About a month ago, I put up this post, in which I talked about how Kendrick and I had decided to try being gluten-free for a month (him for health reasons, me to be supportive because it's hard to make a major dietary change, and even harder when you're doing it all on your own). It was an interesting experiment, but not exactly for the reasons I thought it would be.

The thing is, gluten isn't "bad" for you. I knew this going in; of course - while some people legitimately suffer from diseases (such as celiac, or certain autoimmune diseases) that are exacerbated by the presence of gluten in their diet - gluten itself isn't the enemy, as much as the companies who are profiting off of gluten-free everythings (which, as an aside, are HOLY expensive) would like you to believe that it is. That said, I'm pretty sure we as a population eat too much of the stuff. I'm definitely sure that I do. Because pasta is delicious.

Before we go on: to say I was 100% gluten-free over the past month would be oh, such a lie. I can't tell you how many times I slipped up, just because I'm so used to picking at my kids' food completely mindlessly, and nearly every day - at least in the beginning - I had a bite of my daughter's macaroni and cheese or a piece of tempura in my mouth before I even realized it. But this mindlessness that I have towards food extends beyond plucking from my kids' plates; over the past few years I've given so little thought to what I eat on a daily basis that all of a sudden having cause to give it even a second of my attention was a dramatic shift...and the effect that this ended up having was actually kind of...cool.