Not very familiar with Eastern Christianity are you?
Orthodox Christians (and the member of the lesser Eastern Churches, as the Copts, Armenians, Chaldeans. . .) abstain from all products from vertebrates (meat, fish, dairy, eggs) on most Wednesdays and Fridays and during long fasting periods (all told just under half the year), in imitation of the diet permitted in Paradise. (I think the exception which allows eating invertebrates is due to John the Baptist, who at locusts and wild honey.)
Are you sure God gave us desires? Or are they a result of the Fall?
(The true answer is both, but it requires a bit of explanation.)
Very interesting thread.
I'd like to add a couple of points, from the POV of a pracitioner and student of Vedic religion. I don't read Sanskrit, but am familiar with many Sanskrit terms due to many years of study. Also have practiced Hatha Yoga for years, as well as Bhakti Yoga. And the two have little in common, except regarding some basic understandings of spiritual identity.
Some points for your consideration:
1. Hinduism is essentially monotheistic. There are two branches (naturally many sub-branches, but two main branches) - monism and dualism. Monism (called Mayavada) holds that there is no eternal God who is a Person, that God is an formless void of light, and therefore each individual is also not an eternal soul, but a particle of the formless God. This branch has historically, until recent times, been the minor branch. The other branch, dualism (or Vaishnavism), holds that God is one, the Supreme Person, and that all creatures are in actual essence eternal, individual souls, part of God the way children are part of the parent, but eternally individual.
2. The Vedic scriptures state unequivocally that God is one, that the devas or demigods are not Godhead, but merely empowered servants for maintaining the functions of the manifested created universe. God has His Kingdom beyond the materially created universes. If you read the Puranas, you will see that even Shiva and Brahma - two of the most powerful devas - worship God Himself, and consider themselves His servants. So Hinduism in essence is not polytheistic. Many Hindus are not clear about this, just as many who call themselves Christian are not clear about their foundational teachings.
3. The Vedas predate not only Christianity but also Greek, Roman, and Egyptian civilizations. When the British conquered India, various British and European Indologists did their best to convince themselves and others that the Vedas were of recent origin. Some of this was done as a conscious subtrefuge. But the Vedas themselves state that their written origin was 5,000 years ago; and in fact, Buddha's appearance as well as Jesus Christ's are predicted in at least two Puranas that I know of.
Personallly speaking, real prayer is meditative, and real meditation is prayerful.