I'm finding that I'm spending more at the grocery store overall, but not so much on McDonalds - so it's evening out for me too. But, since my dh isn't doing Atkins, he still gets the bread and potatoes and rice - so I'm just adding more meat, etc. to our budget.
There is a company in Seattle that delivers Zone meals to your door everyday for roughly the same price. It's quite a racket. My dh and I owned a Personal Chef business for a while - and it's a racket too at times but people are willing to pay to have someone cook and cleanup and this frees them up to spend more time with their families. (*Incindentally, we had to quit because of his food allergies.) We could do Atkins meals, though, and that would really rake in the $$$!!!
Don't let it irk your petunia - people are willing to pay anything to lose weight, especially if they can't do it by themselves. If they have the $$ to spend, more power to them... makes it really REALLY easy to stay on plan. You don't have to think about it, you just eat what is delivered. It's better than a support group!!
It doesn't offend me in the least to see it... someone had a really good idea and is capitalizing on it. And, that in and of itself is not a bad thing....