Editor’s Note

Food never tastes as good as it does after a fast, but that’s really not the point of the trendy health fad that’s gained a lot of attention in the last few years; intermittent fasting.

As we know, most religions have some form of fast in their tenets as a way of focusing on the more spiritual part of life, as opposed to satisfying needs. In religious fasting, though, periods of food abstinence are usually followed by feasting —a serious mitigation of the health benefits of going without eating for a while.

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey went through a period of fasting for 22 hours of the day. He called it biohacking and claimed it increased his productivity. Mark Wahlberg does an 18-hour fast five days a week; Hugh Jackman fasts to prepare for his “hero” roles.

Chris Hemsworth fasted for four days as part of Nat Geo’s Disney+ series Limitless; Elon Musk “tweeted” on X that he practices intermittent fasting, so does Jennifer Aniston, Scarlett Johansson and Kourtney Kardashian. Though, from what you read in the gossip columns, some are switching to the less challenging weight loss option (though possibly more dangerous in terms of side effects) —of spiking Ozempic.

Said the authors of Mad(e) in India, Tarika Roy and Soumya Gupta, “Abstinence from food, sex, and other basic human cravings is meant to help you dwell on the bigger mysteries that have confounded mankind — the purpose of existence, the meaning of life, the transient effervescence of our being and ... what your partner really meant when they said, ‘I’m not mad at you’ this morning.”