How detailed are you supposed to be when abstaining from meat?

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How detailed are you supposed to be when abstaining from meat? I never really though about it too much before and was wondering. For example, it’s pretty obvious to me that you shouldn’t eat a steak or a burger or a chicken fillet. But what about things made from meat/animal flesh?

Okay, the specific reason I am asking is because as I rushed out the door, I packed a Raman noodles bowl for lunch today. When I packed it I was thinking, “there are no chunks of meat in it, so I am good.” But my DH is a vegetarian and that’s taught me to carefully read labels. So I just read the label. On the list of ingredients is “chicken powder.” Does that make it a food I shouldn’t eat this afternoon? Or is that just picking nits?

Right now I am considering just going to a restaurant that has a vegetarian/vegan menu. But I don’t want to spend the money if I don’t have to.
 
well, if you are trying to abstain from meat voluntarily then how you observe is up to you…

if you are following a church law/rule (like Ash Wednesday) then once you KNEW the soup had meat, you should abstain, but if you ate it in ignorance no harm done.

in MY case i have been mostly vegan, and trying to stay so for the duration… but allowing myself occasional egg or dairy, because of both health and convenience. no meat though, so my ramen soups have remained up on the shelf.
 
Chicken powder isn’t meat. It is more like meat flavoring. I was always taught that it was pieces of the flesh that we were to abstain from…not the flavoring. So if I made a vegetable soup that had chicken stock as a base, as long as there was no flesh meat then it was OK.
 
mellowcalico said:
Right now I am considering just going to a restaurant that has a vegetarian/vegan menu. But I don’t want to spend the money if I don’t have to.
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You don’t have to. Jimmy Akin looked into this question a few years ago. While he’s not the be-all end-all of canon law interpretation, his case is reasonable, and I haven’t seen any compelling counterargument. The basic point was that while “soups made from meat” were previously prohibited, the 1983 code of canon law omitted that part of the rule, and thus it is technically allowed.

It would certainly be in keeping with the spirit of Lent to stay away from soup with chunks of meat, or if you choose, even meat powder, in the future. But you don’t need to waste your money today.
 
The Church does not command us to be vegetarians or vegans, just not to eat meat. In my opinion (opinion only here), we don’t need to go searching ingredient lists for a molecule of meat here or there in a food that is clearly not a piece of meat.

However, if you want to interpret things more strictly and still not go out for lunch today, isn’t the chicken powder in the flavoring packet? Could you simply salt the water instead and still eat the noodles?

Betsy
 
\On the list of ingredients is “chicken powder.”\

**Does that mean if I mix it with water, I’ll get a chicken? 😛

My own practice:

I don’t eat anything I know has meat in it, including chicken broth or meat flavorings.

That means I don’t eat canned pork and beans.

If I open a can simply labelled “beans”, I am going to assume that’s all it is.

There are so many prepared products that say something like, “vegetable and/or animal shortening”. I am going to assume it’s vegetable shortening. I’m not eating it to get a lard rush.

Some have said that products such as Jell-O are made from animal collagen. That was true once upon a time. But by the time the box gets to the shelf, it’s unrecognizable to any of the senses as being meat. And there are some such products that are made from algae, which is clearly a vegetable.

If I can’t taste or see it, it’s not there. **
 
That means I don’t eat canned pork and beans.
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Yes, even if you take the visible pieces of pork away, there still is a lot of pork juice mixed in the beans.

I’ll add to that a lot of salad toppings that include tiny bits of bacon or even imitation bacon.
 
This constitutes my usual Lenten menu:

Philadelphia Roll (Sushi)
Clam Chowder Soup
Lobster Pizza (from Red Lobster–about $7)
Tomato Bisque Soup
Double Cheese Pizza
Grilled Cheese sandwiches
Fish sticks
Cheese Ravioli with Alredo sace (non-meat)
Cheese Enchiladas (no meat sauce)
Bean and cheese tacos
Fried catfish (on occasion)
Shrimp Scampi
Shrimp Alfredo
Shrimp Cocktail
any kind of seafood

Unfortunately, nine years of tuna lunches on Fridays from my Catholic school alma mater completely turned me off that particular kind of fish.
 
mellowcalico said:
How detailed are you supposed to be when abstaining from meat? I never really though about it too much before and was wondering. For example, it’s pretty obvious to me that you shouldn’t eat a steak or a burger or a chicken fillet. But what about things made from meat/animal flesh?

Okay, the specific reason I am asking is because as I rushed out the door, I packed a Raman noodles bowl for lunch today. When I packed it I was thinking, “there are no chunks of meat in it, so I am good.” But my DH is a vegetarian and that’s taught me to carefully read labels. So I just read the label. On the list of ingredients is “chicken powder.” Does that make it a food I shouldn’t eat this afternoon? Or is that just picking nits?

Right now I am considering just going to a restaurant that has a vegetarian/vegan menu. But I don’t want to spend the money if I don’t have to.
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In this case I would not put the packet in that had the “Chicken powder” in. (now if it said chick’n flavoring or something like that ok) Or if that was not possible go find something else.
 
mellowcalico said:
How detailed are you supposed to be when abstaining from meat? I never really though about it too much before and was wondering. For example, it’s pretty obvious to me that you shouldn’t eat a steak or a burger or a chicken fillet. But what about things made from meat/animal flesh?

Okay, the specific reason I am asking is because as I rushed out the door, I packed a Raman noodles bowl for lunch today. When I packed it I was thinking, “there are no chunks of meat in it, so I am good.” But my DH is a vegetarian and that’s taught me to carefully read labels. So I just read the label. On the list of ingredients is “chicken powder.” Does that make it a food I shouldn’t eat this afternoon? Or is that just picking nits?

Right now I am considering just going to a restaurant that has a vegetarian/vegan menu. But I don’t want to spend the money if I don’t have to.
Click to expand...
To be honest with you, as a former Protestant there are some Catholic traditions and rulings which don’t mean much to me me eg. Relics, Saints Days, Feasts days, abstention from meat, and a few other bits and pieces. Even seasons of the year are a bit of a no-no, since I always thought we were supposed to try to be Christians all year round.

I wasn’t brought up in the Catholic system, and tend to stick to the core teachings, and turn a bit of a jaundiced eye to others.

I suspect other Protestant converts might have a similar outlook, simply because of our personal background and experience.

But I’m not here to argue with someone else’s faith.

I did hear one amusing story told by the first priest at our parish. He went to a fairly well known Catholic Boy’s School as a student, and a boarder to boot, I think. Like all teenagers, he and his mates had hollow boots, and were always on the lookout for something more to eat.

Anyway the question of meat abstention came up and he and his mates found a tin of camp pie. But conscience got the better of them. After glancing covetously at the key on the outside, they thought they better do the right thing and ask the rector “How much meat is allowed on fast nights, without it becoming a mortal sin?”

He appeared to think deeply about it, and said “Two ounces”. They thanked him and trooped back to their rooms. Opening the tin of camp pie, they dug it out and using scales, weighed out an amount just under two ounces each.

I don’t know how far two ounces went towards satisfying their teenage hunger pangs, but they hadn’t committed a mortal sin!
 
I hope this is the right place to post this; it’s been a long time since I visited these forums.

Someone I know has asked me whether Ramen Noodles constitute eating meat and are therefore break our Lenten abstinence. :confused:

Here’s what I think: in reading the ingredient labels, there is a trace amount of “beef fat” and “powdered cooked chicken” in the soup base of beef and chicken flavors, respectively. Therefore, in the “spirit” of the fast, I’d just as soon avoid it by eating the noodles without the soup base or maybe getting some shrimp flavor. I can’t honestly tell another person whether their conscience will allow them to so indulge. :rolleyes:

I realize this may be a silly question, but I wonder if anybody has anything to say in this, that might have more “authority” than the ideas I just pulled out of the air.

Funny what a strange question is what got me back to this forum after all this time. 😛

Alan
 
Another poster recently recounted a story from an older Orthodox monk who was eating a cracker during Lent. A younger monk told him the list of ingredients on the box contained dairy and eggs (both proscribed during Lent in the Eastern tradition) and the older monk said something to the effect of “I’m not eating eggs and milk. I’m eating a cracker.” In other words, if an ingredient is not obvious, it really doesn’t matter.

I tend to agree with that philosophy, particularly in these days of prepackaged prepared food items. Former times were simpler: people prepared their own food, so they knew exactly what was included. It’s Lent? OK, we use oil and vegetable stock instead of butter and beef stock. But, for better or worse, that has changed to a great extent, and people often consume prepackaged prepared foods at home, and also commonly eat in restaurants. In neither case does one have absolute control (or knowledge) of the ingredients.

Dry soup mixes (ramen or otherwise) are made to have a recognizable taste of broth when reconstituted. (Not to mention the fact that they contain far too much sodium, but I digress.) To me, that means if the flavor is, e.g., beef or chicken, it should be excluded. But if, e.g., one takes vegetable flavor, it’s fine, even if there is an iota (and it’s not likely to more than that) of chicken somewhere down on the list of ingredients (which is often absurdly long and frequently reads like the text of chemistry textbook, but I digress again.)
 
Alan, nice to see you again. If you search for the Apologist answers to this, you will eventually dig up that they are of the opinion that soup broth does not count. This is due to broth/stock being listed as forbidden in the old (1917) canon law, but not being listed in the new (1983) canon law, and that an intervening document reorganized penance. What you are describing with the ramen sounds like a powdered broth/stock. That is allowed. Also, the animal fat part is actively listed as allowed in the document Paenitemini. (that is the intervening document)
The law of abstinence forbids the use of meat, but not of eggs, the products of milk or condiments made of animal fat.
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Chicken flavored ramen doesn’t taste like meat to me. It tastes like msg (the flavor of unami). From a foodie standpoint, ramen is penitential, clearly. 😃
 
Thank you, malphono and Pug, for your replies. That should probably be all she’s looking for.

Alan
 
I have never really paid too much attention to where the line is drawn. I think we all know what meat is. When I eat a steak, I trim away the fat because it is not meat. If I eat Jello, I never think of the animal product it is made from as meat. Meat is meaty. On the other hand, it has always seemed odd those that go out for sumptuous seafood fares on Fridays of Lent.

There needs to be more common sense and less legalism. Why worry over broth then dine on lobster? Which do you think represents the penitent heart?
 
Just to add quickly that I like your attitude on the subject where you say that, “Therefore, in the “spirit” of the fast, I’d just as soon avoid it…”
This is how I view it as well. “Err on the side of caution”, but don’t become scrupulous about it.

Peace
James
 
Pug said:
Alan, nice to see you again. If you search for the Apologist answers to this, you will eventually dig up that they are of the opinion that soup broth does not count. This is due to broth/stock being listed as forbidden in the old (1917) canon law, but not being listed in the new (1983) canon law, and that an intervening document reorganized penance. What you are describing with the ramen sounds like a powdered broth/stock. That is allowed. Also, the animal fat part is actively listed as allowed in the document Paenitemini. (that is the intervening document)
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Here is one such case being made: [/-] (Jimmy Akin)](And Soups Made From Meat – Jimmy Akin)

tee
 
pnewton said:
I have never really paid too much attention to where the line is drawn. I think we all know what meat is. When I eat a steak, I trim away the fat because it is not meat. If I eat Jello, I never think of the animal product it is made from as meat. Meat is meaty. On the other hand, it has always seemed odd those that go out for sumptuous seafood fares on Fridays of Lent.

There needs to be more common sense and less legalism. Why worry over broth then dine on lobster? Which do you think represents the penitent heart?
Click to expand...
Our church has a fish fry sponsored by the Knights of Columbus each Friday during Lent with things like Salmon. They already said that the food would not be much of a sacrifice, but “the money is for the Church”. To me, once in a while this is okay, but it’s not much of a sacrifice to eat such a meal, and I try to eat very simple meatless meals during Fridays during Lent. Our Church has the Stations “in-between” and bingo afterwords because it’s a “moneymaker”—we just had a new Church built this year.

I don’t feel comfortable with this(bingo). I feel if our Pastor eliminated this during Lent, the money collected from it would somehow appear because of this sacrifice.

I grew up in the fifties and there was no such thing, no dances, etc. during Lent and everyone took this for granted. Wondered what others of you think?
 
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