Smoothies and Milkshakes on Good Friday

[anon67074017]

This is my first time fasting on Good Friday. I know that the rules allow for one meal and two snacks. I also know that there are no limits on beverage consumption. Would smoothies be considered beverages or food? How about milkshakes?

 

[TK421]

Milk is generally considered food, so it is to be consumed with a meal. I read this in an ewtn article.

Consult ask an apologist if youre more curious. I’m a young athletic man so fasting has to be more extensive for me to make it meaningful. If you’re elderly you’re exempt but you can still fast of course as you discern is fit.

 

[anon67074017]

Milk is generally considered food, so it is to be consumed with a meal.

I have never heard that before. Maybe that is what traditionalist Catholics practice. I think of milk as a beverage and I think the Church would consider it a beverage as well.

 

[babochka]

I have never heard that before. Maybe that is what traditionalist Catholics practice. I think of milk as a beverage and I think the Church would consider it a beverage as well.

I have no idea what position the Church has on this. As an Eastern Catholic, we also abstain from dairy on days of fast, so the question doesn’t really come up. Nutrutionally speaking, though, milk is a food and not a beverage.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

This is my first time fasting on Good Friday. I know that the rules allow for one meal and two snacks. I also know that there are no limits on beverage consumption. Would smoothies be considered beverages or food? How about milkshakes?

Frankly, I have read various people write on this topic in popular publications over the years, with a diminishing opinion about those who try to argue that beverages can impinge upon the fast. One author was actually trying to make a case on a continuum from water to weak tea to strong tea and so forth – a sort of legalism that is best and well consigned to the past.

When I was a newly ordained priest, the bishop was quite explicit with his seminarians and clergy: if the press of the triduum (which included a lot more work than the liturgical services) presented need, we were to ask him for a dispensation from the fast…however, we were to use our own discretion about things like milkshakes, which we were perfectly free to drink, and there was no need to consult him or our spiritual director about such an issue.

Years later, when I taught moral theology and the question came up, the common sense maxim was what I always taught: “If you ‘eat’ it, it is calculated into the fast. If you ‘drink’ it from a cup or glass, it is a beverage and it is excluded from the calculation.” I have not changed that principle.

Blessings to you for your first Good Friday.

 

[Usige]

Frankly, I have read various people write on this topic in popular publications over the years, with a diminishing opinion about those who try to argue that beverages can impinge upon the fast. One author was actually trying to make a case on a continuum from water to weak tea to strong tea and so forth – a sort of legalism that is best and well consigned to the past.

When I was a newly ordained priest, the bishop was quite explicit with his seminarians and clergy: if the press of the triduum (which included a lot more work than the liturgical services) presented need, we were to ask him for a dispensation from the fast…however, we were to use our own discretion about things like milkshakes, which we were perfectly free to drink, and there was no need to consult him or our spiritual director about such an issue.

Years later, when I taught moral theology and the question came up, the common sense maxim was what I always taught: “If you ‘eat’ it, it is calculated into the fast. If you ‘drink’ it from a cup or glass, it is a beverage and it is excluded from the calculation.” I have not changed that principle.

That’s interesting. It differs completely from what I was taught from the stand point of it has less to do with the form as it does with the caloric intake. You could “drink” 3 or 4 smoothies, milkshakes, or protein drinks on Good Friday and never feel a pang of hungry or lose a single calorie.

I had always understood fasting to be a form of self denial. If we are simply replacing food with high calorie drinks, then where is the self denial? It seems just like the practice of some Catholics who abstain from meat on Fridays by going out and having a huge lobster dinner. Yes it meets the letter of the law, but seems to deny the spirit or purpose of the practice.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

This is my first time fasting on Good Friday. I know that the rules allow for one meal and two snacks. I also know that there are no limits on beverage consumption. Would smoothies be considered beverages or food? How about milkshakes?

I call it food, especially smoothies. They are made from food, e.g. bananas, berries, citrus fruits, etc.

 

[anon67074017]

Frankly, I have read various people write on this topic in popular publications over the years, with a diminishing opinion about those who try to argue that beverages can impinge upon the fast. One author was actually trying to make a case on a continuum from water to weak tea to strong tea and so forth – a sort of legalism that is best and well consigned to the past.

When I was a newly ordained priest, the bishop was quite explicit with his seminarians and clergy: if the press of the triduum (which included a lot more work than the liturgical services) presented need, we were to ask him for a dispensation from the fast…however, we were to use our own discretion about things like milkshakes, which we were perfectly free to drink, and there was no need to consult him or our spiritual director about such an issue.

Years later, when I taught moral theology and the question came up, the common sense maxim was what I always taught: “If you ‘eat’ it, it is calculated into the fast. If you ‘drink’ it from a cup or glass, it is a beverage and it is excluded from the calculation.” I have not changed that principle.

Blessings to you for your first Good Friday.

I like your advice. You seem to think like me.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

That’s interesting. It differs completely from what I was taught from the stand point of it has less to do with the form as it does with the caloric intake. You could “drink” 3 or 4 smoothies, milkshakes, or protein drinks on Good Friday and never feel a pang of hungry or lose a single calorie.

I had always understood fasting to be a form of self denial. If we are simply replacing food with high calorie drinks, then where is the self denial? It seems just like the practice of some Catholics who abstain from meat on Fridays by going out and having a huge lobster dinner. Yes it meets the letter of the law, but seems to deny the spirit or purpose of the practice.

The law of fasting and abstinence says nothing about caloric intake. It speaks about the exercise of mortification in what one eats. The law has to be applied as the law as written or it is fundamentally something other than law.

I agree that the concept of “penance” being feasting on Lobster Newburg and caviar presents a real problem…and the Pope addressed that not long ago. It is one of the reasons why I think, frankly, the law of fast and abstinence should be radically overhauled to take into account modern realities, above all in the developed world.

This particular law of penance, for example, is absolutely purposeless to vegetarians.

The reality is that the law is what the law is until the law is modified or changed and one cannot introduce into the concept of the law, on personal whim, what in fact the law has no concept of. That rests with the legislator. One distinct positive of the formulation is that it leaves to the individual what portion constitutes a meal.

Given what I have witnessed some people consume as their regular sized meal, I could assert that what I eat every day is “fasting” given my regular portions, if the criteria were mere caloric intake and those whom I just mentioned were the establishing baseline.

 

[ProVobis]

It seems just like the practice of some Catholics who abstain from meat on Fridays by going out and having a huge lobster dinner. Yes it meets the letter of the law, but seems to deny the spirit or purpose of the practice.

Also if you’ve made a habit of eating fish on Fridays (or better for your heart if you fish more than once a week), it becomes less of a self-denial thing, for sure. But sometimes developing such habits takes plenty of discipline too. Not to mention helping the fish industry as well.

 

[babochka]

Frankly, I have read various people write on this topic in popular publications over the years, with a diminishing opinion about those who try to argue that beverages can impinge upon the fast. One author was actually trying to make a case on a continuum from water to weak tea to strong tea and so forth – a sort of legalism that is best and well consigned to the past.

When I was a newly ordained priest, the bishop was quite explicit with his seminarians and clergy: if the press of the triduum (which included a lot more work than the liturgical services) presented need, we were to ask him for a dispensation from the fast…however, we were to use our own discretion about things like milkshakes, which we were perfectly free to drink, and there was no need to consult him or our spiritual director about such an issue.

Years later, when I taught moral theology and the question came up, the common sense maxim was what I always taught: “If you ‘eat’ it, it is calculated into the fast. If you ‘drink’ it from a cup or glass, it is a beverage and it is excluded from the calculation.” I have not changed that principle.

Blessings to you for your first Good Friday.

This just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The form of the food is more important than the substance? I (if I were Latin Rite ) could not have ice cream, but it would be perfectly acceptable to put that ice cream into a blender and drink it? Would the same hold for beef stew, for example?

I appreciate the desire to not be legalistic, but this really doesn’t seem in keeping with the spirit of the fast.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

This just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The form of the food is more important than the substance? I (if I were Latin Rite ) could not have ice cream, but it would be perfectly acceptable to put that ice cream into a blender and drink it? Would the same hold for beef stew, for example?

I appreciate the desire to not be legalistic, but this really doesn’t seem in keeping with the spirit of the fast.

The venerable Churches of the East have their own traditions on fast and abstinence. They have their own spirituality. They also have their own canonical legislation. And as the Council Fathers rightly said, all the rites of the Church and their customs and liturgies are to be held in equal esteem – and with any sense of superiority of one over another to be held as repugnant.

In present legislation in the West, we have abstinence with and without fast…but we do not have fast without accompanying abstinence, so your question about beef stew is not legally possible.

If it were tomato soup…yes, one could drink it since it is substantially the same as tomato juice, except heated. If it has pasta and other ingredients, such that is not exclusively a beverage being drunk, then the answer should be no.

As I have said in other places and circumstances, the question is what constitutes eating as opposed to drinking. If one has fruit or cookies and milk, one is eating a snack. If one has a glass of milk or orange juice or some concoction of fruit juices, one is drinking a beverage.

The method to calculate beverages into the formula for “meal,” which is the defining criteria of fasting in the Code of Canon Law for the Western Church, is lacking in the definition of the law itself.

Is there a greater expression of penance in a greater denying of oneself? Yes, within reason. A fast of bread and water is going to be more penitential than what the law prescribes for the fast that is obliged of Roman Rite Catholics. But such a bread and water fast is beyond what the law prescribes, and what the law prescribes is precisely the point I am addressing.

 

[Porknpie]

Article here from Catholic org.

Fasting The law of fasting requires a Catholic from the 18th Birthday (Canon 97) to the 59th Birthday (i.e. the beginning of the 60th year, a year which will be completed on the 60th birthday) to reduce the amount of food eaten from normal. The Church defines this as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal in quantity. Such fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk). Alcoholic beverages do not break the fast; however, they seem to be contrary to the spirit of doing penance.

 

[anon67074017]

Article here from Catholic org.

Fasting The law of fasting requires a Catholic from the 18th Birthday (Canon 97) to the 59th Birthday (i.e. the beginning of the 60th year, a year which will be completed on the 60th birthday) to reduce the amount of food eaten from normal. The Church defines this as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal in quantity. Such fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk). Alcoholic beverages do not break the fast; however, they seem to be contrary to the spirit of doing penance.

That is good information. Thank you. I just drank a milkshake as my second snack. I will not eat anything for the rest of the day.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Article here from Catholic org.

Fasting The law of fasting requires a Catholic from the 18th Birthday (Canon 97) to the 59th Birthday (i.e. the beginning of the 60th year, a year which will be completed on the 60th birthday) to reduce the amount of food eaten from normal. The Church defines this as one meal a day, and two smaller meals which if added together would not exceed the main meal in quantity. Such fasting is obligatory on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. The fast is broken by eating between meals and by drinks which could be considered food (milk shakes, but not milk). Alcoholic beverages do not break the fast; however, they seem to be contrary to the spirit of doing penance.

As I already said in my post, one can find various writers on popular websites who make this argument. Such a site is neither theological nor canonical locus. It is, at best, a popular website. In this case, the author of this particular reflection holds a licenitiate in theology. That is not an insignificant degree to have attained, even if it is not a doctorate. What this individual writes, however, is not a dispositive finding.

His conclusion rests upon the premise of “drinks which could be considered food”…however one could begin to interpret and permutate that phrase. Either something is food or it is not food. The norm used in Europe is very simple: what you eat is food and what you drink is a beverage. The portion of a meal is assessed on what one eats. Moreover, since his final sentence would include wine, what he writes in that regard would be considered no less an anomalous conclusion in Europe.

If there is an actual dispositive text that is authoritative for or within the United States, and not an opinion piece on the matter, I would interested to read it. As I said before, I am less and less wooed by the American commentators who write on this subject.

Perhaps, however, one of the bishops in the United States has promulgated particular law on this matter.

 

[anon67074017]

As I already said in my post, one can find various writers on popular websites who make this argument. Such a site is neither theological nor canonical. It is, at best, a popular website. In this case, the author of this particular holds a licenitiate in theology. That is not an insignificant degree to have attained,even if it is not a doctorate. What this individual writes, however, is not a dispositive finding.

I have accepted it as good advice.

 

[ProVobis]

This just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The form of the food is more important than the substance? I (if I were Latin Rite ) could not have ice cream, but it would be perfectly acceptable to put that ice cream into a blender and drink it? Would the same hold for beef stew, for example?

They need to write some rules for the temperatures at which it is consumed.

 

[Exiled_Child]

The best approach is to follow Proverbs 27:27: Let the milk of the goats be enough for thy food, and for the necessities of thy house, and for maintenance for thy handmaids. In my view, goat milk is not only the most delicious food on Earth, but the human body was made to absolutely thrive on it. And just to really underline it, I’m talking about goat milk, not cow milk, which has entirely different properties. It was the ancient Jews primary food, and it’s a biblical truth that I recommend Catholics embrace as well. It’s absolutely the easiest way to fast, if you want to call it a fast, because really it’s a food in a liquid form, not simply a beverage. That’s my two cents, anyway.

 

[TK421]

I won’t judge other people’s fasting if it technically follows canon law. For myself, I’m not sticking potatoes in a blender and calling it a drink. Milk physically slates hunger and nourishes the body in the way other beverages dont, so I wouldn’t drink it unless part of a meal. That’s just me and it seems prudent.

 

[Porknpie]

As I already said in my post, one can find various writers on popular websites who make this argument. Such a site is neither theological nor canonical locus. It is, at best, a popular website. In this case, the author of this particular reflection holds a licenitiate in theology. That is not an insignificant degree to have attained, even if it is not a doctorate. What this individual writes, however, is not a dispositive finding.

His conclusion rests upon the premise of “drinks which could be considered food”…however one could begin to interpret and permutate that phrase. Either something is food or it is not food. The norm used in Europe is very simple: what you eat is food and what you drink is a beverage. The portion of a meal is assessed on what one eats. Moreover, since his final sentence would include wine, what he writes in that regard would be considered no less an anomalous conclusion in Europe.

If there is an actual dispositive text that is authoritative for or within the United States, and not an opinion piece on the matter, I would interested to read it. As I said before, I am less and less wooed by the American commentators who write on this subject.

Perhaps, however, one of the bishops in the United States has promulgated particular law on this matter.

I don’t disagree. I looked for a document from the US Bishops but what I found did not address milkshakes vs milk.

I did have glass of wine last night with dinner. My wife looked at me kind of funny. I did not consider it to be indulgent nor against the fast. But I’m open to correction.