MasterCook Deluxe 7.0

MasterCook is a pretty good product but since Sierra sold it to ValuSoft a couple years ago, my confidence in it has declined significantly.

ValuSoft is just out to make a buck. The only technical support they offer is via e-mail. They are milking the brand for all it's worth and when they can't get anything else out of it, they will discard it like they have done with all their other old titles.

It's not that they're a bad company, that's just their business model. They buy old products that have some value, they repackage them so they look "new and improved" and sell them at deep discounts until they don't sell anymore. They're not truly committed to the cooking software category.

"As long as the software works well, what does it matter?" is probably what you're thinking right now, right? That's what many people thought before Windows XP came out. But they were very sad to find that their MasterCook software did not work on Windows XP. After spending hours and hours entering their own recipes they suddenly found that they were unable to run the MasterCook program on their new Windows XP computers.

Over a year later, Sierra fixed the compatibility problem in order to sell the product to ValuSoft but what happens when the next Operating System comes out?

Before you spend a lot of time entering in your own recipes into MasterCook, I highly recommend that you take a look at some of the other options out there.

In my opinion, the Cook'n Software by DVO is the best. The interface is a bit dated but the company is totally committed to cooking software. They are constantly enhancing the software and they post updates regularly and let you download them for free.

There are some other good products on the Internet as well like the Living Cookbook but they're not as secure as DVO. They're relatively new and still have yet to prove themselves.

That's my opinion...for what it's worth. I hope this helps somebody. It's probably more than you ever wanted to know...but when you consider the amount of time it takes to key in all those recipes, I figure it's better to get the scoop up front rather than find out after the fact.

Whatever you decide to do, organizing your recipes on the computer is FAR better than any other paper method. If you've never tried an electronic cookbook before, you're going to LOVE IT!

Sierra sold the MasterCook line to ValuSoftware a few years ago, a company with questionable practices based on all the internet research I've observed recently. A lot of what I've read indicates that if you decide to go with MasterCook, you're better off springing for the two bills more and getting MasterCook Deluxe, not the LowCarb version of it. Deluxe has everything that LowCarb has (except 11 recipes that are only in LowCarb), plus thousands of regular recipes, should you ever need one. You can filter Deluxe to return just the Low Carb recipes results. It appears the LowCarb product was a fast remarketing ploy by ValuSoft to make some quick bucks on current trends, without hardly doing anything but filtering existing software.

I've also read on the internet that ValuSoft tends to buy up software, sell it cheap, sell it only until the sales decline, then abandons the product. It doesn't sound like much is ever done for future enhancements. Not good, if it's true.

Of significant note for me as a low carber of over 5 years, before it got trendy, is that the MasterCook line doesn't break out sugars from the carb nutritional analysis reporting.

I'm strongly considering "Living Cookbook" instead, a much newer program, but with some really active development going on, and easy communication with the actual software developer. There's an online demo I checked out, a free 25-use trial, and continual updates for no extra fee (even entire whole number version updates). It reports carbs, net carbs (and sugar, sugar alcohol and fiber). It looks pretty attractive to me. (I don't think it can be any riskie than going with ValuSoft's MasterCook program at this point.)

Alternatively, there's another line you might look at ... Cook'n, which offers a low carb version that's probably better than what MasterCook has to offer as far as the recipes offered anyway.

MasterCook has a huge following, but I don't know that it can be sustained now that it's under the control of ValuSoft ... or if it will be around for long. I'd be ... CAUTIOUS, if you intend to invest a lot of time into cooking software data entry.

There is also a daily meal planner. You can input what you ate all day, and the program will tell you the nutrition values of a particular meal, or for the entire day. This comes in handy if you're on a diet, or you need to watch intakes such as calcium, iron or B12.

Highly recommended!