Obesity has become a worldwide epidemic, especially in affluent and developed societies. Despite intense social pressures to have an ideal physique, rates of obesity continue to increase at alarming rates. The health impact of obesity has been staggering, as it is associated with chronic and life-threatening diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, arthritis, and cancers.

Radical bariatric surgical procedures have become one of the most effective methods in reducing weight in morbidly obese patients.  These surgeries dramatically reduce the capacity of the stomach and impact satiety. However, these surgeries have many risks and carry long-term health consequences as well. No optimal method of prevention has been formulated and adopted to address this growing problem.

The wisdom of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ‎ (peace be upon him) and his approach to eating and satiety can fill volumes of books. One of his narrations sums up the challenge of eating and satiety that can have a profound impact on individuals, communities and whole societies.

It has been narrated that the Prophet ﷺ‎ said, “No man fills a container worse than his stomach. A few morsels that keep his back upright are sufficient for him. If he has to, then he should keep one-third for food, one-third for drink and one-third for his breathing.” (At-Tirmidhi)

This single narration defines the “eating” problem, especially as it relates to an intense struggle with one’s desires, advocates prevention, and provides practical advice.

The first portion of the hadith (narration) warns of the dangers of filling one’s stomach. Not only will there be health consequences, but an impact on our iman (faith). Eating to satiety is the tendency of the nafs (spirit), which ultimately commands to harm. There are indeed strong hunger impulses and satiety hormones that are closely related to the capacity of the stomach and one’s need for nutrition. The architecture and orientation of muscle fibers allows distention of the stomach, thus allowing one to over-consume, prior to the sensation of satiety. If we rely on our body’s feedback to stop eating, we will always eat in excess. In essence, the stomach can be seen as a trap.

Every time one eats, the body has to respond to the meal intake, not only by absorbing nutrients, proteins and carbohydrates, but by storing anything that is in excess as fat. Unfortunately, excess fat in our bodies results in many disorders, such as insulin resistance, chronic inflammation and atheriosclerosis.

In his book on “Breaking the two desires”, Imam Al-Ghazaly claims that happiness can be achieved when one struggles for control over his nafs and desires, and misery results when one is controlled by their desires. Once one is aware that consuming food is inherently a struggle between the nafs and the soul, we may start to appreciate the magnitude of the problem.

In the second portion of the hadith, the Prophet ﷺ teaches us about what our bodies really need. Very little is actually required to keep us up and running. As fasting teaches us, we can eat a third or less of what we typically eat and be fully productive. This concept has been advocated in the form of caloric restriction and intermittent fasting in recent medical literature. This was the Prophet’s ﷺ practice through out his prophethood; he fasted frequently and every week, and never ate to satiety.

The third part of his hadith gives us practical advice. While it is implied that one should ideally not fill one’s stomach, there is still understanding for our weakness, especially with the matter of food and satiety. He advises us to divide our capacity in three: a third for food, a third for fluids, and a third for air. This strategy encourages us to plan our meals, to prepare healthy foods without waste, and always be conscious of how much we put in our stomachs.

He ﷺ has encouraged us to make less while preparing foods:

“The food of two persons suffices for three persons, and the food of three persons suffices for four persons.” (Al-Bukhari)

In these few prophetic words, the Prophet ﷺ teaches us the principle of prevention and thoughtful restriction, to be conscious of our eating habits, and to prepare and eat our foods with taqwa (consciousness) and responsibility.  He always looked for blessing in his food and praised Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exalted is He) for what he was given. Hopefully, Muslims can follow his prophetic method and expect to live healthier lives, free from excess weight and diseases, and gaining hasanat (rewards) for their actions.

Allah (swt) knows best.

Photo: Ashley Ringrose

By Meltem Baykaner

The day of Eid al-Adha last year was happily spent with my husband’s side of the family.

With the men in one room of my brother-in-law’s house and we women in the other, we laughed as the children bounced around us excitedly, concentrating on one of the activities thoughtfully set up for them for no longer than a few seconds at a time before moving on to another.

Meanwhile, the adults sat around the table, having just eaten, saying alhamduliLah (praise be to God) for the good food and company. As my sister-in-law commented gratefully on how the meal had turned out to be just the right amount for the entire gathering—each member of our party having contributed one dish to the spread—I agreed and commented that I was glad, because “I always worry that there won’t be enough food for everyone.”

Months have passed since then and only now have I realised what a strange and unnecessary anxiety that is to feel.

In a society where every street offers a host of fast food places and express supermarkets, with websites telling us to Just Eat whilst offering a multitude of top-rated fast food chains, where ready-made food is constantly available every day of the year like it never was before, I was concerned that “there won’t be enough.” Such an anxiety is not only unnecessary, it is greedy.

In Dr. Muhammad Ali al-Hashimi’s book The Ideal Muslimah, he observes that a person should “not eat to excess […] just enough to maintain [their] health and energy.” The idea of neither depriving your body of food nor over-indulging it to preserve good health is not a novel one, but is perhaps one that we no longer observe as we should.

Allah subhanahu wa ta`ala (exhalted is He) says, “Eat and drink, but be not excessive. Indeed, He likes not those who commit excess.” (Qur’an, 7:31) This message is conveyed to us repeatedly by Ar-Razzaq (the Sustainer), but have we ever considered how we commit excess all the time by over-spending, over-eating and essentially over-doing? And have we reflected on the effect that this may have on our minds, our bodies and most importantly, our relationship with Al-Wadud (the Loving), as highlighted in this verse?

Dictionaries will define greed as excessive desire, and waste as useless consumption, and we have been explicitly warned against these things. Perhaps now is the time to heed the warning—and not just with regard to food and drink—before we sink further into what seems to be the new global norm, where appetite for more is unquenchable.

Each one of us has a personal struggle. Perhaps there is something you have been indulging in so frequently that it has become mindless routine for you, and you are no longer aware of the detrimental effect it is having on you, on your wealth, or on your time. Perhaps you are ready now to consider what it could mean, how you could benefit in mind, body and soul if you were to change your way of thinking and limit this indulgence.

Of course, change must start within ourselves, and as I consider the changes that I can begin to make in my life, to do away with the excess that is taxing all my human faculties, I urge you, reader, to do the same; may Allah (swt) make it easy for you.

”O you who have believed, let not your wealth and your children divert you from remembrance of Allah.”(Qur’an, 63:9)

By Nada Shawish

How much of your food goes to waste?

In my house, we don’t mean to, but I know that we’ve wasted food, and we’ve wasted too much.

According to The National Resource Defense Council, 40 percent of food in the United States goes uneaten—that’s nearly $165 billion each year in food that ends up thrown out and forgotten about.

I’ve seen it myself. At potlucks, parties, dinners, summer barbeques, and holidays, alhamdulillah (all praise be to God) there’s always a lot of leftovers. But if they aren’t taken home by guests or eaten within the next couple days, they get thrown away. This is on top of our everyday habits of cooking extra, ordering too much, taking seconds or thirds that we can’t finish, and letting food just go bad.

Sadly, this is especially true during the holy month of Ramadan… a time when Muslims fast in part to feel sympathy with the hungry. Ironic isn’t it?

Like Christmastime, the Ramadan spirit is getting swallowed by all that we buy and don’t use – the food we’re devouring with our eyes.

During a time when one in six Americans doesn’t have enough nutritious food to eat, we have to ask ourselves, why?

Globally, statistics on hunger are devastating. Overwhelming numbers of people are starving or eating harmful foods – it’s a problem that can seem hopeless. And yet, the United Nations has called the amount of food wasted globally “absurd.”

There are enough food resources in the world. It’s our processing, handling, and most of all wasting of it that makes it seem scarce and expensive. While in developing countries food waste seems to happen before food reaches consumers, in the United States, most food waste happens in homes and restaurants.

It’s a very personal issue, one that puts to question our moral character if we choose to ignore it. Reducing our waste by only 15% could help feed more than 25 million hungry people in the United States, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Plus, research at CleanMetrics has shown we’re even increasing greenhouse gas emissions by sending so much uneaten food to landfills. Other studies prove that by wasting food, we’re also using up the world’s water supply. Nearly, 80 percent of fresh water in the United States is used just to get food to our tables (NRDC).

I’m thankful for the food we have… I’ve seen what destitute poverty looks like through the career path I’ve chosen, and my middle-class family works hard to afford these things. I know that food is precious, but it isn’t something that I really have to think about on a daily basis. I know I can have something to eat when I’m hungry.

But there is such arrogance in that thinking isn’t there? Unintentionally, I don’t think about not being able to buy food.

It seems like I can always buy fresh, organic eggs that will cost me $5.00 a dozen at the local farmer’s market or organic soy milk because regular milk just doesn’t sit well with me, fresh cuts of halal beef, cleaned wild-caught fish, packages of ready-to-cook chicken breast… It’s expensive, but with a little picking and choosing and moving around funds, I can buy what I need to eat a healthy and delicious meal. I don’t think there’s shame in this, but it’s time for more self-awareness. We need to be more careful about what we let go to waste.

Especially during Ramadan.

In Ramadan, we seem to get carried away.

Ramadan has become this extravagant buying and cooking fest that everyone looks forward to because people get together each night to a tableful of choices of fresh, hot food. Lots of it.

This is true around the world. On a trip to Lebanon and Jordan to document Islamic Relief projects last Ramadan, my colleague and I found tables of endless plates in front of us every evening, a show of food choices that we could not possibly eat. After documenting the horrific poverty in nearby houses, and then coming to break our fasts at tables where food was being thrown away by the plateful, we found ourselves not very hungry most of the time. The mantra can become: Just don’t think about it, and eat.

But that’s the problem. We need to think about it. We need to make a conscious effort.

Part of what it means to be a good person in Islam is always making efforts to improve – small efforts every day.

The idea that we could prepare a good, hearty, modest meal with the nutrition we need, without overdoing it at the Ramadan table, is hard to digest when you’re catering to guests. It’s a long-standing cultural norm that is supposed to be a gesture of generosity, but that easily gets mutated into something less flattering.

But what we forget to realize, or maybe choose not to realize, is that reducing waste starts at home: In the United States, most food waste happens in homes and restaurants, according to the World Resources Institute.

This Ramadan, let’s eat just enough to be healthy. And let’s remember that being allowed to do so is a gift from God every day.

I pledge to be more careful this Ramadan. I’ll measure — I know how much I need and will use what I need. And as a guest, I’ll do the same. This way, less food will end up in the trashcan because it’s gotten old or because I just want something new or because I’m trying to blow away my neighbors in cooking.

If enough of us take small steps like these, we can help make better food more available for everyone, and most of all reduce waste – waste that no one can really afford. As American consumers we can do better, and have done better. The average American consumer wastes 10 times as much food as someone in Southeast Asia according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization – that’s 50 percent more than we wasted in the 1970’s.

So, this is my pledge for this Ramadan – I can at least increase my awareness and try to reduce waste.

Maybe we can get back to the things Ramadan is really about:

Glorifying God (exalted is He) the way He asked us to.

Giving from our own selves in all aspects without waste.

Experiencing what it’s like to feel hunger.

And appreciating the food we have while we have it.

The Qur’an addresses the urgency of feeding the poor in many different places and in many different ways. It says multiple times that feeding the poor is an evidence of true belief (Qur’an 90:14, 89:18, 107:3). It talks about feeding the poor as expiation for certain misdeeds (Qur’an 58:4, 2:184). These verses put extra emphasis on the importance of this issue and show that it is foundational in the development and realization of faith, a part of which is to acknowledge the needs of our brothers and sisters in humanity. These verses are also general in relation to all of mankind and not Muslims alone.

When the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon him) first received the revelation, he was in a state of bewilderment. He ran home to his wife and told her to cover him up and explained what had happened to him. Her response was quick and measured, “Allah will never disgrace you. You unite family relations, you bear the burden of the weak, you help the poor and the needy, you entertain the guests and endure hardships in the path of truthfulness.” This was the way that she described her blessed husband, and one of these descriptions was that he helped the poor and the needy.

When some of the Muslims fled to Abyssinia to escape the discrimination they were facing, they sought refuge under a just king who asked them what their message was about. In explaining the message of Islam, one of the things mentioned was the rights of the poor and giving charity.

Sometimes we think that poverty and hunger are problems that only affect other areas of the world but are not local issues for American Muslims. This is an incorrect understanding. If we are to take California as an example, especially considering that it is generally considered a wealthier state, we see some interesting figures. Almost 23% of children in California are living in poverty. Roughly 16% of households are suffering food insecurity, meaning they have difficulty finding enough to eat. Almost 47 million Americans (nearly 15% of the population) rely on government support through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as food stamps) in order to try and fulfill their basic nutritional needs. Almost 60% of students in schools across America receive free lunches in order to supplement the limited food available at home. All of these figures show that hunger is a serious issue not only worldwide, but here in the United States . So what do we do?

We are starting a local campaign which we hope will be picked up by communities nationwide. Basically, we are calling on people to Stamp Out Hunger by taking a food stamp challenge. During this challenge participants are to limit their daily spending on food to what they would be able to purchase if they were on food stamps. This means no fast food, no prepared food, and no more than four dollars per day. The campaign will last from March 4^th to 15^th and we hope that communities all over the country will hold locally organized and hosted town halls on hunger and poverty at the end of the twelve days on March 15^th. Throughout the campaign we ask our brothers and sisters to share their experiences and stories on Facebook and Twitter (@stamphunger). We hope that this short experience will help us to build empathy for those that are suffering from hunger and that it will help initiate discussions about our role as people of faith in dealing with these issues and how our choices impact the world around us.

All of the following hadiths (sayings of the Prophet ﷺ) are taken from a summary of al-Shamāʾil al-Muḥammadiyya by Imam al-Tirmidhi and none of them are weak according to al-Albani. ((There are some details regarding this here, but this is not the place to get into them, nor is it the purpose of the article. Suffice it to say that even though the sanad of some of these hadiths may be weak, the matn, or actual text of the hadith, is acceptable.))

Mālik ibn Dinār radi Allahu ‘anhu (may Allah bless Him) said: “The Prophet ﷺ never got full from bread or meat unless he was eating with people.” ((Meaning, unless he was with guests or invited.))

Al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr (ra) said: “Do you not have all the food and drink that you want? Verily I saw your prophet ﷺ and he could not even find enough low-quality dates to fill his stomach.”

ʿĀʾisha (ra)  said: “Verily, we, the family of Muḥammad ﷺ, would go an entire month without lighting a fire. It was only dates and water.”

Anas (ra) said: “The Prophet ﷺ never had bread and meat together for lunch and dinner, unless he was eating with people.”

Anas (ra) said: “One time the Prophet ﷺ was brought dates and I saw him eating them while leaning on something because of the severity of his hunger.” ((Meaning, his hunger was so severe that he had to lean on something in order to hold himself up, peace be upon him.))

ʿĀʾisha (ra) said: “The family of Muḥammad ﷺ was never full off of bread made from barley for two consecutive days until he passed.”

Ibn ʿAbbās (ra) said: “The Prophet ﷺ and his family would go to sleep while hungry for several nights because they could not find anything to eat for dinner. And most of their bread was from barley.”

Sahl ibn Sʿad (ra) was asked: “Did the Prophet ﷺ eat white flour?” ((This was the best kind of flour that was used to make bread in his time, peace be upon him.)) Sahl said, “The Prophet ﷺ did not see white flour until he met God.” ((Meaning, until he died.))

Masrūq (ra) said: “I visited ʿĀʾisha and she requested some food for me. Then she said, ‘I do not get full from food except that I want to cry and then I cry.’ I said, ‘Why?’ She said, ‘I remember how the Prophet ﷺ was when he left this life. I swear by God that he never had his fill of bread and meat together twice in one day.’”

O Allah! Send your peace and blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.