Also, slang (widespread at least in
Austin,
Texas) for a person or idea that is... on the
fringe. It's not necessarily
wrong and it's not necessarily
crazy, but it's
offbeat and probably not very well thought-out. Examples include people who become
Buddhists in high school after reading
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, the belief that God wants us all to love one another because you received a
divine message while you were on
acid, and thinking that basic daily nutrition involves 5g
Vitamin C, 5g
shark cartilege,
DMSO, and the total avoidance of all
legumes due to toxic
lectins. People who hold crunchy ideas may be intelligent and highly competent in other fields and other areas of life.
I suspect the phenomenon of crunchy beliefs comes from the crumbling of old, reliable,
authoritative knowledge in
religion,
philosophy,
medicine, etc. It's probably also related modern
information overload and the proliferation of books that allow people to believe they've mastered a topic when they've really only read one person's views and seen a small part of the field.
I do not know the word's etymology, though it may be related to
granola and its
connotations, and the general association of
hippies with
unrefined foods.