“…‘The Church thought up fasting’. All such ideas simply come from ignorance. The first commandment – given to human beings in paradise – is the commandment of fasting. But the fasting appointed for the first human-beings was so easy! You can eat everything, only do not eat the fruit from one tree (not even from one sort of tree, but from one particular tree!). This was in a way a fast. And what is fasting? It is obedience.”
(Archpriest Valerian Krechetov, pravoslavie.ru)