Fight Back Fridays: The Daffodil Principle

Some time ago, a friend sent me a copy of The Daffodil Principle If you've never seen it, I've linked up to a version of it on YouTube -- and I'd encourage you to watch it.

It occurred to me when I was considering what to post for Fight Back Fridays that "The Daffodil Principle" really embodies our philosophies regarding food... eating... and fighting back against conventional nutrition.

Before you stop reading and chalk us up for the biggest saps you've ever met, I'm going to ask you to give it a chance. Think about it.

I haven't been Eating Consciously for my entire life.
Neither of us have -- in fact, it's probably only been in the past two or three years that we've really made the decision to make serious changes to the way we think about food & eating.

We also didn't change our eating habits in one fell swoop.
No -- making changes to our diet has been a series of baby steps. I think one of the first stages of our transition occurred when we became conscious of how many servings of fruits and vegetables we were getting in a day. When we decided to opt for more (and better) servings of veggies, we started eating more leafy greens, broccoli, and other crucifers. Then, we took a look at the quality of the grains we were ingesting. We switched to whole wheat pasta, brown rice, and started trying out alternative grains like quinoa, spelt, and millet. We started reading labels. I started reading books and articles.

We changed the oils we were consuming. We ditched nasty fats like canola and vegetable oils. We embraced extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, and red palm oil. We banned margerine from our refrigerator and welcomed back lard and bacon fat (from uncured, nitrate-free bacon).

We went BACK to eating butter and full-fat dairy. We started buying organic milk. And now we've switched (almost entirely) to non-homogenized milk.

We're still in process. It's a journey. And we approach it step-by-step, daffodil-by-daffodil. We know we won't change the way the world works in one day. Or even a lifetime. But, we persist -- thoughtfully -- and focus on the every day work of things. We've begun to really THINK when we put together a meal. What's in this meal? What's nourishing me? And when we make choices that are contrary to the wisdom we've acquired, we're doing so consciously (not unconsciously, as we did for many years).

These days, we're working on the sugar. We've all but abolished high fructose corn syrup from our diet, and we're working on getting rid of processed nastiness altogether. We're not perfect. We still eat some conventional manufactured sugars, and we still bow down to our Sweet Teeth every now and again, but we've started the switch to a higher concentration of natural sweeteners like maple syrup, raw honey, and sucanet.

We're moving forward. And it's a Beautiful thing.

Join us -- You can start by checking out all the great stuff at Food Renegades' Fight Back Friday Event.


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