Consequently, hosting a lavish banquet or ordering lobster is no longer a sufficient signifier of status; today, a sign of true wealth is the ability to forgo food entirely. Eating essentially betrays a person’s most basic human needs; in an era obsessed with ‘self-optimisation’, not eating suggests that a person is somehow ‘beyond’ needs and has achieved total mastery of their body with a heightened capacity for efficiency and focus.
“There is a history in Judeo-Christian societies – and likely in many other religions, hence the widespread practice of fasting – where demonstrating a lack of need for material things, especially food, and being able to demonstrate self-control and discipline are signs of spiritual transcendence,” Dr Woolhouse says. Famously, Italian saint Catherine of Siena would fast for prolonged periods of time as a means of demonstrating her devotion to God through extreme self-control. “But there’s also a class dimension to this,” Dr Woolhouse continues, “because being able to demonstrate a lack of need for material goods, like food, suggests social transcendence too; it’s symbolic of living a life whereby our material needs aren’t a daily concern.” She adds that “fad diets are very unlikely to take off in societies where there are food shortages or food insecurity.”
It’s still jarring to watch celebrities openly admit to fasting for 23 hours a day or taking 14 different supplement pills in lieu of a balanced breakfast. “It normalises and sanctions practises that in other contexts would be regarded as eating disordered,” Dr Woolhouse says. “When eating practices are packaged as ‘done in the name of health’, they are more socially acceptable and difficult to contest.” She points out that a normal teenage girl restricting her diet in the same way as Johnson would likely be regarded as ill and in need of medical intervention. “What we, as a society, regard as ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ eating is contextual and largely rides on how those eating practices are framed.”
It’s obvious but bears reiterating that extreme, fad diet trends are both ineffectual and dangerous. But this trend isn’t really about food or health. It’s about performance. It’s a way for the moneyed classes to signal their wealth and status and posture as above us mere mortals who debase ourselves by eating.
Does anyone else here get weirdly gassy when they're fasting? It's a problem for me every year during Ramadan and even when I only fast on singular days, I end up farting up a storm. Feels like something that shouldn't happen, since if my bowels are empty, I shouldn't be producing nearly as much gas.
That's pretty normal (but not true for everyone because of the uniqueness and individuality of our gut micriobiomes). The first thing to know is that your bowels aren't actually empty for quite a while after you stop eating, there's still plenty in there to process. For most people, what kind of marks the end of what's left of the food in there is when they have diarrhea about 2-5 days into a true fast. Even then, your gut lining is still constantly growing, dying, and shedding, just like your skin, and fasting can make that shedding happen faster and more efficiently. It's literally exfoliation for the gut, but that's not really relevant until it's been a few days since you've eaten anything.
What actually causes gas, as you probably know, is the bacteria in your gut processing what's in there. Your gas is the product of their digestion. They're still doing their thing to the remaining food (which again, there is still a substantial amount of for days into a fast) and your exfoliating intestines even when you're fasting. The thing to understand here is that when you fast, your gut micriobiome will change in response to the changed conditions it's experiencing. This takes some time to balance out, since your micriobome is an entire ecosystem of competing species adapting to that relatively sudden change. This temporary imbalance is the biggest (but not the only) reason for the increase in gas when you start fasting, as bacteria types that used to be in the minority are now in overabundance, like an algae bloom in a pond. People who eat beans all the time usually don't get gassy from eating a bean burrito for dinner since their microbiome is adapted to that, but someone with an unadapted gut will get major gas from the same burrito. Fasting can actually be a fairly similar scenario in terms of the sudden change.
Long story short, there's so much more going on here than just the volume of food you ate. Hope that helps.
Happens to my mom if she doesn't eat. She says it's because she ends up swallowing lots of air.
Yeah, that's not the reason. The gas that causes flatulence has essentially nothing to do with swallowing air. If you want to nerd out on her the next time she says that, see my response to CTHlurker.
With me its the opposite experience. When I'm fasting I can eat foods that other people report as making them gassy with impunity. I mean chickpeas, beans, eggs and the like.
I have no clue as to what should be normal, so maybe a doctor could give you some pointers.
Eating chickpeas without getting gassy, what are you, a god?
I genuinely think its the fasting that does it, lol.