| Cougar Press PO Box 894 Meadview AZ 86444 |
| Is Fasting Important? |
When it comes to the different diets of birds and mammals, zoologists identify three kinds of
creatures:
creatures:
|
Any glutton should be happy to live the life of an herbivore. When times are good, animals of
this bent pretty much live in an edible environment. Cows and horses, rabbits and squirrels, deer
and bison, sheep and goats... all of them at times fairly wallow in the bounty of grass, weeds,
leaves and seeds, nuts, fruit and bark. They eat their fill. When they are full they sleep or play.
The ruminants stand still in blissful daze and chew their cuds. The squirrels store extra acorns for
the winter. When hunger or boredom, appetite or temptation moves them, they eat some more.
They eat till their bellies are tight and round. They layer their bodies with fat.
Carnivores go at life from a different perspective. When they get hungry they hunt. Their food
may be everywhere, but it hides from them. It runs or flies from the peril of their jaws. The only
ones for whom this is not true are the scavengers, the vultures who must wait until their meal has
already died thanks to natural terror or automobiles. The wolves, cats, eagles and hawks must
search for their prey. They are hunters.
Their meals are not always difficult to find. For birds of prey, like falcons, sometimes the skies
are full of pigeons, doves or ducks. Sometimes the bobcat dips into huge coveys of quail to get a
bite to eat. Sometimes cougars live in areas crowded with deer. Sometimes wolves have herds of
bison or antelope to pick from.
Enjoying the best of both worlds are the omnivores. Many of our furred or feathered friends can
and do take this approach. It depends on what is available. Bears will eat rabbits, deer or fish,
but they will also gorge on berries or acorns. Coyotes will eat jackrabbits and mice, but they will
also eat the sweet fruit of the manzanita. Robins will eat seeds, but they are happy to eat worms
and bugs as well.
Humans are certainly omnivorous. We can eat almost any kind of animal, including meat, fish,
insects, crustaceans, and mollusks. We can eat most kinds of fruit, and a lot of types of leaves
and roots. We also eat grains, but in order to do so we must first cook, grind or sprout the hard
seeds. Although this suggests that grain was not originally a natural food for mankind, vast
civilizations have survived on primary diets of wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet or other kinds of
grass seed, along with a plethora of bean varieties, which also need to be cooked or sprouted to be
edible.
The expression "hunter-gatherer" refers to primitive groups subsisting both on meat, from
hunting, fishing, trapping or scavenging, and other foods like fruit, vegetables, roots, tubers and
seeds. The consumption ratio between the two kinds of diet range from almost 100% meat and
fish in primitive northern tribes, Eskimos, Inuit or Yupik, to as low as 20% in African natives and
Australian Aborigines.
None of these styles of survival are as trouble-free as the above definitions might suggest. The
herbivorous lifestyle is great when the earth is bursting with fruit, nuts, leaves and lush meadows.
Things can get pretty lean, however, during droughts or winter seasons when deer are reduced to
eating the bark off of trees and hoofed mammals have to paw their way through layers of ice and
snow to get a bite of dead grass or moss. By springtime, animals that depend on plants for their
meals can become very thin, if they haven't already starved to death.
For carnivores after a kill, life is a luxury of eating, playing, mating, exploring and sleeping.
When the meat is gone, however, it's time to return to the hunt. There is no telling when the next
victim will fall to their fangs or talons. The hunt can last for days. Predators in these typical
situations do not suffer from overeating. Toxic levels of fat, acids or minerals are flushed from
the system during these recurring, involuntary fasts.
For humans who try to exist on a vegetarian diet, the dangers are various forms of malnutrition:
Human carnivores face different dietary dangers:
Both of these lifestyles also run the risk of starvation. To a large extent this danger is obviated by
following the diet of the omnivore. Bears are wonderful examples of this. When there are no
berries they eat fish. When the fish are not running, they eat acorns. When the acorns are gone
they eat squirrels and deer. When hunting gets slim, with any luck, the berries are getting ripe
again.
Humans... ah, humans want to have their cake and eat it too. Nutritionists talk about making
sure that we have all of the basic food groups represented in every meal. While this can result in
some very delightful repasts, it can also cause indigestion, obesity, hardening of the arteries,
diabetes, liver problems and more.
The keyword here is efficiency. When I eat a steak, my digestive system swings into action. My
stomach secretes hydrochloric acid (HCl), which reduces the meat to molecules of amino acid and
fat which can then be absorbed by my body to provide building materials and energy.
When I consume potatoes, bread, oatmeal, rice or beans, a whole different procedure starts up,
beginning with the saliva in my mouth which causes the breakdown of starch into compounds
that my digestive system can utilize. When we eat starch, it is very important to chew it
adequately. Meat, on the other hand, can be swallowed in great gulps of flesh with little or no
chewing. This digestive process begins in the stomach.
Same body, two different systems. The problems come from our tendency to eat both kinds of
food at the same time. This is oversimplified, but the basic hypothesis is sound. Sandwiches, or
meat and potatoes are very tasty. But combining animal protein and starch in the same meal is
very inefficient. It is somewhat like trying to perform two separate chemical reactions in the same
test tube at the same time. A better analogy might be trying to cook pancakes and hamburgers
simultaneously in one pan.
Aside from the inefficiency of digestion, another unfortunate reality is that sandwiches taste so
good that we end up eating more of all of the ingredients than we would if we were to consume
them separately. This is also true of meat and potatoes, casseroles, pizza... the list goes on.
And it isn't just meat and starch that are the culprits to be found in inappropriate combinations.
Sugar weasels its way into many recipes. Sugar by itself needs almost no digestion. It is quickly
absorbed into our blood, providing quick energy but little else. It also seems to make things taste
better. When I was young my mother served me oatmeal with brown sugar. She called it
porridge, and it was yummy. When I got a little older I substituted honey for sugar; I believed
that to be a healthy choice. Maybe it was, but not by much.
Even later I learned that cooking some raisins with the oats adds sweetness. Again, I felt this was
better for me, and maybe it was. Along the way I learned that some people eat oatmeal with no
sweetener, no sugar, honey or raisins, but only a dash of salt. Other folks like it with butter.
When I tried eating it that way for awhile, I came to realize that oats taste pretty darn good
without any help from sugar beets or bees.
I had a similar experience with rice. My mom only served us white rice for dessert sometimes,
mixed with canned pineapple and whipped cream, and it was delicious. Later on, on camping
trips with my friends when I was a teenager, I learned how to cook white rice myself over an open
fire. When it was done we would mix it with canned tuna fish. Again, it was delicious, and
teenagers can digest anything.
Later, in my college years, I became concerned with nutrition. My mother had fed us white
bread, margarine, processed cheese, meat and potatoes and canned vegetables. I grew up as a
skinny, asthmatic weakling. My first changes were to start eating whole grains: whole wheat
bread and brown rice. I learned to put more emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables. I
supplemented my oatmeal with wheat germ. I discovered real cheese, yogurt and butter.
I also started working out. At first it was just pushups. I had begun hiking in the hills,
mountains and deserts because it came along with hunting. Eventually I learned that walking was
its own reward. I also became a surfer. I became muscular and healthy. One day I discovered
Yoga.
Along with my learning to eat new kinds of foods, I began to experiment with fasting. I also tried
out vegetarianism. I entered into each of these regimens for different reasons. Various inputs
had led me to believe that it was important to be a vegetarian if I was to get anywhere with my
Yoga. I had also become aware that many of the saints and holy men had fasted for long or short
periods. I was a devout Christian, and I began to fast for spiritual reasons.
Here is what I believe that I learned from my efforts to become a vegetarian:
Fasting led to a different set of revelations:
However, I did not become healthier by pursuing a vegetarian diet.
Nor did I become more spiritual through fasting, but I did become healthier. I learned to allow
my digestive system to finish up what it was working on before offering it more. I learned to burn
fat. I learned to give my digestive system a rest.
Several times I experimented with going on a backpacking trip while fasting. This can be quite an
experience. Once the body figures out that it's not getting any calorie input from eating, it shifts
completely to a fat-burning mode. Along with the greater than normal energy requirements of a
day of hiking with a pack on my back, this added up to serious weight loss. Of course, one would
not want to overdo it. There is such a thin line between fasting and starvation. This line is more
or less determined by how much body fat one is carrying. When that is gone, continuing exercise
is going to draw calories from burning muscle. Nobody wants that.
But two or three days of walking in the wilderness without any food at all is exhilarating. For one
thing, you are free of the encumbrances that come with eating. A bedroll, maybe a tent and a
change of clothes, and a couple of water bottles are all that you need.
Even better, you have more time. Everything does not revolve around setting up camp, cooking
food, cleaning up, packing out trash and protecting your grub from bears and ants. You can eat
when you get back to civilization. Hiking for the average sized adult burns up to 500 calories per
hour. When your backpacking trip is combined with a fast, consuming nothing but pure air and
water, you can spend most of your daylight hours traveling, seeing more and experiencing more.
All of your senses become more acute. The wilderness is a veritable cloud of fragrance, pines, firs
and cedars, wild roses and other flowers, or intoxicating eddies of sage.
A stranger once told me that, whenever we eat or drink anything, we are using ourselves up. I like
to think that each day that I fast, each day that I subsist on water, air, sunlight and the energy
stored in my body, each day spent this way adds a day to my life. It reminds me of the old
saying, that a day spent fishing won't be taken off your life. Like any truth, this concept should
not be pushed to extremes. A day or two without food may be bonus days so far as my life span
is concerned, but I know that if I spent too many days fasting, they would be my last days.
Hunting and fishing are the behavior of carnivores. In the wilds of nature, this quest for food is
generally accompanied by a fast. Fasting is one of the pleasures of the world that you really don't
want to miss.
this bent pretty much live in an edible environment. Cows and horses, rabbits and squirrels, deer
and bison, sheep and goats... all of them at times fairly wallow in the bounty of grass, weeds,
leaves and seeds, nuts, fruit and bark. They eat their fill. When they are full they sleep or play.
The ruminants stand still in blissful daze and chew their cuds. The squirrels store extra acorns for
the winter. When hunger or boredom, appetite or temptation moves them, they eat some more.
They eat till their bellies are tight and round. They layer their bodies with fat.
Carnivores go at life from a different perspective. When they get hungry they hunt. Their food
may be everywhere, but it hides from them. It runs or flies from the peril of their jaws. The only
ones for whom this is not true are the scavengers, the vultures who must wait until their meal has
already died thanks to natural terror or automobiles. The wolves, cats, eagles and hawks must
search for their prey. They are hunters.
Their meals are not always difficult to find. For birds of prey, like falcons, sometimes the skies
are full of pigeons, doves or ducks. Sometimes the bobcat dips into huge coveys of quail to get a
bite to eat. Sometimes cougars live in areas crowded with deer. Sometimes wolves have herds of
bison or antelope to pick from.
Enjoying the best of both worlds are the omnivores. Many of our furred or feathered friends can
and do take this approach. It depends on what is available. Bears will eat rabbits, deer or fish,
but they will also gorge on berries or acorns. Coyotes will eat jackrabbits and mice, but they will
also eat the sweet fruit of the manzanita. Robins will eat seeds, but they are happy to eat worms
and bugs as well.
Humans are certainly omnivorous. We can eat almost any kind of animal, including meat, fish,
insects, crustaceans, and mollusks. We can eat most kinds of fruit, and a lot of types of leaves
and roots. We also eat grains, but in order to do so we must first cook, grind or sprout the hard
seeds. Although this suggests that grain was not originally a natural food for mankind, vast
civilizations have survived on primary diets of wheat, rye, barley, oats, millet or other kinds of
grass seed, along with a plethora of bean varieties, which also need to be cooked or sprouted to be
edible.
The expression "hunter-gatherer" refers to primitive groups subsisting both on meat, from
hunting, fishing, trapping or scavenging, and other foods like fruit, vegetables, roots, tubers and
seeds. The consumption ratio between the two kinds of diet range from almost 100% meat and
fish in primitive northern tribes, Eskimos, Inuit or Yupik, to as low as 20% in African natives and
Australian Aborigines.
None of these styles of survival are as trouble-free as the above definitions might suggest. The
herbivorous lifestyle is great when the earth is bursting with fruit, nuts, leaves and lush meadows.
Things can get pretty lean, however, during droughts or winter seasons when deer are reduced to
eating the bark off of trees and hoofed mammals have to paw their way through layers of ice and
snow to get a bite of dead grass or moss. By springtime, animals that depend on plants for their
meals can become very thin, if they haven't already starved to death.
For carnivores after a kill, life is a luxury of eating, playing, mating, exploring and sleeping.
When the meat is gone, however, it's time to return to the hunt. There is no telling when the next
victim will fall to their fangs or talons. The hunt can last for days. Predators in these typical
situations do not suffer from overeating. Toxic levels of fat, acids or minerals are flushed from
the system during these recurring, involuntary fasts.
For humans who try to exist on a vegetarian diet, the dangers are various forms of malnutrition:
- protein deficiency;
- vitamin deficiency;
- mineral deficiency.
Human carnivores face different dietary dangers:
- accumulation of toxic substances like sodium and nitric acid;
- high levels of cholesterol and fat;
- constipation due to lack of roughage.
Both of these lifestyles also run the risk of starvation. To a large extent this danger is obviated by
following the diet of the omnivore. Bears are wonderful examples of this. When there are no
berries they eat fish. When the fish are not running, they eat acorns. When the acorns are gone
they eat squirrels and deer. When hunting gets slim, with any luck, the berries are getting ripe
again.
Humans... ah, humans want to have their cake and eat it too. Nutritionists talk about making
sure that we have all of the basic food groups represented in every meal. While this can result in
some very delightful repasts, it can also cause indigestion, obesity, hardening of the arteries,
diabetes, liver problems and more.
The keyword here is efficiency. When I eat a steak, my digestive system swings into action. My
stomach secretes hydrochloric acid (HCl), which reduces the meat to molecules of amino acid and
fat which can then be absorbed by my body to provide building materials and energy.
When I consume potatoes, bread, oatmeal, rice or beans, a whole different procedure starts up,
beginning with the saliva in my mouth which causes the breakdown of starch into compounds
that my digestive system can utilize. When we eat starch, it is very important to chew it
adequately. Meat, on the other hand, can be swallowed in great gulps of flesh with little or no
chewing. This digestive process begins in the stomach.
Same body, two different systems. The problems come from our tendency to eat both kinds of
food at the same time. This is oversimplified, but the basic hypothesis is sound. Sandwiches, or
meat and potatoes are very tasty. But combining animal protein and starch in the same meal is
very inefficient. It is somewhat like trying to perform two separate chemical reactions in the same
test tube at the same time. A better analogy might be trying to cook pancakes and hamburgers
simultaneously in one pan.
Aside from the inefficiency of digestion, another unfortunate reality is that sandwiches taste so
good that we end up eating more of all of the ingredients than we would if we were to consume
them separately. This is also true of meat and potatoes, casseroles, pizza... the list goes on.
And it isn't just meat and starch that are the culprits to be found in inappropriate combinations.
Sugar weasels its way into many recipes. Sugar by itself needs almost no digestion. It is quickly
absorbed into our blood, providing quick energy but little else. It also seems to make things taste
better. When I was young my mother served me oatmeal with brown sugar. She called it
porridge, and it was yummy. When I got a little older I substituted honey for sugar; I believed
that to be a healthy choice. Maybe it was, but not by much.
Even later I learned that cooking some raisins with the oats adds sweetness. Again, I felt this was
better for me, and maybe it was. Along the way I learned that some people eat oatmeal with no
sweetener, no sugar, honey or raisins, but only a dash of salt. Other folks like it with butter.
When I tried eating it that way for awhile, I came to realize that oats taste pretty darn good
without any help from sugar beets or bees.
I had a similar experience with rice. My mom only served us white rice for dessert sometimes,
mixed with canned pineapple and whipped cream, and it was delicious. Later on, on camping
trips with my friends when I was a teenager, I learned how to cook white rice myself over an open
fire. When it was done we would mix it with canned tuna fish. Again, it was delicious, and
teenagers can digest anything.
Later, in my college years, I became concerned with nutrition. My mother had fed us white
bread, margarine, processed cheese, meat and potatoes and canned vegetables. I grew up as a
skinny, asthmatic weakling. My first changes were to start eating whole grains: whole wheat
bread and brown rice. I learned to put more emphasis on fresh fruits and vegetables. I
supplemented my oatmeal with wheat germ. I discovered real cheese, yogurt and butter.
I also started working out. At first it was just pushups. I had begun hiking in the hills,
mountains and deserts because it came along with hunting. Eventually I learned that walking was
its own reward. I also became a surfer. I became muscular and healthy. One day I discovered
Yoga.
Along with my learning to eat new kinds of foods, I began to experiment with fasting. I also tried
out vegetarianism. I entered into each of these regimens for different reasons. Various inputs
had led me to believe that it was important to be a vegetarian if I was to get anywhere with my
Yoga. I had also become aware that many of the saints and holy men had fasted for long or short
periods. I was a devout Christian, and I began to fast for spiritual reasons.
Here is what I believe that I learned from my efforts to become a vegetarian:
- In spite of adhering to a vegetarian diet for long periods, I never lost my taste for meat. I
have known vegetarians who claimed that the very idea of eating meat had become
disgusting to them. Some said that, when they did try eating meat again, it made them sick. - I've met people who claimed to be vegetarian, but who would also admit that they did eat
fish. Others ate both fish and poultry. I didn't think that either chickens or tuna qualified
as plants, but what did I know? - Most of the time I continued to eat cheese and eggs, but I did try vegan diets:
- I dabbled with macrobiotic foods. I did what we referred to as a "brown rice fast" more
than once, going ten days eating nothing but brown rice with a little salt. I learned to
appreciate the more subtle flavors of that wonderful grain. - I also tried the raw food route. I lived for a while on fruit and nuts. I got really good at
cracking walnuts, pecans, Brazils, filberts and almonds. - I can be a vegetarian, just like a bear can live on berries or acorns. But I like meat.
Fasting led to a different set of revelations:
- Abstaining from food for a day or two or more is a wonderful relief: no cooking, no dirty
dishes and more time. It's amazing how much of our day we can end up devoting to eating
meals, along with the consequent preparations and cleanup, to say nothing of shopping and
garbage. - After the first day, I was not hungry. I would have twinges of hollow-belly, but nothing like
the feeling one can get after three or four hours without a meal. - After the first day I was also bursting with energy.
- My teeth got sharp.
- Cookbooks became entertaining.
- I dreamed about food.
- Physical discomforts tended to clear up. I came to understand why sick people often lose
their appetite. The body wants to devote itself to overcoming the infection. Digesting food
can wait until after the crisis. - Every kind of food seemed delicious.
- Extra fat melted away. Fasting is the fastest method that I have ever tried to shed a few
pounds. - My senses were enhanced. I could walk through a neighborhood in the evening and enjoy
the aroma of every family's dinner cooking. I could draw sustenance from the fragrance of
roses and lilacs, or salt sea air, or oncoming rain. I could smell the fresh bread in the
bakeries on the other side of the city.
However, I did not become healthier by pursuing a vegetarian diet.
Nor did I become more spiritual through fasting, but I did become healthier. I learned to allow
my digestive system to finish up what it was working on before offering it more. I learned to burn
fat. I learned to give my digestive system a rest.
Several times I experimented with going on a backpacking trip while fasting. This can be quite an
experience. Once the body figures out that it's not getting any calorie input from eating, it shifts
completely to a fat-burning mode. Along with the greater than normal energy requirements of a
day of hiking with a pack on my back, this added up to serious weight loss. Of course, one would
not want to overdo it. There is such a thin line between fasting and starvation. This line is more
or less determined by how much body fat one is carrying. When that is gone, continuing exercise
is going to draw calories from burning muscle. Nobody wants that.
But two or three days of walking in the wilderness without any food at all is exhilarating. For one
thing, you are free of the encumbrances that come with eating. A bedroll, maybe a tent and a
change of clothes, and a couple of water bottles are all that you need.
Even better, you have more time. Everything does not revolve around setting up camp, cooking
food, cleaning up, packing out trash and protecting your grub from bears and ants. You can eat
when you get back to civilization. Hiking for the average sized adult burns up to 500 calories per
hour. When your backpacking trip is combined with a fast, consuming nothing but pure air and
water, you can spend most of your daylight hours traveling, seeing more and experiencing more.
All of your senses become more acute. The wilderness is a veritable cloud of fragrance, pines, firs
and cedars, wild roses and other flowers, or intoxicating eddies of sage.
A stranger once told me that, whenever we eat or drink anything, we are using ourselves up. I like
to think that each day that I fast, each day that I subsist on water, air, sunlight and the energy
stored in my body, each day spent this way adds a day to my life. It reminds me of the old
saying, that a day spent fishing won't be taken off your life. Like any truth, this concept should
not be pushed to extremes. A day or two without food may be bonus days so far as my life span
is concerned, but I know that if I spent too many days fasting, they would be my last days.
Hunting and fishing are the behavior of carnivores. In the wilds of nature, this quest for food is
generally accompanied by a fast. Fasting is one of the pleasures of the world that you really don't
want to miss.
| Yoga for Carnivores by Jay Dyck |