It can be rough to completely give up on everything you have ever known because it was all killing you, then turn around and eat a completely different range of foods. This is why substitution recipes are so popular, even in the Paleo community. (In fact, I'm looking at the Health Bent blog in another tab today. grin) Some people just can't do the cold-turkey thing. Baby steps are better than no movement at all.

I'm concerned that anyone feels free to yell at service staff for any reason short of the employee in question attempting rape, robbery, or homicide against a customer. I can't stand customers like that. It's a shopping trip, people, not a life-or-death situation. Your body will not fall apart right now if you don't find what you're looking for.

The best answer I can think of for this has already been written. Not by me.

PaNu - Smoking Candy Cigarettes

I think it depends on what your addiction is. I do not seem to be nearly as addicted to wheat as I am to sugar. For me, staying away from wheat is much easier than staying away from sugar, so I am thinking that gluten free pastries and the like would be almost as bad for me as their original wheat counterparts. However, I do think paleo substitution recipes like almond meal and banana muffins did help greatly to ease my transition to paleo. They helped serve as a bridge but turned out to be not too addicting in themselves.

I work in the fitness industry and talk to clients a lot about food choices. It's unfortunate that there is so much contradicting information out there, because I see a lot of frustrated people who are just trying to do the right thing but are lost. I think this reaction was one of frustration, as rude and misdirected as it was. People are desperate to find a solution to their health. Unfortunately the hardest thing to do is to convince someone to put down the boxes and bags and pick up a vegetable.

Yes, there is addiction, but I find most of my clients can deal with it once they understand the direction they need to take. Having hope after so much confusion is a powerful thing.

I try my best not to eat anything in a package. MY experience is that it is better to just find new things then "dumbed down" versions of old favorites.

I think a lot of it is learned behavior. I remember the first time I had a chicken breast that had been sauteed in real butter with a ton of garlic...pure pleasure. Lean Cuisine just doesn't hold a candle to the real thing.

I do suspect that certain ingredients like MSG have addictive properties, however.

I'm gonna go with learned behavior. Perhaps these ladies (and many other people) have forgotten that real food exists. They may not even think about it. When I ate things like Campbell's to-go soups or frozen dinners, I didn't think to myself, "Wow, this is fake food...but it's so easy." I thought, "I need lunch and the store has food that I can keep forever and microwave when I need it." It sounds pretty shortsighted now, but it didn't cross my mind at the time that this wasn't how everyone ate. The reason I stopped eating the above examples was not because I found out they weren't real; it's because I decided they were mostly gross and almost never filling.

Once I learned how bad processed and fake foods really are, I found it pretty easy to give up most anything from a box or package. I haven't attempted to make any paleo-ish replacement or use gluten-free look-a-likes, but I have made several wheat-free desserts: chocolate truffles (chocolate, butter, cream cheese) and a torte (eggs, sugar, chocolate). Yes, every now and then I still satisfy my sweet tooth. 8)