Fasting is not just a period when a believer refuses certain foods, it is only the outer side of fasting. Fasting, first of all, is the time when a person with all his soul turns to God, devotes himself entirely to mental work, prayer, and humility.
Instructions
Step 1
Lent in Orthodoxy always lasts 7 weeks and begins 49 days before Easter. During this time, the believer must give up a number of foods in the same way that Christ refused them when he fasted in the wilderness for 40 days.
Step 2
A person adhering to Lent should completely abandon animal products - meat, milk, cheese, sour cream, eggs - and moderate the consumption of other foods. The fasting person should eat as simple food as possible, if possible, do not use hot spices, sugar, salt and other flavor enhancers. Strong alcoholic drinks are prohibited.
Step 3
Fasting days are not the same as food restriction. The strictest are the first day of fasting and its last day, at which time you must completely refuse food.
Step 4
Monday, Wednesday and Friday are dry days, only raw vegetables and fruits are allowed. Usually on these days, believers make themselves various salads, which are allowed to be seasoned with lemon and honey, and you can also eat salted mushrooms.
Step 5
More free days are Tuesday and Thursday. The fasting person can eat hot dishes, usually these days they eat vegetable soups, stewed vegetables and baked apples.
Step 6
On Saturday and Sunday, the church allows eating with oil, that is, with vegetable oil. Also on weekends, it is allowed to fry lean pancakes and pancakes.
Step 7
During Great Lent, there are two holidays on which it is allowed to eat fish - Palm Sunday and Annunciation.
Step 8
To make fasting easier, you need to use some culinary tricks - cook soups as thick as possible and add more beans to them, choose the right cereals for various dishes: for example, pumpkin will be much tastier with millet, and vegetables with rice. Even during fasting, you can cook very tasty desserts - jelly with honey, baked apples with cinnamon, various jellies.
Step 9
Only healthy adults can fast, children may not receive important vitamins and minerals during fasting, the same applies to pregnant and lactating women. Fasting should not harm the body, it should not become a torment for it.
Step 10
It is not enough just to adhere to a diet during fasting, moderate food should direct a person's thoughts towards spiritual improvement, this is the meaning of fasting.
