Why Fast?: The Pros and Cons of Restrictive Eating

by Christine Baumgarthuber

A sober engagement with the diverse meanings of intermittent fasting in human culture.
 
Fasting from food is a controversial, dangerous, and yet utterly normal human practice. In Why Fast? , Christine Baumgarthuber engages our fascination with restrictive eating in cultural history. If fasting offers few health benefits, why do people fast? Why have we always fasted? Does fasting speak to something deep and immutable within us? Why are our bodies so well adapted to intermittent fasting? And, what might this ancient, ascetic ritual offer us today? Thoughtful and considered, Why Fast? is a sober reconsideration of a contentious practice.

184 pages, Paperback

Published August 29, 2023

About the author

I hold a doctorate in English Literature from Brown University. My work has been featured by Dissent, Lapham’s Quarterly Roundtable, Bon Appétit, MAX JOSEPH, the British Broadcasting Corporation, and I have appeared on Heritage Radio Network’s A Taste of the Past. I am currently at work on a book on the history and science of fasting for health.

I also keep The Austerity Kitchen, which can be found at https://www.theausteritykitchen.com.

And you can sign up for my Substack at https://theausteritykitchen.substack....