10 Tips for Healthy Eating During the Baha'i Fast
by Susan Gammage, Baha'i Life Coach
Below are 10 top tips for healthy eating during the Fast:
- Don’t gorge in the evenings: Large meals should be avoided because they can cause the digestive system to block after a long day of fasting. Therefore, break your fast with dates and water or juice as they contain simple sugars that can be absorbed easily by the body. Then try to have a balanced meal – soups are a good choice as they don’t stress the stomach and hydrate the body.
- Stay off the Salt: Salty foods should be avoided as they will retain water in the body and cause discomfort.
- Hydrate Yourself: A lack of fluids makes the body prone to dehydration and more likely to retain fats and toxins. So, drink ample quantities of water and fresh juices.
- Eat Yoghurt: Yogurt is recommended at both meals, as it contains friendly bacteria which benefit the digestive tract. Yoghurt also helps digestion and cleanses the intestines from harmful bacteria. Also, it is a good source of calcium and protein.
- Avoid Sugar and Grease: Fried foods and sweets should be consumed in moderation as they are full of saturated fats which raise cholesterol and adversely affect your health.
- Get Moving: Exercise is very important during the Fast as it helps you maintain your body weight by burning the extra-calories and eliminating stress. It also has an essential role in preventing constipation.
- Don’t Skip Breakfast: Many people tend to skip breakfast; however skipping meals will slow down your metabolism and lead to fatigue and distress. For Suhoor, try to choose foods that contain protein, complex carbohydrates and high-fibre foods such as wheat, oats, beans, whole grain bread, vegetables and seasonable fruits. Fibers and proteins take a long time to be digested so you won’t feel hungry.
- Avoid Tea and Coffee: Tea, Coffee and carbonated beverages remove calcium from your body. It is therefore recommended that you avoid them especially at breakfast, as they increase salt and water excretion which your body needs during fasting.
- Don’t neglect Protein: Consumption of protein is important in order to prevent muscle wasting; vegetarians should consider this when choosing non-animal protein sources.
- Finish with Fruit: Intake of fruits after a meal is highly beneficial and provides the body with nutrients. Fasting could be effective in treating of moderate (non-insulin) diabetes, obesity and hypertension as the process lowers the blood sugar levels, cholesterol and the systolic blood pressure.
Nathalie Haddad, leading Dietician and Managing Director of Right Bite cautions: “It is highly important to eat moderately and focus on well-balanced and low-fat meals during the Fast. A light, healthy breakfast, one that is high in complex carbohydrates and fiber, will help prevent tiredness, poor concentration, dizziness and headaches. At dinner, it is important to consume food from all five groups with minimum fat content and to control portion sizes in order to avoid weight gain.”
Adapted from: http://www.whatsonsyria.com/magazine/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=586&Itemid=0
Have I missed any? Post your comments here:
A reader asked:
I am curious to know what your recommendations are for people who are exempted of the fast. How to be true to the spirit of the fast even though one must eat.
I responded:
That’s a great question and I hope more of our readers will share their ideas! I think so much of it depends on the reasons for the exemption. When I was exempt because of pregnancy and breastfeeding, I tried to eat breakfast before sunrise (getting out of bed for this purpose has always been the hardest part of the fast for me, so I wanted to continue to observe this part of the fast, as a sacrifice to Bahá’u'lláh. I tried to eat my last meal of the day after sunset, so I was conscious of the rhythm of the fast. And I tried to eat only the foods that were needed to sustain my health during the fast, giving up such things as caffeine, sugar etc until after sunset or before sunrise. This may not be practical for someone who is bedridden or in a nursing home, though, but they could say the prayers for the fast. I think it’s important to mark it somehow. What thoughts do you have?
What is the correct way of eating fruits?
FRUITS SHOULD BE EATEN ON AN EMPTY STOMACH..
The same way one should drink water or liquids. Before your meals. Not
during or after. If you eat fruit like that, it will play a major role to
detoxify your system, supplying you with a great deal of energy for weight
loss and other life activities.
FRUIT IS an IMPORTANT FOOD.
Let’s say you eat a meal and then some fruit.
The fruit needs no digestion in the stomach and is ready to go straight
through the stomach into the intestines, but it is prevented from doing so.
In the meantime the whole meal rots and ferments and turns to acid. The
minute the fruit comes into contact with the food in the stomach and
digestive juices, the entire mass of food begins to spoil….
So please eat your fruits on an empty stomach or before your meals!
You have heard people complaining — every time I eat watermelon I burp, when I eat
durian my stomach bloats up, when I eat a banana I feel like running to the
toilet, etc — actually all this will not arise if you eat the fruit on an
empty stomach. The fruit mixes with the putrefying other food and produces
gas and hence you will bloat!
There is no such thing as some fruits, like orange and lemon are acidic,
because all fruits become alkaline in our body, according to Dr. Herbert
Shelton who did research on this matter. If you have mastered the correct
way of eating fruits, you have the knowledge of longevity and health.
When you need to drink fruit juice – drink only fresh fruit juice, NOT from
the cans. Don’t drink juice that has been heated up. When eating or drinking
cooked fruits or juices you don’t get the nutrients at all. You only get the
sweet taste. Cooking destroys all the vitamins.
If you should drink the juice, drink it mouthful by mouthful slowly, because you must let
it mix with your saliva before swallowing it.
Is fasting recommended for people with type II diabetes?
My hunch is “no”, but you’ll need to check with your doctor on this one, Farzaneh! The principles to consider are that Baha’u'llah tells us:
Even though you aren’t able to fast, you can consider how to honor the spirit of the fast in other ways, as this quote suggests:
Hope this brings you some comfort!
I put a comment about not eating fruit after a meal also, with a bunch of links to articles backing up the point (and even with a quote from Baha’u'llah) but the spam filter on this site didn’t let it through unfortunately.
Here is what Pedram wrote:
I agree that fruit is good to have in the morning, but I don’t know if it’s best to have fruit after a meal.
There are plenty of articles that say not to have fruit after a meal, including the following:
http://doctor.ndtv.com/faq/ndtv/fid/3744/Can_fruits_be_eaten_after_a_meal_Are_uncooked_vegetables_better.html
http://guide2herbalremedies.com/fruits-rules/
http://chetday.com/digestiongas.htm
http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/fruit-article.html
http://www.binscorner.com/pages/f/fruits-and-vegetables-7-donts-after-a-me.html
There’s even a section in the Tablet to a Physician that says to have light food before heavy food. My personal take on this is that it would apply to fruit (as a “light” food), but that’s by no means authoritative.
Thanks for the tips though.
A reader wrote:
Although there are now websites available (see below) to share recipes for the Hindu Navratri fast, Catholic Lent, and Muslim Ramadan, I couldn’t find anything for the Baha’i fast, perhaps because we are not supposed to be preoccupied with eating and drinking, and don’t have food rituals.
However, as preparation for next year, I’d like to collect some healthy recipes to avoid binging — I actually found that I spent and ate more than in other months during this year’s fast! Since the hardest part of the fast for me was waking up early, my meals were simple and fast to make. When I was disciplined in the first week of the fast, what worked best for me for the morning meal was soya milk, oatmeal topped with fruit yoghurt and an unspiced spinach/cheese omlette or French toast with maple syrup, some fresh fruit, juice, and cooled herbal tea. To break the fast in the evening, I found a simple vegetable or chicken broth with a little rice or pasta (potful made once a week) very comforting, followed by a little rice or pasta with chicken or fish (I couldn’t handle red meat), vegetable casserole, and a salad with cheese bits. For dessert an hour later, I’d usually have some mixed fruit with vanilla or lemon pudding or whipped cream, and a few soft (fresh), unsalted almonds, walnuts, or pistachios with cranberries or raisins, and lemon-ginger herbal tea to ease any inflammation from stress.
I’d appreciate your recipe contributions, and will compile them to share with everyone on my mailing list for the next Fast. For the Canadian friends, I’d like to share some of the recipes with the author of Feasting and Fasting: Canada’s Heritage Celebrations (2010), Dorothy Duncan, who had Native, Jewish, Christian, and Chinese recipes, but none from the growing Hindu, Persian, and Baha’i communities here.
Indian Multifaith Recipes: http://www.lifepositive.com/body/holistic-recipes/recipes/food-fast.asp
Hindu Navratri Recipes: http://festivals.iloveindia.com/navratri/navratri-recipes.html
International Lent Recipes: http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Holidays-and-Events/Easter/Lent/Top.aspx
Ramadan Recipes: http://allrecipes.com/howto/ramadan/