The whole “Daniel fast” thing as modernly imagined by a few (see http://danielfast.wordpress.com/daniel-fast-food-list/) seems like a fad of modern application rather than any insight into the kind of fast Daniel actually practiced. It is also rather inconsistent. On that web site, the proponent keeps waffling between saying “water only” and “fruit and vegetable juice is ok”. This is grossly inconsistent. If you can eat fruits and vegetables and especially vegetable and fruit juices then it seems inconsistent to say that you would not also be able to eat raw sugar (which is just evaporated juice of canes!). I think someone has tried to inject modern dietary ideas into the concept rather than just trying to understand what Daniel was talking about. For example, within the context in which Daniel lived, I don’t think people would have generalized “flesh” to “any animal protein”. I may be wrong.
My guess is that Daniel was primarily doing a complete fast – water only – and only occasionally took in some nourishment to keep up enough strength and health, but in doing so he restricted himself to only foods that were expedient for that purpose and not for the pleasure of eating. He might have had a nut a day. He might have drank a measure of milk each morning. He might have only come off of his water-only diet every few days by eating an apple and some cheese. He didn’t eat any meat, bread that was more pleasant than others, or wine. To me, it’s just that simple. I don’t think he would have called it a “fast” if he merely abstained from pleasant foods. The point is that he was fasting, and sometimes broke the fast by eating only foods that were not “choice foods”. A fast is not a special diet. It is abstaining from eating. That’s what it means! So if he fasted, he was abstaining from eating. If he points out specific foods that he didn’t eat, then it implies he did eat some other types. So his fast was not total. But in order for it to be a fast at all, Daniel would have been skipping the vast majority of his meals. That’s my interpretation, anyway.
The idea of no bread seems likely to match what he would have done – culturally, he would not have eaten any leavened bread (but he might very well have eaten unleavened – i.e., whole-grain crackers or flat-bread). The idea of no wine suggests that Daniel would not have drunk any fruit juice, contrary to this modern idea of a “Daniel fast”. The idea of no flesh does not, in any way to my mind, suggest no dairy products (again injecting modern fads into the interpretation) nor a lack of oils or fats in the diet. I don’t know about eggs, which I generally hate anyway, but eat in diluted form sometimes just for the protein.
For me personally, I find it much more difficult to keep fasting if I am eating anything at all, because it increases hunger. Every few days (hours?) you might need a little something to “jump start” your body’s metabolism, to help it to burn its own fat instead of muscle. But a diet rich in high-glycemic carbohydrates, such as what most people will partake in by eating lots of fruits, will actually make you hungrier than you would normally be on a balanced diet. Maybe that’s part of the point – you are torturing yourself on a “Daniel fast” by forcing your body to crave food while fasting. But I don’t like that idea, and I certainly don’t need to gain weight by fasting. A little diluted fruit juice spread out during a fast can keep you going. Folks who have no body fat to spare, or other health reasons for not doing a water-only fast, probably have little choice but to use a “restricted diet” sort of fast. But if you’re going to be eating regularly, it would be much better to eat only protein, fiber, and fat (i.e., low carb). That way, you would suffer minimal distraction from hunger, and you could get by eating less. When sticking with water only, hunger actually goes away, for the most part, and weakness becomes the main struggle. It seems to me that that aspect of fasting is part of what makes it work so well. Some folks find the “weakness” part to be an important spiritual benefit, in that it forces you to daily require on the supernatural grace of God to function. But I think that’s going beyond what a fast is generally about.
It is the complete removal of eating from your normal routine that is so shocking and enlightening, not the restriction of a diet, and not the hunger. It shows you how much your life revolves around eating, and how comforting it is. When you take that away, you’re experiencing most of the spiritual benefits of a fast. You suppress the reign of your body over your soul, thus lowering the volume of the voice of your “flesh” (the mind-body connection through which our sinful nature influences us), so that your soul can pay more attention to the voice of your spirit. If you keep on eating, then, well, you may be dieting, but it sure doesn’t seem like fasting to me. You only alter the means of appeasing your body’s demands, but you still end up meeting them (the fundamental demands, anyway). So it just doesn’t seem effective, from a theoretical point of view. YMMV.
To my mind, the only way to salvage this notion of a “Daniel fast” is to combine it within regularly skipping meals. So if every day, a person skips 2 meals, then eats one according to a “Daniel fast”, then that could provide the most of the spiritual benefit. And what does that do for you beyond just skipping 2 meals a day and eating only 1, without restricting what you eat? The restriction of what you eat could theoretically prevent you from looking forward so much to the joy of eating that one meal, prevent slipping into a “feast during the fast” sort of pattern (as is seen among Muslims). But this modern idea of eating lots of sweet fruit kind of counters that notion. It would seem more effective if each person just decided for themselves what they could eat to keep nourished but without the pleasure of eating, and avoiding the foods they personally enjoy or may be somewhat “addicted” to – eat that only as needed during the fast, being sure to at least skip 1 meal every day. That makes sense to me. The Daniel Fast does not. But then, whatever a person does to convince oneself “I am being serious in seeking God” can be effective in boosting their faith – that can be kneeling or laying prostrate during prayer, jumping up and down, praying in tongues, or whatever works. And a Daniel Fast might similarly help a person’s focus. But as a fast, it seems like an inferior approach.
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