Vitamins and Fasting

[Matthew]

Question:

Does anyone know if individual vitamins or multivitamins, mineral supplements, or capsules like Omega 3, vitamin E, D, etc are forbidden during fasts? If so, which ones?

[Maria]

Question:

Does anyone know if individual vitamins or multivitamins, mineral supplements, or capsules like Omega 3, vitamin E, D, etc are forbidden during fasts? If so, which ones?

This is an ask your priest question.

However, if health issues are present, even the partaking of meat on a fast day would be allowed by economia.
There are elderly monks on Mt. Athos who need to eat meat, and for them, this is a penance, but permission is granted to them by their Elders due to health concerns.

[Matthew]

Thanks Maria. Actually, I am only asking if there is any common approach or standard on taking supplements for just general good health maintenance during fast periods - and not for medicating any pressing medical conditions, per se. I have read that large doses of Vitamin D3 and C are good for avoiding getting colds and flu, and also that taking Omega 3 is good for metabolic stability.

[jgress]

Why would vitamins be forbidden?

[Matthew]

Well, Omega 3 is found naturally in oily fish. Other vitamins and minerals might be ones normally found only in red meat or other animal or dairy products. And if you are fasting would that be considered breaking the fast if you get those same nutrients without actually tasting the meat fish or dairy? (i.e. is that cheating? is it keeping the letter of the law but violating the spirit of it?) I do not know if any of those pharmaceutically produced multivitamins or other supplements are actually derived from animal products, though. I am just asking out of a desire to be sure that there is nothing wrong in it in the sight of the Church's established approach to the matter.

[jgress]

I'm not aware of any consensus. Sounds like another question for your spiritual father.

[Matthew]

Yes, many areas are not written decisively but have a more pastoral and flexible nature, and I guess this is one of those things. That is what is different about Orthodoxy from the RCC. Thanks for your input.