Fasting fast food … or is it fast fasting food?

  • It’s the last week­day before Cheese­fare Sun­day and it’s a snow day, so I’m in a big hurry. I already got the bread­maker out and it’s work­ing up a fine, fresh loaf of bread to have with a lot of but­ter. And I’ve got the pot of tea here with milk in it, and I’ve had my bagel with cream cheese. But I just don’t know how I’m going to fit in the grilled cheese and the baked potato with sour cream and the fet­tucini alfredo and the ice cream.

    Oh well. Just part of the price you pay. And I might as well start that tran­si­tion now, chang­ing my think­ing from all those meat and dairy good­ies we’ll have to do with­out to how to meet nutri­tional needs within the stric­tures of the fast. And how do you do that with­out a lot of Big Cook­ing, Big Plan­ning … all that?

    Not that there’s any­thing wrong with that if that’s how you usu­ally oper­ate, but I don’t tend to go to that much trou­ble over what to eat. To ori­ent that much extra atten­tion on my next meal dur­ing Lent seems a bit ironic, and judg­ing from the dis­cus­sion we had at choir prac­tice, oth­ers are think­ing the same thing.

    So here are my thoughts on the food you can do with­out a lot of fuss and muss. They won’t give you enough vari­ety to take you the whole dis­tance, but they’ll get you by in a pinch.

    I’d like to hear from oth­ers what works as “fast­ing fast food” for them. Peo­ple get pretty resource­ful some­times, and shar­ing the tips can be very educational.


    Emer­gency kit — things to keep in the car or in your purse

    • Pack­ages of peanut but­ter crackers
    • Gra­nola bars — I know the Nature Val­ley cin­na­mon one is totally Lenten. I’ll bet there are others

    .
    Things you can grab at a mini-mart

    • Bean bur­rito (check the label). Of course, this only helps if they have a microwave.
    • Fruit juice
    • Fruit and cof­fee (my own weird combo, but the big­ger mini-marts are start­ing to have either apples or bananas in them, and if I have that and a cup of cof­fee, I can go a sur­pris­ingly long time with­out get­ting hungry)
    • Bags of nuts — peanuts, cashews, even the good stuff like sun­flower seeds
    • Chopped veg­gies — you have to skip the ranch dress­ing dip, of course. If you’re in trou­ble, see if the mart has a lit­tle jar of peanut but­ter. Peanut but­ter on cel­ery is pretty good.

    .
    True fast-food

    This one’s tricky. If you’re being absolutely strict, then there prob­a­bly isn’t any­thing you can have at any fast food place. I admit that I don’t get quite that exact — won­der­ing if ingre­di­ents have traces of whey, that sort of thing — but still, the only fast-food I’ve found that works is a plain bean bur­rito and side of rice (hold the cheese) at Taco Bell or the spaghetti mari­nara with shrimp at Fazoli’s.

    But maybe oth­ers have sug­ges­tions for this?

    .
    Quick meals around the house

    • Peanut but­ter and jelly sand­wich — might as well get the obvi­ous choice out of the way
    • Veg­e­tar­ian bean bur­rito — pick up Amy’s or some other vegan brand, or make your own
    • Veg­e­tar­ian nachos — veg­gie refried beans over chips, add toma­toes, let­tuce, salsa and/or gua­camole and heat in a microwave
    • Soy milk and cereal
    • Veg­e­tar­ian burg­ers — 1 minute in the microwave and you’ve got a burger — I love this stuff! Of the Morn­ingstar brand, only the Spicy Black Bean kind is truly Lent-compliant. Not sure for Boca Burgers.
    • Hum­mus and pita — if you make it your­self, you can sub­sti­tute veg­etable oil for olive oil
    • Frozen entree? — I think there may be some Lean Cui­sine pas­tas that are Lent-compliant.
    • Veg­e­tar­ian baked beans and toast
    • Canned soup — read the labels, but you can usu­ally find split pea, tomato, mine­strone, lentil and veg­etable soup that are fast-friendly. Hav­ing it with a high-grain, high-fiber bread with make it sat­isfy your hunger longer.

    .
    Snacks

    • Fruit — fresh, canned or dried
    • Car­rots, cel­ery or other snack­able vegetables
    • Nuts
    • Trail mix — it’s usu­ally not that hard to throw your own together
    • Ani­mal crack­ers, Soy Dream non-dairy ice cream sand­wiches — unless you’re fast­ing from all sweets

    .
    Left­overs that are good to have around

    • Rice — in a pinch, heat­ing up a lit­tle rice and veg­eta­bles together can tide you over. For din­ner, I can usu­ally make up shrimp fried rice in 10 min­utes if I’ve got left­over rice.
    • Pasta — same idea. You can add sauce and heat up in a minute. Although it’s a good idea to try to find some pro­tein to add in, like beans, soy crum­bles or shrimp.
    • Beans and rice — Zataran’s has one or you can make your own
    • Home­made soup — much more sat­is­fy­ing than the canned stuff and you can con­trol the ingre­di­ents. Orthodixie has a cou­ple recipes HERE and I’ve got a con­coc­tion I’ll post soon.
    • Sand­wich mak­ings — most Lenten sand­wiches take a lit­tle more thought, but if you have all the mak­ings, you can put them together quickly. My favorite Lenten sand­wich HERE, Fr. Joseph’s recipes HERE.
    • Jello — As Fr. Joseph men­tions, Jello used to have a trace of meat pro­tein in it, but it doesn’t any­more. If you have it with the non-dairy Kool Whip stuff, you’ll have an almost entirely plas­tic meal. But yummy.

    Bon appetit and happy fasting(?)


    Related posts:

    1. Fast­ing and peace
    2. My favorite tortellini soup
    3. When famous peo­ple fast
    4. Fine lit­tle Lenten sandwich
    5. It’s fall! I’m draw­ing as fast as I can!

    March 7th, 2008 | Grace | 12 Comments |

12 Responses and Counting...

  • DebD 03.07.2008

    These are all very good choices. I’m a bit allergy chal­lenged, so most of what I can share isn’t strict by most stan­dards. But, I fell in love with Almond milk (sweet­ened) with sliced bananas dur­ing Nativ­ity Fast. I am able to pur­chase it at my reg­u­lar gro­cery store which saves the extra trip to the high-priced gra­nola & tree bark type stores.

  • s-p

    Sweet pota­toes with pnut but­ter and brown sugar. Oat­meal with same, with raisins, with gra­nola cereal, baked oat­meal, fried oat­meal, oat­meal on the half-shell. :)
    Every­thing at Taco Bell can be ordered with “beans and no meat or cheese”.

  • Grace

    I for­got all about oat­meal! Hard to believe. I’m not much of a fan, but there’s no doubt it’s a good source of pro­tein. Kind of makes me gag, but not if I bury it under brown sugar.

  • Mimi

    I like raisins in my oat­meal too.

    And, for­give me, my sister.

  • Kyra­lessa

    Another fast-food option we’ve found is Q’doba. One of our favorites dur­ing fast­ing sea­sons is the poblano pesto bur­rito; you can order it with no meat and no cheese, and it still has some flavor.

  • Word­mama

    Re: oat­meal, try the steel-cut vari­ety (as opposed to rolled oats like Quaker). It takes a lit­tle more prep time (half an hour ver­sus ten min­utes), but it feels much more like a real meal, and it doesn’t need milk to make it edi­ble. Yum!

  • James

    The veg­gie bur­ri­tos at Chipo­tle Mex­i­can Grill are great. Just leave off the sour cream and cheese! http://www.chipotle.com

  • w marie

    Sorry to have to tell you this, oat­meal is a car­bo­hy­drate, only 5 grams of protein.

  • Nicode­mus

    Here are some of my favorites:
    — Blue­berry vegan waf­fles (found in big name-brand gro­cery stores in the health food area.
    — You men­tioned soup — I recently dis­cov­ered Campbell’s Chunky New Eng­land Clam Chow­der — I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read the ingre­di­ents — no dairy in this brand (other clam chow­der soup brands do have dairy).
    — Fast food? How about some golden deli­cious french fries!
    — Ritz crack­ers and peanut but­ter; Ritz crack­ers and hum­mus; Ritz crack­ers and jelly…as Andy Grif­fith used to say, “Any­thing taste good when it sits on a Ritz!“
    — You men­tioned peanuts, but for my tastes, the king of all yummy tummy fill­ing nuts is the pis­ta­chio — I always buy a big bag of pis­ta­chios to keep hunger pains at bay.
    — Some­thing I learned from the Greek restau­rant down the street — onions and mush­rooms fried up in mar­garine or vehat­able oil — insert into a well ‘mar­garined’ pita bread pocket and cook at 450 for 5 min — it is deli­cious.
    — And for the junk food junkie: Cornchips, Fritos, Act II But­ter Lovers pop­corn (it doesn’t have but­ter in it — just some sort of weird, unhealthy oil), and pret­zels, pret­zels, pret­zels of all shapes, sizes and crunch-factors

  • Grace

    James & Kyra­lessa: So Mex­i­can fast food can get there. Well, that’s good to know.

  • Grace

    w marie: You’re right. I got that wrong. What I was think­ing of was the fact that it has a high ‘stick to your ribs’ fac­tor. In my case, that’s partly because I’m mak­ing myself eat it. For some rea­son, the food that makes you gag always keeps hunger away longer. I don’t know why that is — very con­trary law of the fast.

  • Grace

    Nicode­mus:
    So many good ideas, so much brilliance!

    I didn’t know about french fries or Ritz crack­ers. Well then, there’s my lunch plan all sorted out. (Kid­ding.) That Greek pita thing sounds really good. I am usu­ally try­ing to fit pro­tein in there any old way I can, but maybe I could team that up with some kind of legume dish. Or add some shrimp in when I’m frying?

    For­got pret­zels! How could I do that? You’re right — VERY nec­es­sary crunch fac­tor. The crunchy-snack thing I’m work­ing out is pret­zels, fried chow mein noo­dles and chopped nuts. It needs work, but it’s fast and satisfying.

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