During Orthodox fasts you avoid meat, dairy, and eggs. That’s the baseline. On stricter days you also skip fish, olive oil, and wine. What’s left? Vegetables, fruits, grains, beans, nuts, and usually shellfish.
It sounds restrictive at first. But think of it this way: you’re eating what humans ate for most of history before refrigeration made meat and cheese everyday foods. Lentil soup. Rice and beans. Pasta with marinara. Hummus and pita. Peanut butter sandwiches. Oatmeal with fruit. Stir-fried vegetables over rice. Most cuisines around the world have dozens of dishes that fit Orthodox fasting because most people couldn’t afford animal products at every meal.
The Basic Rules
Meat means anything with a backbone that lived on land or flew in the air. Beef, pork, chicken, turkey, venison. All out during fasts.
Dairy means milk, cheese, butter, yogurt, ice cream. Eggs too. These come from animals, so they’re part of what we’re setting aside.
Fish gets more complicated. Fish with fins and scales, what you’d catch in the Gulf or buy at the seafood counter, is often allowed on feast days that fall during a fast, but restricted on strict days. Shellfish (shrimp, crab, oysters) is generally allowed even when finfish isn’t. Yes, that means you can have gumbo during Lent if you make it with shrimp or crab instead of sausage. Southeast Texas fasting has its advantages.
Olive oil and wine are restricted on the strictest days but allowed on most regular fast days. This isn’t about alcohol, it’s about richness and celebration. A drizzle of olive oil makes food more festive. On strict days we eat simply.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Breakfast might be oatmeal with almond milk, fruit, and nuts. Or toast with peanut butter and jam. Or a smoothie made with plant milk.
Lunch could be a big salad with chickpeas, a bean burrito, vegetable soup with bread, or leftovers from last night’s stir-fry.
Dinner is where you get creative. Red beans and rice. Spaghetti with marinara. Black bean tacos. Vegetable curry. Baked potatoes loaded with salsa and avocado. Minestrone. Falafel wraps. Thai peanut noodles. The list goes on.
You can find Orthodox fasting cookbooks, but honestly most of what you need is already in regular cookbooks under “vegetarian” or “vegan” sections. Just check that recipes don’t sneak in butter or cheese.
Strict Days vs. Regular Fast Days
Great and Holy Friday is the strictest day of the year. Many people eat nothing until after the service, or only bread and water. Certain weekdays in Great Lent are also kept more strictly in some parishes.
Regular fast days, Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year, most days during the four fasting seasons, follow the basic pattern of no meat, dairy, or eggs, but oil and wine are typically fine. Your parish may have specific guidance about when fish is allowed.
Here’s what matters: this isn’t about earning salvation through perfect rule-keeping. St. Basil the Great warned against fasting from food while “feasting” on anger and judgment. The food rules are a tool. They’re meant to help you gain control over your appetites, make space for prayer, and remember that you’re dependent on God, not on comfort and abundance.
Starting Out
If you’re new to Orthodoxy, don’t try to go from zero to full strictness overnight. Start with Wednesdays and Fridays. Just those two days, no meat or dairy. See how it goes. Talk to your priest about what’s realistic for your situation.
Some people can’t fast fully because of health conditions, pregnancy, nursing, medication that requires food, or physically demanding jobs. That’s not failure. The Church has always made pastoral exceptions. A diabetic who needs protein at every meal isn’t less Orthodox for eating chicken on Wednesday. A roughneck working a 12-hour shift offshore needs to eat what keeps him safe on the rig.
The point isn’t suffering for suffering’s sake. It’s retraining your will. It’s learning that you can say no to something you want. It’s making your body serve your soul instead of the other way around.
The Bigger Picture
Fasting never stands alone in Orthodox practice. It’s always linked with prayer and almsgiving. You fast from food, you increase your prayer, and you give what you save to someone who needs it. That’s the pattern the Fathers teach.
During Lent we attend more services. We pray more at home. We go to confession. We read Scripture and spiritual books. We try to be kinder, more patient, less enslaved to our phones and our irritations. The food part supports all of that. When you’re not thinking about what tastes good, you have more mental space for what matters.
And when you do break the fast, at Pascha, at Christmas, on Sundays during Lent, the feast means something. You’ve been waiting. You’ve been preparing. The richness of the feast connects to the richness of what we’re celebrating: Christ’s resurrection, His incarnation, the Kingdom breaking into our world.
Talk to your priest about your personal situation. Get a fasting calendar from the parish. Try some new recipes. And remember that everyone struggles with this at first. That’s normal. You’re not trying to be perfect. You’re trying to be a little more free.
