No Thanks…. I’m fasting
Giving up something for Lent in Cyprus means far more than just crisps or chocolate. For almost 50 days, the faithful restrict themselves to a vegan diet. But how hard is it to stick to?
Week One
Day 1 – Lent has arrived. I stumble into the kitchen half asleep and wake up to the grim realisation that I can’t have milk with my cereal! Fasting is an awful idea, why on earth did I start this? I open the fridge door and scan the food options. Looks like a supermarket trip is needed to hunt for alternatives. In desperation, I settle for fruit, toast and herbal tea. Not the combination I would usually go for and a distinct lack of ham and egg, but it sounds very healthy. Will I be able to keep this up for 40, sorry 50, days?
Day 2 – My sister emails from London when she hears about my fast: “Are you sure that it’s OK for you to do it? You are too thin already! There will be nothing left of you!”
Day 3 – I set some noble goals. This is the perfect time to eat more healthily – fruit, vegetables, pulses and to drink lots of water and herbal infusions.
Day 6 – It’s not much fun having a dinner party when you can’t taste the things you have cooked. I made a reportedly delicious chocolate tiramisu for dessert, and a wickedly garlicky tzatziki, (I wasn’t allowed to eat either of them).
Meanwhile, my partner cooked a Sunday roast and selfishly let the aroma of roast chicken waft through the kitchen. How could he?! Surprisingly, the hardest thing I am finding to cut out is yoghurt! I simply love to eat a big dollop of plain yoghurt with most of my meals (especially chips) and it was so difficult not to indulge in just a little today, especially while I made the tzatziki.
This week I have discovered that fasting creates a contradiction. I have become borderline obsessive about food and what I should and should not eat. Now I am thinking about food more than I have ever done in my life! The weekly supermarket shop took twice as long as I hunted for fasting-friendly foods and read all the labels for lists of ingredients. Does this contain milk? Are there eggs in these biscuits? What on earth am I going to eat today? I thought the whole point of fasting was to forget about food.
The Greek Orthodox church’s rules for fasting are essentially the same as a vegan diet. Now I realise how disciplined vegetarians and vegans are, as well as all those people who have to go on limited diets for health reasons. It’s all very well if you are giving up food you don’t really care for anyway, but when it comes to your favourites, boy is it tough!
Glad to see it go: Red meat
Can’t live without: Plain yoghurt and chocolate, but not at the same time!
Week Two
So far I have noticed I have more energy and have lost half a kilo. But this diet is growing into a carb nightmare. I eat bread to fill me up, bread so I can top it with lashings of honey, and bread because it just tastes so comforting.
Have you ever thought about going to the supermarket and studying the ingredients of all the biscuits down the aisle? Sad eh? How can I get my sugar fix without breaking this fast? Maybe I am just becoming neurotic about food. I can’t believe this is only week two! I have days when I think about food ALL the time! Never mind being a restaurant critic, this is taking things to the other extreme! My mission today is to find something sweet I can eat which sends those familiar tingles of pleasure to my brain.
Next step. I need to get more creative with cooking and solve my dietary dilemma.
Day 10 – Last night I dreamt about yoghurt. Need I say more?
Day 12 – Eureka! I know why there are so many bakeries in Cyprus. It all fits and finally the puzzle is solved. If there are two main fasting periods a year, one lasting 50 days and the other 40, and various fasting days for the more fervent Orthodox Christians in-between, this totals more than 100 days a year! So for almost a third of the year the Cypriot diet is based around bread.
My body is reacting angrily to all this stodge. Forget the weight loss of week one, I’ve put on at least a kilo. And yet I just can’t get away from my favourite food – hot toast and honey! I am not talking about one or two slices here, the Dualit toaster readily swallows extra slices of bread at each sitting and churns them out with that delicious aroma. How can I stop at just two?
Day 14 – OK, I’ll admit there are healthier options that I should be exploring. After being on this diet for two weeks I’ll be so full of bread I’ll be wrapped up and sold in Zorbas. Hopefully not sliced.
My energy levels have slumped. I feel slow and tired.
Out of desperation I’ve rediscovered one of my books – Miracle Soups. Soups are a great way to eat your daily five of vegetables without noticing. Well, that’s the theory. “Soups can provide you with all the nutrients you need, if you make them with healthy ingredients,” the book promises. Dutiful to my fasting pledge, I scoured Alpha Mega for the ingredients to some of the soup recipes. I’ll skim over the fact that my all-time favourite, the majestic Chicken Avgolemoni, is in the book, which I can’t have at the moment – and go straight to the ones I can. Carrot and Coriander with garam masala, Artichoke Bisque, Chunky Veggie Chowder, and Chickpea and Parsley soup all look scrumptious.
The diet is making me feel quite ill and heavy so all these soup nutrients which are supposed to keep my energy levels up, fill my body with essential vitamins and minerals, and boost my immune system, are very welcome indeed. The ‘Ailment Chart’ in the book recommends certain foods to avoid and which to eat more of, as well as recommending particular soups for each ailment. But it’s a bit worrying that out of 30 listed, I think I’m suffering from at least ten!
Week three will be ‘soup week’. If the weather was warmer I’d be well into salads, but into hot broth territory I boldly go.
“Fasting was devised in order to humble the body” (Canon 8 of St. Timothy of Alexandria). So, why is my body eating more now than it has done for years? I’ve decided, I don’t really agree with the vegan diet. Maybe it’s ignorance of what to cook, or lack of time to prepare and shop for alternative foods, but it seems that instead of food taking a backseat here, it has become the centre of attention and doing exactly the opposite of being humble. When a child behaves like that you ignore them, but this is not really an option here. The more you ignore food, the more you want it. Next Lent, I’ll give up chocolates, sugar, alcohol, and meat, willingly – I’m sure it won’t be as hard as this. It seems obscene that I can’t eat yoghurt or eggs, but I can eat sugar!
Week Three
A thoughtful phase. I am contemplating the meaning of the feast days of Lent. While fasting, apparently, Lent is a period of time for people to be more conscious of their spiritual character. So I’m going to think about mine and maybe that will distract me from culinary abstinence.
Day 21 – A super discovery! Delia Smith comes to the rescue in the form of her shortbread recipe which I made today using margarine. Great for a fix of sweetness to steer me away from that honey-frenzy!
Day 25 – Half way through. An eccentric friend of mine, who, shall we say, is “devoted” to church issues and always fasts “properly” at appropriate times in the Christian calendar, came round with a container brimming with allowable goodies. I was most impressed with the chocolate cake made without eggs or milk. Now, armed with the recipe, I am ready to face another 25 days.
Week Four
Another friend steered me to the Sainsbury’s website where I typed in “vegan” and discovered a suitable recipe for bulgar and chickpea salad, which takes only five minutes preparation and no cooking! It sounds quite tasty so I’m going to give it a try.
Fasting the traditio
nal way is very hard to accomplish unless you like to eat lots of rice and beans, and tuck into cold-blooded fish such as squid, or slurp on snails. Both of these options make my stomach turn over at the thought. So soup or salad it must be.
Day 30 My concerned sister emails from London to see how my fast is going. I email back, tapping into my keyboard the news that I have put on weight and tell her about my carb cravings.
Week Five
Day 35 – One of my super-thin girlfriends arrives from London, gives me a quick once-over, and declares: “Cabbage soup!” She clicks the mouse, Googles, then prints out the diet. I neglect to tell her that I already have the diet listed in all its glory in the back of my soup book, and that I have tried it once before and failed miserably. It wasn’t the cabbage – it was day four of the diet – bananas for breakfast – which had me mashed.
Day 40 – 10 days to go! I am more determined than ever to get back to my pre-fasting weight after 40 mornings of toast-munching and afternoons spent grazing on a meadow of greens, topped off with more toast. I must stop as the summer is coming and I need to ‘de-size’.
Week Six
Holy Week. The end is in sight. I read…… “Fasting is understood as a means of temperance and sobriety, especially in relation to prayer, devotion and purity”. Have I prayed more? No. Am I more devoted to Jesus? No. Do I feel more pure? No. What have I done wrong? Why has this diet not “done the trick”, “fixed” my flaws, and made me feel better? I can only conclude that fasting, for me, does not necessarily mean cutting back on “all animal derived produce” though I would still give up some things for Lent. After 50 days of eating in this weird but not wonderful way, my body is not happy – it’s time for a detox. Hide those chocolate eggs!
