The Daniel Fast is a religious partial fast that is popular among Evangelical Protestants in North America in which meat, wine, and other rich foods are avoided in favor of vegetables and water for typically three weeks in order to draw the believer closer to |God. The fast is based on the lifelong kosher diet of the Jewishhero Daniel in the BiblicalBook of Daniel and the three-week mourning fast in which Daniel abstained from all meat and wine. A similar observance can be seen with the 40-day season of Lent that is observed by Orthodox, Catholic, and some Mainline Protestant Christians, though the Daniel Fast can be as short as 10 days. The passage in Chapter 1 refers to a 10-day test wherein Daniel and others with him were permitted to eat vegetables and water to avoid the Babylonian king's food and wine. After remaining healthy at the end of the 10-day period, they continued the vegetable diet for the three years of their education. The passage in Chapter 10 refers to a three-week fast of no meat, wine, or rich food.
Description
According to those who encourage this form of fasting, the aim is to refrain from eating what are described in Daniel as "royal foods" including meats and wine. Instead, the diet consists only of vegetables and water. "Pulses" is used instead of "vegetables" in some translations. "Pulses" in this context is often taken as "food grown from seed", including fruit, vegetables or lentils.
Scriptural basis
became king of the Chaldean Empire in 605 BCE. He invaded the IsraeliteKingdom of Judah in 604 BCE, the fifth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah. After Jehoiakim's son Jeconiah became king, Nebuchadnezzar attacked the Israelite capital of Jerusalem in 597 BCE. In the biblical narrative of the first chapter of the Book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar's siege of Jerusalem happened in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, whose successor Jeconiah is not mentioned. Elsewhere in the Bible, Jehoiakim was already dead at the time of the siege of Jerusalem. The first chapter of the Book of Daniel was most likely composed as early as 450 BCE and as late as the 2nd century BCE. In the narrative, the God of the Israelites, Elohim, let King Jehoiakim fall to Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel, three friends, and fellow captives have been brought to the Chaldean capital, the newly rebuilt Babylon, to learn the literature of the Chaldeans. Nebuchadnezzar offered them royal food and wine for the three years of their education. Daniel decided not to defile himself with the royal rations, which included meat that may not have been drained of blood, as required by Jewish law, or that was likely often used as ritual offering to the Babylonian god Marduk and his divine son Nabu. Daniel refused to eat foods forbidden by Elohim and instead asked for vegetables and water. The guard charged with their care expressed concern for their health, so Daniel requested a short test of the diet. For 10 days, they were permitted to eat just vegetables, and at the end, the guard was surprised at their good personal appearance and physical and mental health, compared to those who had accepted the royal foods. Therefore, Daniel and his friends were permitted to eat vegetables for the duration of their training. After continuing with the diet during three years of training, they are judged by the king to be mentally superior to all of his own councilors. in Berlin. Cyrus the Great captured Babylon in 539 BCE, fifty-eight years after the fall of Jerusalem. In the narrative of the tenth chapter of the Book of Daniel, in the third year of the reign of Cyrus, Daniel went into a mourning fast for the first three weeks of the year, including Passover. During the fast, he had no meat, wine, or rich foods. The tenth chapter, and possibly the whole of the Book of Daniel, was composed between 167 and 164 BCE, during the persecution of Jewish people carried out by the Hellenistic King Antiochus IV Epiphanes.
Modern practice
The Daniel Fast became popular as a religious weight-loss diet in the 21st centuryNew Year's resolutions of Evangelical Protestants in the United States and limits food choices to whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, and seeds. The Daniel Fast prescribes the vegan diet in that it excludes the consumption of animal products. The diet also excludes processed foods, additives, preservatives, flavorings, sweeteners, caffeine, alcohol, oils, and products made with white flours. Ellen G. White states that the example of Daniel demonstrates that "a strict compliance with the requirements of God is beneficial to the health of body and mind." In January 2019 Time Magazine reported that Chris Pratt gave it new popularity recently by posting an Instagram story about adopting it as his latest diet."
