A multi-faceted, clear-eyed history and assessment of fasting.

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.