why are careful eaters considered a bunch of nutters?

I actually have an answer -- this question is NOT "rhetorical" as are so many in article titles;  it's NOT an exploration of possibilities that leaves the reader complaining that the article didn't actually address its purported issue, but left him/her as clueless as before reading it.  You may not agree with me ... but i'm used to that.  ;-)

There are actually a lot of answers to the question, and I won't try to foist a be-all-and-end-all solution.  There are as many answers as there have been "reelly stoopid" eating plans.  Here is just one example, which yanked my chain the moment I set eyes on the graphic:  http://www.hollywoodhomestead.com/bone-broth-botox-alternative/

AAAAAARRRRGHHHHH.

Ever since magazines started printing beauty advice -- no, long before that -- ever since the first prototype spa/salon started up, in the Far East or Mesopotamia or ... Ancient Atlantis, for all I know, there have been rumors about what you can eat or drink or rub on your skin to make you more attractive and desirable.  This article is just another in a LO-O-O-O-ONG series that isn't going to end any time soon.

Who is bloody ignorant enough to imagine that, if your skin has deteriorated to the point you'd contemplate using a product like botox, you could possibly dial back the damage of decades by drinking broth instead?  Obviously some people must, or headlines like this wouldn't happen.

OH, you say, no, they aren't suggesting an old crone like your authoress can benefit -- it's much too late for that!  They're talking about FORESTALLING the need for such desperate measures thirty years down the line! 

(...by which time, you'll have forgotten the glowing promises which never came true, and botox will no longer exist anyway.)

And you'll never get cancer if you're a veg*n, cuz it's the meat rotting in your colon that will lead to nothing but disaster.

No -- no!  You'll never get cancer if you never let your meat be cooked at a high enough temperature to get that luscious caramelized crust on it.

NO!!!  You'll probably get cancer anyway, but it's all in the luck of the draw!  It's ALL in your genes unless you're a smoker, or you wash your hands with benzene, or ....

Good diets and good lifestyle choices are NEVER a bad idea, but you have to do your due-diligence.  Just because an idea sounds like "common sense" does not make it reasonable.  Just because the suggestion some "authority" makes has a degree of appeal and you WANT to believe it, doesn't make it any more likely to be true than something your great-grandmother said a century ago.

The biggest reason that our nearest-and-dearest roll their eyes at us, when we say we don't eat sugar/gluten/soy/aspartame/MSG etc is because we've all been lied to so many times.  Nobody believes our "conspiracy theories" about the addictive properties of wheat or snack foods or sweets, because we all drank tap-water out of the garden-hose when we were kids, and lived to tell the tale. 

Funny, they believe smoking is damaging, despite the fact that their Uncle Floyd smoked like a chimney all his life and died in his bed at age 97.  The also believe that saturated fat and fried foods DO make you fat, diabetic, and unhealthy -- cuz TV! -- despite the fact that Great-Grandma Jones lived on eggs, bacon, and fried chicken till the tractor fell on her when she was 104....

Exaggerating ridiculous minutia is what makes names in the food-fad business as well as in the highest echelons of obesity research.  If they told us the truth, it would not be noticed ... or at least we'd turn away in distaste, because we don't WANT to live the rest of our lives eating ONLY what is good for us.  We don't WANT to get evolutionarily-appropriate levels of exercise and rest -- "we" want big muscles that impress the other bros, and a hormone-killing body-fat-level and six-pack to impress the other "gals" (gawd, I hate that word).  "We" want to text our buds while watching the showtime-series-du-jour, not to read to our kids before bedtime, and hit the hay soon afterward ourselves.  "We" want to hit the gym at 5:30am instead of cook breakfast and pack lunch.  We want to be cool;  we want visible results and we want them NOW.

To tell the truth, the bit with the bone-broth article is another thing that irritated me about a few books in my library, whose contents didn't live up to their titles.  Deep Nutrition tells us why some of us have been physical wrecks all our lives, but doesn't offer much hope for OUR futures -- just the futures of any children we may yet have!  Oops, too late.  The Eat, Drink and Be Gorgeous Project is only for people who can already look at photos of themselves and manage to not have an inferiority complex.  Defying Age with Food:  Reclaim Your Health, Energy & Vitality! was a complete crock from start to finish;  the thirty-something author may think that it was miraculous that she could "defy her age with food" but someone my age thinks she's a dumb pup and JUST WAIT....

[evil grin]

The point is, it's only the instinct toward religious-thinking that people have, that makes them believe things that are too outlandish to be true.  People want to believe in super-foods, and that more CAN be accomplished than is reasonable, with ketosis or aerobics or supplements or whatever.  Often, the best that we can achieve is to stave off the misery of those of our friends and relatives who DON'T watch what they eat.

I could be worse off.  The number of friends near my age and younger who have contracted debilitating or fatal diseases has been shocking.  I may struggle with allergies, hormones, energy, and even mood sometimes, but I rarely catch viruses and I haven't had a round of antibiotics in decades.  I use no pharmaceuticals, unless you count my vitamins and herbs.  I drink a lot more mineral-water than alcohol, though I consider the latter to be therapeutic.

But my diabetic relatives and friends think I needlessly eliminate "whole food groups" from my diet, and the lame and obese and sugar-addicted around me believe that forgoing bread and dessert and condiments with toxic ingredients is being "too picky."  I hold my tongue more and more all the time (to their faces), and just rant to my poor readers as an abreaction.  :-)  I want to say, "LOOK AT YOURSELF!  Do you think you look healthy?  Don't you realize that the reason my belly is flat and my eyes are clear and my skin is as good as it is, is because I DON'T eat what you do?  Believe me -- my genes are not that good."

Okay -- I got that off my chest!  ;-)  Sorry, gang, sometimes the stoopid just gets to me.  So many promises that are obviously empty but believed anyway;  so many real possibilities for improvement that require just-slightly-less-tasty eating-patterns and habits that are sneered at....  It may take several months to see a difference, and that difference won't be mind-blowing, just a boost.  People who hate swallowing pills might just benefit from taking some;  people who hate liver might need to bite the bullet and learn to bear it.  Progress CAN be made, but expecting that botox will EVER be made superfluous by drinking your bone broth?  Don't count on it.