What are the Catholic food requirements?

Answer 1

Catholics may eat any type of food, except on Ash Wednesday and on Fridays during Lent when they are not allowed to eat meat (excluding fish and seafood, which is not considered to be meat).

AnswerThe Old Testament, which faithful Jews kept, forbids certain foods as unclean or abominable:

Pork is unclean --"And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you." (Leviticus 11:7)

Shellfish is an abomination --"And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you . . . ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcasses in abomination." (Leviticus 11:10-11)

Rabbit is also unclean --"And the coney, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you. And the hare . . . he is unclean unto you." (Leviticus 11:5-6) Notice that the biblical writers erroneously thought rabbits chew the cud.

How about Locusts. --Since ham and lobster are verboten to bible believers, how about some barbecued grasshopper or steamed locust for dinner? "Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind." (Leviticus 11:22) "And the same John [the Baptist] had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was locusts and wild honey." (Matthew 3:4)

But the New Testament opens all foods to Christians:

"Thus he [Jesus] declared all foods clean." Mark 7:19

The Acts of the Apostles and the letter of Saint Paul to the Galatians particularly describe the resolution of this dispute in the early Church. Saint Peter particularly grasped this revelation on with considerable difficulty. Nevertheless, nowadays Catholics may eat any type of food.

Canon law, in keeping with Church tradition, prescribes fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. In the Latin rite, it also mandates abstinence (from carnis--the Latin word for the flesh of birds and mammals) on Ash Wednesday and all Fridays except solemnities (Easter Friday, Sacred Heart, and, for example, Christmas Day or Immaculate Conception).

The local bishop may require additional days of fasting or abstinence. The bishops also may allow individual Catholics to perform a different act of penitence or charity on Fridays outside Lent as a substitute for abstinence from flesh of birds and mammals; the bishops in the United States of America have exercised this option. Moreover, the local bishop may refine the definition of

carnis; some allow (or historically allowed) the flesh of whales and other marine mammals, puffins and other seabirds, and even aquatic rodents; others may disallow, for example, snake or alligator.

Eastern Catholics observe a stricter schedule of fasting and abstinence.

Answer

A Catholic can eat most any food. Jesus said that what you eat does not make you impure only one's thoughts and fixations do that.

Answer 2

Catholics do not have special dietary rules and regulations, so can eat anything they desire.

The Roman Catholic Church does specify that on some days the faithful should fast or abstain. This requirement specifies the amount of food consumed, not the type. Many Catholics observe a "fish on Fridays" especially in Lent, however, this is again not mandated, but rather a personal decision to modify eating behavior.

Answer 3

Catholics have no prescribed diet and are allowed to eat anything in moderation. There are a few days - namely Ash Wednesday and Good Friday - when Catholics must fast and abstain from eating meat. All Fridays in Lent are also meatless. Catholics are no longer required to abstain from meat on other Fridays during the year but are encouraged to do so. The above practices are valid for the United States. Other countries may follow a different prescribed schedule of fasting and abstinence depending on the local ordinary.

Answer 4

The food that is eaten at mass is not considered food per se.

The food is considered as 'bread and wine' until a certain point in the mass it is viewed as 'the body and blood' of the Lord (Jesus Christ). At that certain point, the celebrant (usually Priest or Bishop) makes the sign of the cross over the bread and wine and at the same times says: "Lord, let your spirit come upon these gifts so that they may become for us the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ..."

Answer 5

Catholics have no food restriction in general. Although, as a penance, meat is not eaten on Fridays (For the dioceses of the United States the U.S. bishops have obtained an indult that makes this only during Lent, it has been decided that the laity may choose another form of penance or charity on Fridays outside of Lent, although abstinence from meat is still recommended); and on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday fasting is to be observed by those from 18 to 59.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

"All Fridays through the year and the time of Lent are penitential days and times throughout the entire Church. (CCC 1250)

Abstinence from eating meat or another food according to the prescriptions of the conference of bishops is to be observed on Fridays throughout the year unless (nisi) they are solemnities; abstinence and fast are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and on the Friday of the Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ. (CCC 1251)

All persons who have completed their fourteenth year are bound by the law of abstinence; all adults are bound by the law of fast up to the beginning of their sixtieth year. Nevertheless, pastors and parents are to see to it that minors who are not bound by the law of fast and abstinence are educated in an authentic sense of penance.

(CCC 1252)

It is for the conference of bishops to determine more precisely the observance of fast and abstinence and to substitute in whole or in part for fast and abstinence other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety" (CCC 1253)

Answer 6

Catholics do not eat any special foods because of their religion, other than the Bread of Life, which is the Body and Blood of Our Blessed Lord, Jesus Christ, which He left us in the most Holy Eucharist. - read the entire sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel.

Answer 7

anything, except human of course, but other than that anything.

Answer 8

There are no traditional Catholic foods. Catholics eat about the same thing anyone else in their region eat.

Answer 9

Catholics follow no prescribed diet. They may eat what they wish in moderation.