In this episode, I speak with Jay Richards about his book "Eat, Fast, Feast: Heal Your Body While Feeding your Soul". We discuss how modern science and ancient Christian tradition support a fasting lifestyle for healthy living and help us put food in its proper place.
We discuss a number of issues including fasting, prayer, the ketogenic diet, and metabolic flexibility. We discuss the benefits of fat, meat, whole foods, and why we need to avoid processed foods, sugar, and how this all relates both our physical and spiritual health.
Jay notes that while fasting is a sacrifice that is supposed to be difficult, it should not be torture. The problem is that most of us eat in a way that makes fasting much more difficult than it needs to be. Jay explains how using a ketogenic diet can help prepare our bodies for fasting and for prayer. We also discuss the important role of feasting and how a proper feast is essential to a human and liturgical life and very different from a "cheat" day on a diet.
We also talk about liturgical, vocal, and mental prayer and the philosophical issues including hylomorphism and what it means to be an embodied person, and how food and eating connect to the theme of the moral imagination and the problem of hyper-rationalism, and an overly technocratic view of the world.
One of the things I like about Jay’s book is that it is not only about eating well, but how to live a fasting, feasting lifestyle throughout the year and throughout your life. Jay connects fasting, prayer, and feasting to the liturgical calendar and suggests 3 main principles:
· Eat moderately most of the time
· Fast some of the time
· Feast occasionally
Biography
Jay Richards, Ph.D., O.P., is an Assistant Research Professor in the School of Business and Economics at The Catholic University of America, Executive Editor of The Stream and a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute where he works with the Center on Wealth, Poverty, and Morality. He is author of many books including the New York Times bestsellers Infiltrated (2013) and Indivisible (2012), as well as Money, Greed, and God (winner of a 2010 Templeton Enterprise Award), and The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom that J.R.R. Tolkien Got and the West Forgot, which he co-authored with Jonathan Witt. His latest book, The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines, argues we need a new model for how ordinary people can thrive in this age of mass economic disruption. Richards dispatches myths about capitalism, greed, and upward mobility and tells the stories of how real individuals have begun to rebuild a culture of virtue through creativity, resilience, and empathy.
Richards has a Ph.D., with honors, in philosophy and theology from Princeton Theological Seminary. He also has an M.Div. (Master of Divinity), a Th.M. (Master of Theology), and a B.A. with majors in Political Science and Religion. He lives with his family in the Washington DC Metro area.
Resources
See books below
Sean Omara —eating, fasting, exercise including sprinting
Nassim Taleb on GMO’s and Precautionary Principle
On Prayer: Matthew Leonard— Next Level Catholic Academy — Science of Sainthood
Eat, Fast, Feast: Heal Your Body While Feeding Your Soul―A Christian Guide to Fasting
By Richards, Jay W.
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration
By Weston A. Price
By Sally Fallon, Mary G. Enig
Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition
By Miller, Michael J., Bunge, Gabriel
By Fung, Dr. Jason
By Taubes, Gary
Prayer Works: Getting a Grip on Catholic Spirituality
By Leonard, Matthew
The Big Fat Surprise (Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet)
By Teicholz, Nina
Ep. 30: Jay Richards: Fasting, Prayer, and Ketosis: How Modern Science and Ancient Christian Tradition Support a Fasting Lifestyle & Help Us Put Food in its Proper Place