How to keep Lent? How to fast? Fast food

In the article - tips and delicious recipes for those who decided to hold the post for the first time or repeatedly passed this test for the soul and body.

Great post before the main holiday of Christianity - Easter is the main test that every believer must pass. Unfortunately, not everyone knows that in fasting by the rules you need not only to eat, but also to live.

Do I need to keep a post? For what?

Many people now believe that fasting is only restricting oneself in food, excluding products of animal origin from their menu. In fact, Lent is also other bodily limitations, work on your soul and conscience, on your repentance.

Fasting is not a diet, but a valuable time to cleanse the body and soul.

IMPORTANT: When asked if you need to keep Lent, everyone should find the answer themselves. This decision must be made independently, assuming full responsibility. Only then at the end of the post you can feel the grace and joy needed in the life of every person.

So, for example, during fasting you need less to indulge in external entertainment, and go to a calm, contemplative lifestyle, turning inward, think more about God and the eternal.

Those who are accustomed to pray fast more and more often, those who did not do it before, should turn to prayers. During fasting, one should not get angry, swear at abusive words, drink alcohol, even have sex.

Thus, food restrictions are only a part of the bodily limitations necessary for testing the body and soul of a person.

How to observe the post of 40 days?

To endure all 40 days of fasting, you need to psychologically tune into this not just a test.

1. It is necessary to consult the priest. Perhaps, knowing his parishioner, he will give his blessing on a lax post, on certain indulgences in the limitations of
2. . The violation of the principle of eating in fasting is not such a big sin. It is much worse if a person has bad thoughts and does bad deeds, and does not repent of them.
3. Ask for support from close people. Perhaps they too will join the post, and perhaps just help overcome their carnal desires.

VIDEO: The Rules of Lent

How to keep the post for the first time?

Those who are thinking of fasting for the first time often have a question, how to eat in fasting, what to cook for themselves. There are several answers here:

1. If this is not a diet, but a fast, prescribed by the church, then you need to look at the church schedule of posts. Almost everyone knows about the Great Post, but in Orthodoxy there are also other, less long posts
2. The Christian post assumes following other canons of Christianity. For example, before a fast, you need to go to church and conduct rites of confession and communion, thus preparing your body and soul for fasting
3. Those who fast for more than one year know that you can not eat up before fasting "for future", you need to gradually, fora few days to begin certain restrictions, even despite the abundance of carnival. Those who turn to the post for the first time should definitely know about the "transition" for the body period - do not abruptly throw down the use of meat and dairy products, and do it well in advance.

. In order to sustain the post all 40 days, you need to prepare morally

keep Lent before Easter? How to observe the first week of fasting?

• According to the Christian canons, there is a so-called strict fast and simply post
• During strict fasting, food of animal origin is completely excluded from the diet. Not only meat and fish, eggs and poultry are inadmissible, but also milk, butter and other dairy products.
• Strict fasting also means switching to bread and water on the first day of fasting and on Good Friday, the last Friday before the holy Resurrection.

Strict fasting is foodbread, water and prayer

True Christians follow the schedule provided by the church, according to which, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, one should only deal with rawness. On Thursday and Tuesday you can eat boiled food, however, without adding oil. On Saturday and Sunday, dishes with the addition of oil, of course, vegetable.

IMPORTANT: Raw food includes vegetarian food that has not been thermally treated, seeds, cereals, etc.

On some days of fasting, on the day of the Annunciation and on Palm Sunday, you can consume fish or fish eggs.
A small amount of grape wine is allowed on certain days, all the other alcohol is forbidden.

How to keep fast to pregnant women?

• In addition to strict fasting, churchmen also allow fasting during which the person is prescribed food restrictions, but, for various reasons, certain dishes are allowed, such as fish or milk
• These permits imply certain categories of people, for example, with health problems, pregnant women andlittle children. They are allowed a more diverse and rich food in view of the physiological need for additional maintenance of the body
• Representatives of the church often speak with explanations on this matter and give their blessing on observing a strict fast. However, they still invite to visit their priest and consult a doctor
• . So pregnant women can limit themselves in the diet provided they constantly monitor the body. Doctors categorically do not recommend them to abandon animal proteins, as the products of their metabolism are the structural elements necessary for the formation of fetal cells

Pregnant in the fast can meat and dairy products

IMPORTANT: Clergymen advise pregnant women who choose to observe Lent, weaken it,introducing in the menu eggs and dairy products.

Simultaneously, they say that future mothers during this period paid more attention to their inner world, prayed more, abandoned worldly entertainment.

VIDEO: How to fast pregnant and lactating women?

What can you eat in a post?

The basis of the menu of the person who fasts is plant food:

• vegetables, mostly raw or stewed
• fruits and berries
• cereals and cereals, porridges
• mushrooms
• legumes: beans, beans, lentils
• seeds and seeds
• rye bread on water

In the fasting menu - mainly vegetarian food

IMPORTANT: Meat and meat products, fish( with exceptions), eggs, dairy products, confectionery, alcohol

are prohibited in the post. How to fast in a great post: food and menu in a post.

.It is necessary to build according to the following rules:

1. The first day of fasting is strict rejection of all food except bread and water
2. Good Friday( last Friday of the 40-day fast before the Bright Resurrection) - bread and water
3. Alternatively, you can fastly fast in the first and lastweek of fasting. On other days, with the blessing of the priest, you can sometimes afford something from dairy products
4. . Food should be composed, if possible, of natural products. Vegetables and fruits - from the garden or from the market, but not those that are sold canned or processed in supermarkets
5. Food should be small portions and often, 4 to 5 times a day. For example, porridge, then soup, then okroshki, then vegetable salad

Make a menu will help books of grandmother's recipes, which describe the ingredients and ways to prepare lean dishes. For example, such.
RECIPE № 1: Lenten soup with prunes.

Appetizing and delicious borscht soup

• Beet boiled. Soak mushrooms( dried, preferably white) for 3 - 4 hours. Mushrooms boil, broth to drain. Cut the beets with straws, mushrooms - slices, fry them in vegetable oil
• Separately cut and pass the finely chopped carrots, onions. Before they begin to change color when passing, add tomato or tomatoes in them and steam them for another minute. 5- 7
• Cut pre-soaked prunes and cut into slices, after removing the bones
  . In a boiling mushroom broth put shredded cabbage
• Cook 10 -15 minutes. Add the fried mushrooms, seasoned vegetables with tomato, prunes to the mushroom broth. Boil another 5 - 7 minutes until ready. RECIPE # 2: Okroshka on bread kvass.

Spicy okroshka on kvass

Prepare bread kvass from leaven and rusk bread rye bread.
Grate the radish.
Boil potatoes in a uniform, cut cold potatoes. Mix radish with potatoes. Salt.
Leave to stand for 40 - 50 min.
Add the cooled kvass and grated horseradish( to taste).
Serve to the table with greens. Mushroom salad with lean mayonnaise.

Analog Olivier - salad with mushrooms and lean mayonnaise

Boil to cook 3 medium-sized potatoes, 1 carrot, cut into cubes.300 g of champignons are cleaned and cooked for 5 minutes, cut into slices. Two fresh cucumbers are cut into thin half-rings. Grind greens and green onions. All mixed, sprinkled with sesame seeds and seasoned with lean mayonnaise.

IMPORTANT: Today those who fast can be pampered with sweets: Lenten cookies and halva are sold in almost all confectionery and supermarkets

Lenten cookies can be bought or prepared by

. How to keep the post of 16 Mondays?

In Hinduism there is a tradition of fasting on 16 Mondays.

Post of 16 Mondays - Hindu Tradition

Tradition comes from the god Shiva, or rather his wife Parvati, who, in order to become worthy of Shiva and become his wife, observed the gates of 16 Mondays. For modern girls in the Hindu tradition, fasting on Mondays means successful marriage and a happy family life.

VIDEO: POST, Recipes. Simple and tasty