Lent begins: For many citizens, chocolate, beer, TV and plastic will end for 40 days.
Dorfen/Taufkirchen
– The annual Lent is a good opportunity for many people to give their body and mind a kind of “reset”.
But what should you do without in the 40 days of the Passion?
In addition to sweets, alcohol or meat, "climate fasting" is also in trend this year.
Lent begins today for believers and ends on Easter Saturday, i.e. after 46 days.
However, the six Sundays are exempt from fasting.
That leaves 40 days of fasting.
"The point of the whole thing is not a slimming diet, even if losing weight is always a nice side effect," says Juliane Eschler, parish secretary of the Catholic parish of Maria Dorfen.
"It's about a more conscious life, about coming to terms with yourself, your fellow human beings and God."
Eschler wants to do without the classics: alcohol and chocolate, and meat during the week.
Gluttony and excess, she describes it as "lust for the flesh", which has to be overcome these days: "It's not easy.
Renunciation - the word is difficult to digest in our time."
"The purpose of fasting is to prepare for the resurrection of the Saviour, the greatest festival of Christians, during Passiontide," explains Father Paul Krutschek from Taufkirchen.
The pastor of the Pauli-Bekehr church rarely drinks alcohol, he is a "sweetheart".
Father Paul will fast on chocolate and gummy bears.
It's about giving up old habits.
"On a diet, you shed the old man by losing weight — that's the human side.
When fasting spiritually, we should think about our non-Christian behavior.” And that is daily, according to the pastor: “Lent and Easter are actually only the culmination of the year.”
Fasting is trendy: Alcohol and sweets are the most popular forms of mortification.
Followed by doing without smartphones, tablets and other technology.
And serial junkies also often practice abstinence.
"Kima fasting" is also currently popular, and both "Misereor" and "Brot für die Welt" are calling for this.
Beate Lübsch from Dorfen sums it up: “Each of us throws away an average of 75 kilograms of food every year.
That's the equivalent of about two fully packed shopping trolleys.” Most of it was previously in plastic packaging.
"Only a small part of it is recycled in such a way that a new product is created." The larger part is burned, and plastic also ends up in the sea.
“If we keep going like this, by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish.
It's frightening, especially since plastic waste hardly decomposes for centuries," says the environmental engineer.
For nutritionist Gertraud Steinleitner, Lent begins in the supermarket: “How much plastic packaging do I actually buy?” asks the woman from Dorfen.
Because the asparagus from Greece is just as often wrapped in foil as blueberries or avocados from South America.
Especially when you're on a diet, you should shop consciously and regionally: "Never fill the fridge, but think carefully beforehand about what should actually be on the table," she advises.
"Then you don't get tempted so easily."
From a medical point of view, the 40 days of abstinence are the most important time of the year, says Steinleitner.
"No alcohol, no sugar, little sausage and meat products - a simple diet is very healthy." She also advises three meals a day instead of constant feeding in between.
With this diet you not only lose weight: “Sugar is poison for the body, alcohol anyway.
The quantity makes the difference with all foods - and when it comes to health, less is usually more.”