Daniel Fast, Really?

I want to go ahead and fire-up a warning shot. If you’re on the Daniel Fast right now with your church or just by yourself, don’t read this blog until you finish. Because if you’re doing it and you read what I’m about to say, I don’t want to be responsible for you breaking your fast. If you do break it, it’s just because you’re hungry so don’t use me as the excuse just because you want some meat. I warned you, OK? Alright, here we go...

One thing that really bothers me about fasting (besides the whole “going without food thing” haha) is how people talk about the Daniel Fast. There are actually cookbooks for people based on the Daniel Fast with actual recipes for people who are on this particular fast. I wonder if Daniel, ever in a million years, imagined that his fast would be immortalized like is has been in American Christendom? And I wonder how we (christians) get what we call the Daniel Fast from scripture? Seriously, I do.
I remember getting scolded by a sweet lady at our church (if there was ever a group labeled “the fasting nazi’s” she could definitely be a part of their club, for sure) because I had mentioned eating white rice while I was on the Daniel Fast. But she set me straight. How was I to know that I was only suppose to eat brown rice on the Daniel Fast? I mean, scripture clearly tells us “only eat brown rice, not white rice”, right?... so how did I ever miss that? And how was I suppose to know that I couldn’t use seasoning on my food too? How was I suppose to know that? The Bible clearly says not to, right? What about Mrs. Dash? That’s an all natural seasoning, so could I use that? Man, this is way too confusing.
I guess I really need to pray that God reveals His word to me in a deeper way because when I read about the fast that Daniel was on all I read is:

“In those days I, Daniel, was mourning for 3 weeks. I ate no delicacies, no meat or wine entered my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, for the full 3 weeks.”
Daniel 10:2-3

That’s all it says. Period. So, how do we come-up with all the recipes in the Daniel Fast Cookbooks that we see in the christian bookstores? And how can you say that the Daniel Fast only consists of fruits and vegetables? And where does the whole brown rice and not white, no fried foods, no dressing on my salad, no seasoning on my veggies come in? And why do we leave out the whole “not anointing ourself for 3 weeks part of the Daniel Fast?”
How can we possible feel rock-solid (by saying we’re pulling all our info from scripture) and be so dogmatic about what is allowed and what isn’t? I think we’re missing the whole spirit of what Daniel was doing anyway. By him denying himself and adopting an ascetic lifestyle, it was his way of saying, “I’m going to deny myself anything pleasing as a way of needing to hear from God.” That’s it. He wasn’t trying to eat everything he could (as long as it was in the fruit or vegetable family) either. He was doing the minimum (just eating to survive, not eating anything that was pleasurable) when it came to food for the 21 days.
I did a Google search on “Daniel Fast Recipes” and it came back with 1,660,000 results! I went on one of the links and was actually laughing at some of the stuff on there. These people were preparing all natural meatless, cheese-less, bread-less meals that could be prepared in a gourmet restaurant! These meals weren’t only awesome but they were beautiful (the pictures of them online, that is). Seriously? For some reason I don’t think those things are part of a fast as much as they are diets.
So what is the Daniel Fast? I think that’s something only you can really decide. Not something that someone else has in some cookbook. The goal shouldn’t be eating as much stuff as possible without stepping over the imaginary line, but our attitude should be to eat as little and as pleasureless as possible so that we can hear from God, if that’s really our goal. But what do I know... I ate the white rice instead of the brown. So you better not listen to me: )

Happy Fasting!
Jim