Food Vs Religion

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Food is one of the main needs an individual needs in life in order to survive, after oxygen and water. A human can live up to three weeks without food (Spector, 2014). Food as a whole is significant, but not everyone eats or enjoys it in the same way. Food is a universal thing that people can connect through. People eat differently depending on all sorts of factors, gender, ethnicity, location, what they want and prefer, and in the case of this question, religion. Whether people follow a religion or not, it does change the believer's diet. What exactly is a religion? The Dictionary of Sociology defines religion as "a set of beliefs, symbols, and practices (for example rituals), which is based on the idea of the sacred, and which unites believers …show more content…
These beliefs can be portrayed with the significance of food as either a sacred symbol or forbidden (ibid). The relationship between some religions and food can be straightforward, restricted or complex. Preparation of food can be done in a certain way for specific religions. When it comes to food, there are times where it is used for feast or fast days, for ritual or dietary laws and when it comes to religion, no religion is exactly the same when it comes to the topic of food. Three religions and their connection with food will be discussed, Christianity, Buddhism and Islam, with some reference to other religions. Christianity is more about talking and celebrating Jesus than focusing too much on food (Crain, n.d.). While Buddhists don’t have a God per say they value living beings greatly, which causes them to have a strict diet (Buddhanet, n.d.). Finally, Islam, alongside their restriction to food for Ramadan, meat preparation is important according to the Quran, however, this isn’t the case for the most popular religion (Qaraḍāwī, 1999: …show more content…
Christianity, unlike other religions, is very simple as it’s all about one person, that person being Jesus, the Son of God. They follow the Bible that has all these guides for life and tells them that they are sinners by nature and by choice (Crain, n.d.). It tells believers what actions are sins and what is acceptable and it is the same case when it comes to food. The connection between Christianity and food isn’t too complicated, there aren’t any restrictions and food doesn’t have to be prepared in a particular way. However, in earlier times, meat and dairy products were avoided for a large percentage of the year but now it’s mostly about Fish Friday (Villarrubia, 2010). Fish Friday is about the avoidance of meat on Fridays, fish is allowed because it’s sacred as both a food and a symbol. It’s sacred as a food because Jesus fed 5000 people with two fishes (ibid). A symbol because back then Christians would draw a fish in the ground as a way to find other Christians because it was dangerous to admit their religion in public (ibid). In Christianity, there’s a period of Lent, where one fasts from both food and festivities (BBC, 2009). One must give something up for the period of Lent, which is usually the forty days that comes before Easter. It’s forty days long because Jesus spent that long fasting in the wilderness (ibid). Giving something up for Lent is a form of
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