I’ll have a sea bass carpaccio starter please, your wild boar ragu linguine and the beef bourguignon. Normandy cheese board with figs & jam, a bottle of Bordeaux. Ice cream profiteroles.
This is food for a connoisseur, a sophisticated way to overeat, indulge with the pleasures of the palate. I know what joy good food can bring, I come from a strong food culture and I consider myself a foodie, my grandfather was a green grocer and my mum a homemaker. I had home cooked lunches and dinners, freshly made and with dessert too.
Considering we all, as human beings, come from a history of scarcity, having food, material abundance, entertainment and all the perks of an opulent society is great, rather amazing. Can you have too much of a good thing though?
Well, obviously, considering the obesity epidemic in the rich world and increasingly everywhere. Type 2 diabetes and lifestyle disease are an obvious and evident scourge, that reduces the quality of living of the sick, as well as their average life expectancy.
Maybe we need less. And it’s not just food. There’s too much to watch, too much to buy and trash. Too much material, not enough psychological support and spiritual development. Maybe too much to consume as compensation for not enough actual wellbeing, not enough positive emotions and lack of meaning.
Arguably, we could see our current society as materially successful, psychologically and spiritually challenged. I meant to say crippled but then who am I to judge? I have no dietary problems but the existential and the philosophical weigh on me too, I am a human being and have my ups and downs.
God is dead, famously declared Nietsche. With the ending, or decaying, of institutionalised religions’ ideologies and mythological narratives, what new model or paradigm can we employ to help us live a “good” life?
The signs of stress, loneliness and nihilism seem rampant to me. Self destructing behaviours, addictions and disconnection mixing with an unbalanced lifestyle. All wrapped in consumeristic hedonism, junk food, junk entertainment, low quality stimulation.
Maybe the standard of the food people eat has gone down in the past decades, as the quantity increased.
The obvious and telling sign of this malaise is the rate of child obesity in the United States. We are talking about kids, and our rich society feeds them poorly… makes them sick at a very early age with horrific children-targeted breakfast cereals, toxic snacks and processed food.
It’s quite amazing how this can be legal and allowed, even encouraged through shiny ads and cartoon characters. To me this is a clear sign of an increasingly sick but also corrupt society.
Fish carpaccio and patisserie made profiteroles are not what a lot of people are eating. More like chicken nuggets and Twix bars. Or the slightly better version, a ready meal from a supermarket, Heinz Ravioli in Tomato Sauce.
The impoverishment of Western food cultures is obvious to me and arguably matched by the impoverishment of other aspects of culture. It seems 130 million American adults have low literacy skills.
I sometimes wonder why I bother writing about these subjects in big picture, existential terms. Do you see me as a conspiracy theorist, a bit strange, slightly delusional? Talking about fasting during the Christmas season, they guy must be crazy ahah!
I could just copy and paste the benefits of coconut oil, promote a low calories diet, parrot the popular blogs.
More and more I feel that, in a reductionist narrative of black and white statements, context and the bigger picture matter even more. And I am called to write exactly this.
The big picture is that, as human beings, we need quality, not just quantity. Real, in person interaction with eachother and nature, not more screen time and futuristic metaverse, video games and corporate food. Time off to develop a hobbie or passion, learn about ourselves and the world.
Heart warming banter with friends, live music events or rafting down a river can’t be compared with Netflix, really. Instagram or TV can’t substitute reading the masters of world literature, like porn is not sex.
In this context, what’s the opposite of eating and consuming, a proposed antidote against misery? Exactly fasting. Fasting with no food, no calories, nothing but air in the mouth, just water, maybe some herbal tea.
I think fasting is what we need, as an “opulent”, consumerist society. No steak, wine, and cake. Less of what’s popularly endorsed and culturally demanded. This includes less grueling work and long hours in the office, junk entertainment and reels. Ready to consume, Kardashian style, pop culture that comes with the ready meal is equally low quality and manufactured.
More nature, connection with people and vitality. Sobriety and detachment, positive emptiness, in the belly and in the mind.
Turn off the crooked, all knowing and all monitoring phone, have a retreat from this insistent, all encompassing technology. The blue light, the catchy slogans, the worrying headlines. Go back to the earth, the wild and the real, the metaphysical and the mythological, the spirits of the forest.
If mainstream modern living requires constant indulgence and self-medication for it to be “functional”, proposing to give up the pleasure thing to an addict is tough.
Stressed and late for a deadline as default, everything is an emergency. When life is hard and dinner is pleasure, how can you give up dinner? The world is about to implode, war is everywhere and the news brings us from a crisis to the next. It must be hard to find space to breathe.
Still, breathing space is needed, time off a luxury, contact with nature the ultimate luxury. A hug and a kiss, a warm smile and real connection with others.
Stoicism teaches the development of self-control and fortitude as a means of overcoming destructive emotions. Self inquiry and big picture thinking might help us understand what we really value in life, what’s moral and right for us as individuals.
Ancient wisdom from the East makes us think of emptiness as a desirable state. Lao Tzu was quoted to say: “Become totally empty. Quiet the restlessness of the mind. Only then will you witness everything unfolding from emptiness.”
Do you fill a nihilistic, inner space of emptiness with junk entertainment, quick dopamine realising stimulants, processed or sugary food? Let go of all that, have a physical and spiritual fast.
A sober and detached attitude to the challenges of modern living, fasting is a way to gain perspective, a renewed inner strength, the ability to reclaim control over our nervous and hormonal systems.
Less stimulation, less technology, less news and gloomy narratives, less food in your mouth, more soul in your breath. Fasting is a minimalist philosophy, a state of being, a liberating practice for mind, body and spirit.
SCIENTIFICALLY ENDORSED BENEFITS OF FASTING:
- Supports gut health
- Combats oxidation & is anti-ageing
- A boost to the immune system
- Normalises insulin levels, improves insulin sensitivity
- Hormonal health and less mood swings, brain health
- Heart health & better lipids profile
- Fat loss