What’s the name of the bias of judging messages based on the messenger? I suspect part of my problem is that everyone I’ve personally met who advocated the paleo diet was also into homeopathy and crystal healing, and didn’t actually have any idea what paleolithic humans really ate.
I’m not sure what the name of the bias is but I’d have probably had the same reaction as you if I’d seen the paleo diet associated with homeopathy or crystal healing. My impression is that it is over-represented in the contrarian cluster that is over-represented on LessWrong (atheist, libertarian, software engineer, not given to an interest in homeopathy or crystal healing) but that might just be some kind of selection bias on my part. I tend to associate raw-food / vegan eating with the nutty new-age fringe and have the same kind of negative associations with those diets as you describe for that reason.
I would imagine you could get pretty close to a paleo type diet without stopping cooking your food or eating mammals if you are ok with eating fish / seafood, eggs and cheese / dairy. It’s pretty difficult to do it without cutting out grains however. I didn’t find that too difficult (well, except beer) because I could always take or leave bread / rice / pasta anyway but I’ve heard from people who really enjoyed those foods that after a (sometimes difficult) period of adjustment they adapted to a grain free diet quite well.
I’m not sure what the name of the bias is but I’d have probably had the same reaction as you if I’d seen the paleo diet associated with homeopathy or crystal healing. My impression is that it is over-represented in the contrarian cluster that is over-represented on LessWrong (atheist, libertarian, software engineer, not given to an interest in homeopathy or crystal healing) but that might just be some kind of selection bias on my part. I tend to associate raw-food / vegan eating with the nutty new-age fringe and have the same kind of negative associations with those diets as you describe for that reason.
I would imagine you could get pretty close to a paleo type diet without stopping cooking your food or eating mammals if you are ok with eating fish / seafood, eggs and cheese / dairy. It’s pretty difficult to do it without cutting out grains however. I didn’t find that too difficult (well, except beer) because I could always take or leave bread / rice / pasta anyway but I’ve heard from people who really enjoyed those foods that after a (sometimes difficult) period of adjustment they adapted to a grain free diet quite well.