Feasting and Fasting

A friend sent me a link to an article this week that talked about how our food habits have changed as a result of affluence - how special dinners for our grandparents were a few times a year usually birthdays & Christmas in comparison to the relative excess of food & wine that fill our usual fare and how many traditions of the past involved fasting & feasting.
I have been thinking on the article alot.
In the Old Testament fasting days were a way of remembering the significant suffering of the Jewish people in great events in their history. Feast days celebrated deliverance from a particular oppression or suffering or victory.
More "modern day" Christian fasting is directed at abstaining from a meal or favorite thing (some gals have a coffee or sugar fast) to wait on God for a particular break through or issue that they are seeking God for in prayer.
Is God involved in your food choices?
Do I use food to soothe myself or celebrate my Creator?
Do I miss meals because I'm rushed,disorganized or trying to obtain a diet goal or do I purposefully & prayerfully miss a meal to seek God?
Often my view of meals is very "me" oriented, I have to shamefully admit I have stopped the tradition of giving thanks before each meal as I was taught as a small child, it seemed to slip away when I started to grab a snack on the run as lunch or a coffee as a breakfast substitute. Jesus modeled giving thanks every time He ate or fed others.(see Mark 13:22-25, John 6:1-15, )
I would personally like to commit to thanking the Lord for His provision of my food, each & every time I eat and to change my thinking on my food being a "means to an end" to achieve my personal weight goals at the expense of considering my Lord.

What about you?
Do you fast?
Do you have feasts in your own family traditions that are specific celebrations of what God has done in your family or are purposefully to honor the Lord?
Do you give thanks or teach your wee ones to give thanks before meals?
Are we as Gods people loosing the attitude of gratitude & diluting the role of fasting & feasting in our relationship with God in our food obsessed, calorie counting, convenience lifestyle?