Mastercook Deluxe Low Carb is now being offered for those on low carb diets



Here is the scoop, this is a copy and paste from valusoft.com


Now Eating LOW CARB Just Got a Whole Lot Easier!

You're trying to control your weight and re-energize your body by watching your carbohydrate intake, but you don't want to sacrifice taste. Now you can eat great without the hassle! MasterCook Deluxe Low Carb features delicious, satisfying appetizers, entrees and desserts-all with 10 grams of carbs or less. Now eating low carb is easier and more enjoyable.

Satisfying Recipes
Enjoy 1300+ delicious low carb recipes.

Simplified Meal & Menu Planning Stay on track!
Plan a single low carb meal or entire menus in advance.

Expert Nutritional Information
Get all the information you need to maintain a
low carb diet, and even track sodium, sugars and more.

Professional Tips & Techniques
No matter your skill level in the kitchen, helpful tips and
techniques will have you cooking low carb recipes like a pro.

Gather Your Favorite Low Carb Recipes
Import your favorite low carb recipes and even share them with friends.


Shopping Made Easy
Print menus and shopping lists or download them to your PDA.


Party Planning Made Easy
Plan for 5 or 50 guests with festive entertaining ideas to dazzle your guests.


Cost is $14.99 according to their web site


I am already looking for it at the local stores, being from North Pole...opps I mean North Dakota the pony express will take a couple of months to get the software here so I might have to order it in.

Which version is it???

I'm sooooooooooooooooo jealous - it's not available in the UK

The title of the software is

Mastercook deluxe low carb 7.0

Mastercook has made many software recipe cookbooks over the years but this is their only low carb cookbook they have designed so far.

I love my Mastercook cookbooks. I own two of them so far.



Some places that do carry Mastercook is Sam's club, Target, Media Play and Best Buy. I will probably be ordering mine from the Best Buy web site.

Don't bother. Check out my thread in general low carb. There is nothing low carb about the recipes. They are just scaled so the carbs are below 10.

Most recipes are just flour, sugar, honey, milk chocolate, etc. You would be better off buying the regular version with much bigger cookbooks and searching for the very same recipes that are in this one.

Remember, they made no attempt to make the recipes low carb at all. No substitutions, no tips on reducing carbs, etc.

Here is another funny example:

Samosas..

STUFFING
3 medium potatoes
1 cup green peas
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 medium onions
2 long green chiles
1 teaspoon ginger paste
2 tablespoons chopped mint leaves
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves
3 tablespoons oil
Salt, to taste

DOUGH
1 1/2 cups refined wheat flour (maida)
3 tablespoons oil
Salt (1/2 teaspoon), to taste
Oil, to deep fry

Sure glad I have this low carb cookbook so I can make this nice atkins friendly recipe...

brobin

I was just over at the mastercook help site at vivendi and saw your post there.

I felt that Pam did not seem happy with your post after I read her reply back to you.

I don't think Pam has much of an idea what low carb is all about. I was not happy with her last sentence of her reply where she said-

"P.S. -- It's also easy to revise recipes in MasterCook. You can go to those recipes where you would use sugar and substitute Splenda as an ingredient to make them even lower carb."


You should not have to adapt recipes in a low carb cookbook to make them low carb. Nor should you have to make the serving size smaller to make them low carb.

The other thing Pam said that I was not happy with was-

"Plus, the vast majority of the recipes are in other meal categories -- main dish, salads, etc. Are you suggesting that food can't be "low carb" if it doesn't use specialty manufactured products? That really surprises me."


Pam seemed to be selling the fact that mastercook is versatile and powerful program. Which is true, but, they are selling a low carb cookbook, not a low carb cookbook that has regular recipes in it that has to be modified to be low carb friendly.

I have changed my mind about buying the mastercook low carb cookbook. If I want to import real low carb recipes I will use my mastercook 6.0 and import them into that instead of wasting my money on a program that is based on false hoods.

Thanks for the heads up

You would think so, wouldn't you?

I'm not sure what this Mastercook thing is, but it sure sounds like a rip off.

Well, I guess I have to head back to that forum and set them straight.

What a joke.

brobin

Here is my reply.

I very much disagree. First, I already had Mastercook, I bought this as it advertised it was full of low carb recipes. The box mentions a low carb meal and menu planner. There was nothing in there, just the standard tools.

There are no tips on low carbing, nothing on how to improve the recipes.

The recipes contain foods that every low carb diet tells you to avoid. White flour, sugar, syrup? Low carb eating is not about eating so small a portion that your get carb counts less then ten.

I never suggested that you had to fill the recipes with artificial foods either. You can use almond flour instead of white flour. Oat bran to add fiber. Guar Gum instead of cornstarch. Gluten flour instead of white flour. How about focusing on low carb veggies instead of potato soup and carrot puree. There are many things you can do to lower a recipe's carbs and make it suitable for a low carb lifestyle. None of these things were done.

Lets look at some of the packaging.. "Learn from the professionals". Does it not sound to reason that there would be professional advice on how to make low carb recipes? There isn't.

I do not see how you can defend this product. It is not a low carb anything. Someone did a seach on the existing recipe books and took out anthing over ten carbs. They then took the remaining recipes and slapped low carb advertising on the box to hoodwink the public into buying this.

The recipes are not suitable for low carb diet. Period! If you followed many of these recipes you would eat twice as many carbs in one meal as you want to get in day on a low carb diet.

I sorry, but compare this to any decent low carb cookbook and you will see this is a shoddy attempt to sell more copies of Mastercook. This had nothing to offer a person on a low carb diet. In fact, I would recommend they buy the deluxe verion. They would get the same thing, but way more recipes that they can share with friends.

The reason I sent this post is to warn people not to buy the product. If you are happy with it, find, but I suspect you know nothing about low carbing. I want to warn low carbers against this which is why I put this thread up on the Valuesoft site. I have put a similer thread up on the low carb forum site. Thank goodness, many were looking to order it. They are not now. If Valuesoft wants to put together a decent product, maybe source recipes from low carb authors instead of the potato council, let me know.

brobin

PS. Rest assured, I did send my feelings to the company as well as a request for a refund.

Ok, here's my 2 cents on this program. I bought it, already knowing I wasn't going to use the recipes because of what has been mentioned. I don't own any other version of Mastercook already. I wanted this peticular program because it only has 1300 preloaded recipes vs. 5,000 for version 7.0 - I have already deleted a lot of the 1300 recipes just so they are out of my way..... I wouldn't want to have to delete 5,000!!