matter whether he bought it ready-made or prepared it himself. Calorie content and taste should fade into the background. We must not mindlessly consume it. The Holy Apostle Paul assured that Christians can eat any food, because it can be sanctified by thanksgiving and prayer. A Christian should read a prayer before eating, and after a meal - thank God.
Food from monks and righteous people always has incredible taste, and its composition is not so rich. The thing is that for such people, prayer is the basis of life, which sanctifies food.
Food can be treated. It is very important for a chef to understand what he thinks while working and what he says. If he swears or does something not decent along the way, then the fruits of his labor, being in the plate, negatively affect ordinary people who do not even suspect where this or that disease could have originated.
Food is in any case a gift from God: whether it is prepared by yourself or ordered in a restaurant. For this one must thank God, do not leave anything on the plate and in no case throw away the food. You do not need to cook for future use, so that later you do not have to throw away spoiled products.
Food is the home Eucharist. Gathering all family members at the table should become the norm in family life. Better to let the table collect them, not the TV. At the meal, the prayer of the head of the family should sound. Everything related to food is directly related to God and permeated with mysticism. All this is sacred and should be felt by every member of the family.
Based on a conversation with Archpriest Andrei Tkachev
