{"podcast":{"title":"Food for Thought with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau","slug":"food-for-thought-with-colleen-patrick-goudreau-690262","podcast_index_feed_id":690262,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/4181004/s/255172.rss","website_url":"https://www.colleenpatrickgoudreau.com/s/food-for-thought","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/4181004/s/255172/3f96240e62438955f12c259dfe515465.jpg","author":"Colleen Patrick-Goudreau","episode_count":499,"summary":"Hosted by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau since 2006. One of the longest running podcasters, Colleen brings listeners a regular dose of inspiring content related to food, wellness, sustainability, eating, cooking, traveling, nutrition, language, zero waste living, literature, history, film, animals, advocacy, and so much more.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/food-for-thought-with-colleen-patrick-goudreau-690262"},"episode":{"title":"Forbidden Meat: Fasting and Abstinence During Advent (Rebroadcast)","slug":"forbidden-meat-fasting-and-abstinence-during-advent-rebroadcast","published_at":"2025-12-06T02:06:13+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/food-for-thought-with-colleen-patrick-goudreau-690262/forbidden-meat-fasting-and-abstinence-during-advent-rebroadcast","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/food-for-thought-with-colleen-patrick-goudreau-690262","url":"https://www.colleenpatrickgoudreau.com/p/forbidden-meat-fasting-and-abstinence","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/180852431/3287e66ee80936f5b0a58becf7a365b4.mp3","summary":"This podcast is listener-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In this episode of Food for Thought , I explore the long, often-forgotten history of abstaining from meat during Advent and other Christian fasting periods, and how that tradition actually aligns beautifully with a modern vegan lifestyle. Drawing from my own Catholic upbringing, I look at how rites and rituals like Lent and Advent once emphasized simplicity, self-restraint, and giving up animal products, and how language, church rules, and holiday foods still carry traces of that history. I also invite listeners—religious or not—to consider their own version of conscious “fasting,” and I touch on traditional Advent/Christmas foods like Stollen that grew out of these practices. Here’s the video version of the introduction to the re-broadcast: In this episode, you’ll learn: * Historically, Christians spent more days not eating meat (and often other animal products) than eating it, especially around Lent and Advent. * The idea that being vegan is “incompatible” with culture or religion is new; religious abstinence from animal products is centuries old. * Words like “Carnival” (from carne levare – “remove meat”) and traditions like Meatfare/Cheesefare Sundays reflect this meatless history. * Advent used to be a serious season of fasting and abstinence, not just a time of treats, shopping, and countdown calendars. * Different Christian traditions (especially Eastern and Ethiopian Orthodox) still practice very strict, essentially vegan fasts for many days of the year. * Over time, church rules relaxed, and meat-eating became normalized and constant, while fasting became optional or symbolic. * You don’t have to be religious to embrace the spirit of fasti…","meta_description":"This podcast is listener-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. In this episode of Food for Tho…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3706,"processing_state":"processed","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/food-for-thought-with-colleen-patrick-goudreau-690262/episodes/forbidden-meat-fasting-and-abstinence-during-advent-rebroadcast/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/food-for-thought-with-colleen-patrick-goudreau-690262/forbidden-meat-fasting-and-abstinence-during-advent-rebroadcast.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}