Why Do So Many Religions Tell People Not to Eat? Structure Through Abstention

Abstaining from food on an ordinary day turns that day into something that has to be noticed, since hunger is insistent and cannot be forgotten about the way a devotional obligation can. That is the practical function underlying the varied explanations, and it is why the practice is so widespread. Traditions describe the purpose differently, as penitence for wrongdoing, as mourning, as preparation for a festival or a decision, as solidarity with those who have no choice, as a discipline that subordinates appetite to intention, or as a condition for receiving a revelation. Several traditions offer more than one of these for the same observance. The common structure is that a period is set apart by removing something ordinary from it.

The variation between traditions is considerable:

• •Ramadan involves no food or drink between dawn and sunset for a lunar month
• •Yom Kippur is a complete abstention from food and drink for about twenty five hours
• •Lent traditionally restricted quantity and certain foods over forty days rather than forbidding eating
• •Orthodox Christian fasts exclude particular categories of food across a large part of the year
• •Several Hindu observances restrict food on particular lunar days or weekdays
• •Jain practice includes graduated forms up to extended complete abstention

Every developed tradition limits the obligation, and the pattern of those limits is revealing. Children below a certain age are excused, as are the elderly. Illness excuses, and in most traditions a person whose health would be harmed is not merely permitted but required to eat, which subordinates the observance to the preservation of life. Pregnancy and breastfeeding excuse or postpone. Travel excuses in several traditions, with the days made up later. Physically demanding work is treated variously. The existence and the consistency of these exemptions indicate that the practices are understood as disciplines rather than as ordeals, and religious authorities across traditions spend considerable effort discouraging people who should be exempt from insisting on participating.

Physiology during an extended abstention follows a sequence that is well established and worth separating from the claims made about it. Circulating sugar is used within several hours, after which stored carbohydrate in the liver is broken down, lasting roughly a day. The body then shifts substantially to burning fat, producing compounds the brain can use in place of sugar, which is the transition people describe as hunger becoming easier after the second day. Protein is spared to a degree during this shift rather than being consumed immediately. Dehydration is the practical risk in observances that exclude drinking, particularly when the daylight hours are long and the weather hot. Claims about detoxification have no basis, since the organs that clear waste do so continuously and are not assisted by an empty stomach.

Observances are frequently described in individual terms and function socially, which is visible in how they are actually conducted. Breaking the fast is communal in most traditions, with meals shared at a specific moment that everyone is waiting for, and those meals are among the most anticipated occasions of the year. The whole community keeps the same schedule, which synchronises daily life and makes participation visible. Charity is attached to the observance in several traditions as an obligation rather than an option, tying abstention directly to feeding others. Foods eaten before and after acquire their own traditions and regional variations. The result is that a practice defined by not eating generates a great deal of highly specific cookery and a strong sense of shared time.

Going without food sets a period apart in a way that cannot be overlooked, which is the structure underneath explanations ranging from penitence to preparation. Practices differ widely in duration, in what is excluded and in how much is permitted. Consistent exemptions for children, the ill and the pregnant show these are understood as disciplines rather than ordeals, and communal meals and attached charity make them intensely social.