ritual fasting
Sacred food denial
Ritual fasting is abstaining from food or certain foods as a religious or spiritual practice.
Unlike fasting for health or weight loss, ritual fasting connects to observance, purification, or devotion: Ritual fasting during Ramadan means no food or water from dawn to sunset.
Many traditions prescribe specific periods—Lent, Yom Kippur, Buddhist uposatha days—when practitioners fast to mark sacred time or demonstrate discipline.
- LentChristian fasting season
- forty daysScriptural trial duration
- RamadanNinth Islamic month
- sunrise to sunsetPeriod of natural light
- Yom KippurAnnual Jewish atonement observance
Tisha B'Av · vision quest · Navratri · spiritual practice · Ash Wednesday · asceticism · discipline · fasters · empty stomach · purification rites · Good Friday · holy day · religious observance · dawn · abstain · hunger · spiritual cleansing · penance
- religious dietvegetarianism, lacto-vegetarian, no meat, meatless, food purity
- Mesoamerican ritualshuman sacrifice, blood sacrifice, bloodletting, sun worship, fertility rites
- Vedic ritualssacred fire, oblation, sacred vessel, sacrificial fire, libations
- Ritual Purificationmikveh, lustration, purification rites, purification ceremony, holy water blessing
- Pagan HolidaysSamhain, Beltane, fire festivals, Midsummer
- Pueblo culturekachinas, kiva, pueblo, adobe, rain dance
ritual fastingfeasting
Eating sumptuously together
banqueting · gluttony · gorging · bingeing · overindulgence
ritual fastingEucharist
Sacramental bread and wine
communion meal · potlatch · feast day · religious festival · religious feast
ritual fastinghedonism
Pursuit of gratification
indulgence · sensual pleasure · epicureanism · debauchery · self-indulgence