After reading about Daniel Quinn's books on this list, I went out and
bought "Ishmael."  I flew through it in about four hours, and I'm now half
way through "Story of B."  Great stuff -- thanks to all who recommended them.

I think the main reason I got interested in the "caveman diet"  (does
anyone besides me prefer that term?) was not for the food per se -- I'm not
overweight and don't have any particular health problems -- but because of
the underlying philosophy.  We like to think of our "modern" selves as
being so advanced compared to our ancestors.  It's intriguing to think that
we're really not much different from them, and that some of the answers to
modern society's problems are found by regarding ourselves as
hunter-gatherers with sharper sticks, or even as animals with more
food-gathering strategies.

The ideas seem to be catching on.  I often mention this diet whenever
health and nutrition comes up in a conversation, and I've been surprised by
how many people say, "Oh yeah, I heard about that; my friend/relative/etc.
lost 50 pounds that way."  Saturday I was talking to a friend who is a
dance & yoga teacher, and very New Age-y -- no insult intended; she's very
smart, not a space cadet.  She had been a vegetarian for years, but didn't
do well and eventually became anemic.  She now eats a small amount of meat.

She mentioned that, not only her doctor, but also her spiritual counselor,
had told her to start eating meat.  I didn't get a chance to ask her what
kind of counselor that was, but I thought it was an interesting indication
that people are starting to turn away from the idea that eating animals is
evil.