blackforest
Well-known member
LOL, it’s not! When speaking, I’ll take a few more painstaking seconds to articulate both words. 
Do Catholics need to avoid consuming BBQ sauce on a Lenten Friday?
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I would say not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Protein is part of human dietary needs, and while some might be able to subsist on bread, potatoes, and vegetables for a day (or longer), others cannot. If the Catholic Church permits an alternate source of animal protein on these days, many would find this very beneficial.
The Orthodox fasting regimens, which are very strict, actually draw down the fasting person’s energy level, and if I am understanding their practice correctly, one’s spiritual father can assist in putting together a fasting regime that will not harm one’s health, if that becomes necessary. A middle-aged diabetic would have different dietary needs than a young, robust, healthy person who might be able to afford having their energy level drawn down for a day or two. Western Catholic fasting and abstinence are trivial by comparison.
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TK421
Guest
Isn’t BBQ sauce just tomato sauce with lots of other spices thrown in it?
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blackforest
Well-known member
Those aren’t the only two dietary choices. Protein deficiency is so rare in our country that a physician would have a hard time recognizing it. Beans, nuts and nut butters, tofu, tempeh, seitan, eggs, nutritional yeast, spelt, teff, hempseed, and quinoa are just some examples of adequate vegetarian protein sources. Catholics are well within their rights to consume fish on Fridays and shouldn’t get scrupulous about it. But those who choose not to have some nutritious options.
Don’t quote me on this until I have a source, but I heard that some theologians are rethinking the fish-on-Fridays practice. In Christ’s time, fish was a common staple for the poor, and “slaughtering the fatted calf” was routine only for the wealthy. Today, in the age of $2.00 for two McDonalds cheeseburgers (vs. beaucoup bucks for fresh seafood), it’s just the opposite!
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Tis_Bearself
Patron
Amen to that. A lack of protein in my diet even for one day is a significant physical penance for me. I have done it, but it is most definitely not pleasant, especially if one is also giving up caffeine on the same day.
You are quite right. You can make an entirely nutritious, satisfying, protein-rich meal out of eggs, beans, and quinoa. Some of these foods are more obscure and would be difficult for the poor to acquire.
The Church’s laws have to be universal and cannot contain affluent Western cultural preconceptions. In some cultures, fish would still be considered poor people’s food. In much of modern American culture, fish is considered kind of a “special” food, difficult to prepare at home, and is often not the most inexpensive choice.
The faithful in affluent countries could well abstain from fish as well as fleshmeat, not out of scruples or over-thinking the question “what, really, is meat?”, but as a private devotion. I do not eat fish each and every Friday — very often I will choose eggs, cheese, beans, tofu, or quinoa.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
McD’s and Wendys both have fish sandwiches in Lent. McD’s has them year round. One can also go to any deli and buy tuna salad, egg salad, veggie and cheese, or you can make a PBJ at home and have it with a glass of milk.
The issue is not that there’s nothing to eat on abstinence days. There’s plenty to eat on abstinence days. People are just hung up on eating it because they have some idea they’re supposed to be really hungry and deprived on that day. Which is fine if you want to do that, just don’t impose it on every other Catholic.
I’m perfectly capable of doing a bread and water fast for a day or a beans and bread or a soup and bread or a juice and bread or, if just for one day, a juice only. I just don’t need or want other Catholics lecturing me on when they think I should do it. I’ll do it when I feel it’s appropriate and it will be between me and my God.
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Maelstrom1
Guest
Jesus would likely request people visit with the poor or lonely or an enemy on Friday rather than obsess over what to eat. Sorta like the Ox in the ditch on the Sabbath. Rules become minor gods unto themselves.
Such things are just not possible in this vale of tears…
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Grizzly1
Guest
Those Impossible Burgers/fake meat products are full of highly processed ingredients, I’d be wary of eating those things for that reason alone.
BBQ sauce as you’d find at a fast food joint is probably mostly just tomato paste with vinegar, spices, preservatives, artificial flavors/colors, and corn syrup.
BBQ sauce as you’d find at a fast food joint is probably mostly just tomato paste with vinegar, spices, preservatives, artificial flavors/colors, and corn syrup.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
The vast majority of BBQ sauces in the USA are just blends of condiments with no meat drippings. There are only a couple parts of the country, like Texas, where a sauce might contain meat drippings, and once you’re talking about anything bottled or anything used in fast food, then as you said it is just condiments regardless of the part of the country.
It stands to reason that if some restaurant is marketing a meatless burger, they cannot then put meat in the sauce that goes on it. They would get a public outcry from customers claiming they had been misled as to food ingredients.
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Grizzly1
Guest
Yeah, I’ve never liked BBQ sauce. I enjoy the flavor of meat, and so if I put flavorings on it I want them to complement the taste instead of overpowering it as BBQ sauce does.
When it comes to frankenfoods like impossible burgers I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re actually killing more animals in the process than through animal husbandry. There’s probably a lot of vermin that infest the vegetable fields needed for the pea protein isolate/vegetable oils/etc, and in the end exterminating them probably amounts to more animal deaths than slaughtering pigs and cows.
When it comes to frankenfoods like impossible burgers I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re actually killing more animals in the process than through animal husbandry. There’s probably a lot of vermin that infest the vegetable fields needed for the pea protein isolate/vegetable oils/etc, and in the end exterminating them probably amounts to more animal deaths than slaughtering pigs and cows.
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Grizzly1
Guest
Check out Bobby’s Perspective on YouTube, its a channel run by an Orthodox Christian carnivore bodybuilder who is himself a reformed vegan. According to him veganism is “the philosophy of devils” due to all the negative health effects. Very informative, but some of the footage of vegans he responds to can be pretty scary.
Tis_Bearself
Patron
Bobby is wrong to ascribe demonic influence to veganism, given that we have had vegan saints, including the great St. Francis de Paola, founder of the Order of Minims. He lived to be 91.
It is quite possible to eat healthfully as a vegan. A carnivore bodybuilder is going to have a different set of priorities. And what an individual person should/ should not eat is best discussed with his or her own doctor.
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dochawk
Guest
Also, there is a huge difference in approach between West and East in these.
The West specifies a minimum, under penalty of sin, with an expectation of compliance.
The East sets forth an ideal, to which we may strive to our benefit. (I almost used “maximum”, but that wouldn’t be accurate). It is understood that few will get all the way there (and especially not on their first Lent, for which it isn’t even suggested!), and there is no shame, dishonor, or sin in not making it all of the way.
And as a historical note: it was specifically developed for Catholics fasting on Fridays; that was its purpose. It fortunately beat out (beet out? :crazy_face
a proposed pineapple burger, which was Kroc’s initial plan . . .
I wonder if he has a problem with Orthodox fasting, then, which is vegan for a fairly substantial part of the year.
I lost 70 pounds as an ovo-lacto-pescatarian (much of which crept its way back, a situation I am working to resolve). The various forms of veg*nism can have many health benefits.
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dochawk
Guest
I ca’t tell you much about the history, other than it largely descends from the diet of the very poor in the first and second century mediterranean.
I think but won’t assert that the weekend days where fish, wine, and/or oil are permitted are a lightening of the general fast.
These days, some jurisdictions have made it far lighter. The Pittsburgh metropolis, for example, only has the full fast for two days of Lent, and otherwise looks very much like Latin practice, save for being both Friday and Wednesday, and weekday fasting from the Divine Liturgy, instead having the Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday and Friday.
St. Phillips’s fast (which would become Advent in the West) was similar to Lent, and there are a pair of two week or so fasting seasons.
I understand that the west was similar, but cut back hundreds of years ago (I couldn’t tell you when).
Also, North American fasting was cut way back for the practical reason that there was greater physical labor here than in Europe, and that farming here just wasn’t compatible with the Lenten diet…
I think but won’t assert that the weekend days where fish, wine, and/or oil are permitted are a lightening of the general fast.
These days, some jurisdictions have made it far lighter. The Pittsburgh metropolis, for example, only has the full fast for two days of Lent, and otherwise looks very much like Latin practice, save for being both Friday and Wednesday, and weekday fasting from the Divine Liturgy, instead having the Presanctified Liturgy on Wednesday and Friday.
St. Phillips’s fast (which would become Advent in the West) was similar to Lent, and there are a pair of two week or so fasting seasons.
I understand that the west was similar, but cut back hundreds of years ago (I couldn’t tell you when).
Also, North American fasting was cut way back for the practical reason that there was greater physical labor here than in Europe, and that farming here just wasn’t compatible with the Lenten diet…
That actually makes quite a bit of sense. Talk about learning something new every day!
Perhaps back then, but today, North American life would not be nearly as physically demanding as life in Europe — the car culture, relative lack of mass transport (walking to bus and metro lines is only common in larger cities), many suburban areas are unwalkable (car-less people, usually members of marginated groups, take their lives into their hands walking on the berm of the road). Lack of air conditioning in summer also takes a toll — during summer in Poland, between all the walking (I had no car) and the heat, I sweated constantly and had to drink so much bottled water that I hid the empty bottles from my wife’s family! Poles and other Europeans don’t do the hydration thing, and it is very true what they say about not drinking much of anything while you are eating a meal in Europe.
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dochawk
Guest
Nothing stops someone today from setting out on a more rigorous fast–but trying to install one in general wouldn’t seem likely to end well . . .
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