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In summary, it’s possible you could graciously accept and consume those foods. All the same, you don’t want to be a stumbling block to others, who might think that engaging in non-Catholic religious practices is okay (see 1 Cor. 8:8–13). That is, you don’t want to cause scandal for others, be they fellow Catholic or non-Catholics of whatever religious faith (see CCC 2284–2287).
In addition, we can distinguish between food that is offered in gratitude to God, however imperfect one’s understanding of God, e.g., various non-Christians like Buddhists and Muslims, vs. food that is deliberately offered to a nefarious spirit, e.g., to Satan and/or one of his demonic minions, who exhort their adherents to an unmistakably immoral code of content, e.g., Satanism, or child sacrifice, as with the pagan worshippers of Molech in Old Testament times. Regarding offerings to evil spirits, have nothing to do with such sacrifices, including because they could have curses associated with them.
In evaluating gifts from Buddhist friends and other non-Christians, e.g., Muslims, have they simply thanked God and asked him to bless their food, or have they actually offered/sacrificed the food? If the former, even though they do not understand the one, true God in significant ways, I think you would be fine in receiving and eating their food (see Vatican II, Nostra Aetate, 2), provided, again, you don’t provide scandal for other Catholics who are not strong in their faith.
In addition, even if your friends have offered their food in good faith and thus in thanksgiving to God, or a spirit who serves under God as they understand it, you could still arguably welcome and consume their gift of food, again, provided you don’t give scandal to those weak in faith. Also, as with any food you would prepare at your home, ask the Good Lord to bless the gift of food in a pre-meal prayer.
Further, when offered a gift of food by non-Catholics, I encourage you to use that encounter to give witness to our Lord Jesus Christ and his Catholic Church, perhaps offering them a gift of food in return, sharing a Catholic tract, inviting them over for a meal where they can hear you bless the food before a family meal, etc. As St. Peter says, always be ready to give a faithful witness (see 1 Pet. 3:15).
The Example of the Early Church
Some Christians might counter that eating any food offered to an idol is an endorsement of paganism, citing the prescriptions of the Council of Jerusalem:
For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. (Acts 15:28-29)
However, while St. Paul affirms that unchastity of whatever sort is always gravely wrong (1 Cor. 6:9–10; Gal. 5:19–21), he also makes clear that eating food offered to an idol is not necessarily wrong, provided we don’t give scandal to others:
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge” (1 Cor. 8:1).
Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one” (1 Cor. 8:4). For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”—yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through being hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do. Only take care lest this liberty of yours somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if any one sees you, a man of knowledge, at table in an idol’s temple, might he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols? And so by your knowledge this weak man is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of my brother’s falling, I will never eat meat, lest I cause my brother to fall. (1 Cor. 8:7–13, emphases added)
St. Paul teaches we should not scandalize a brother or sister in Christ who is weak in faith, or Catholic converts who, “hitherto accustomed to idols, eat food as really offered to an idol” (1 Cor. 8:7). St. Paul’s counsel could also apply to non-Christian friends who offer us a gift of food, if we respond in a religiously indifferentist way by failing to give witness, at least in some small way, to the universal Lordship of Jesus Christ and the salvific gift of his Mystical Bride, the Catholic Church.
Council of Florence reaffirms St. Paul
In 1442, the ecumenical Council of Florence affirmed St. Paul and the Church’s long standing teaching, noting that the provision in Acts 15 was disciplinary, not a matter of unchangeable doctrine, and yet the faithful must again be vigilant against serving as a stumbling to others, including in the consumption of food:
[The Church] firmly believes, professes and teaches that every creature of God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because according to the word of the Lord not what goes into the mouth defiles a person, and because the difference in the Mosaic law between clean and unclean foods belongs to ceremonial practices, which have passed away and lost their efficacy with the coming of the gospel. It also declares that the apostolic prohibition, to abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled, was suited to that time when a single church was rising from Jews and gentiles, who previously lived with different ceremonies and customs. This was so that the gentiles should have some observances in common with Jews, and occasion would be offered of coming together in one worship and faith of God and a cause of dissension might be removed, since by ancient custom blood and strangled things seemed abominable to Jews, and gentiles could be thought to be returning to idolatry if they ate sacrificial food. In places, however, where the Christian religion has been promulgated to such an extent that no Jew is to be met with and all have joined the church, uniformly practicing the same rites and ceremonies of the gospel and believing that to the clean all things are clean, since the cause of that apostolic prohibition has ceased, so its effect has ceased. It condemns, then, no kind of food that human society accepts and nobody at all neither man nor woman, should make a distinction between animals, no matter how they died; although for the health of the body, for the practice of virtue or for the sake of regular and ecclesiastical discipline many things that are not proscribed can and should be omitted, as the apostle says all things are lawful, but not all are helpful. (Council of Florence, Bull of Union with the Copts; eleventh session [1442, emphases added])
The Devil is Due Nothing
In the case of food clearly offered to demonic spirits, St. Paul and the Church direct the faithful to always abstain, lest we and others become entangled in spiritual warfare:
Consider the practice of Israel; are not those who eat the sacrifices partners in the altar? What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be partners with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? (1 Cor. 10:18–22, emphasis added)
Finally, what about food religiously offered by our Jewish friends, who are also non-Christians? There is no problem in receiving such gifts, since they too worship the one God of Abraham, albeit in an imperfect way, though certainly better than other non-Christians. The only concern would be that, in the process, we don’t affirm Old Covenant dietary and other ceremonial practices as still binding, because Jesus has lifted them. Such would be irreverent and dismissive of the New Covenant Jesus has established in founding his Catholic Church, the New Covenant fulfillment of the kingdom of Israel (cf. Matt. 16:18–19; Eph. 4:4–6; Gal. 6:12–16).