[MarMema]

The ordinary members of the Orthodox and Byzantine Rite Catholic Churches have a far less authoritarian mentality than Catholics, a far more widespread and lively sense of the richness of their traditions of prayer and practice, and a far more secure sense of ownership by the people of the symbols which provide continuity with the Christian past and guidance to its future.

I can certainly agree with this statement, for my part.

The theological and practical shift represented by this abandonment of an ancient part of the tradition was not merely a matter of theological emphasis, and more, too, than a question of whether ascetical exercises like fasting are good for the character. What was also at stake was the Church's prophetic integrity: its claim to solidarity with the poor.

This would be a strictly RC thing. For the Orthodox, fasting is a liberation from dependence on earthly food and a daily reminder about dependence upon the true "Bread of Life".

Additionally I would comment that fasting should never, for us, be intended as a witness to others, as the author suggests here. Christ instructed us to fast secretly.
It can be difficult! We fast all year on two days of the week, Wednesday and Friday, and I often find I am struggling to come up with an excuse about why I am refusing dairy products at a gathering. Avoiding a lie and not admitting to fasting can be a tricky endeavor.

[livius]

Yes, that's true.

I think that it's a sort of "secret handshake" with other Orthodox, though, and not eating fish on Fridays was the same for Catholics. Eating meat on Fridays was such a well-known prohibition (because it is very ancient) that anyone who specifically ate fish or non-meat meals on Friday virtually identified themselves as Catholic, something that was not viewed as a very positive thing in many parts of this country and often exposed them to ridicule and dislike.

A friend who grew up in a Protestant family in Pittsburgh quite some time ago once told me that the only regional food tradition she could recall was eating bacon on Fridays - she said it was probably to prove that you were neither Jewish nor Catholic, both of these being groups regarded with suspicion or even hostility by the Protestant majority.

And I remember being in situations where, when you saw somebody order the non-meat meal on a Friday, you knew there was a fellow Catholic there. To say nothing of the jokes everybody made about their mother's Friday tuna casserole...

[Romulus]

For the Orthodox, fasting is a liberation from dependence on earthly food and a daily reminder about dependence upon the true "Bread of Life".

Having given a lot more thought to fasting in the past couple of years, I now think of it as iconic: it's a way to both symbolise and personally encounter the call to pennance and conversion through a withdrawal from both world and self. Just as it's necessary frequently to put distance between ourselves and the world, I find fasting helpful in establishing a spiritual distance between soul and disordered will.

I try to remember the essential link with humility as a test of whether a fast is being properly pursued.