Billing itself as a personal home nutritionist, Cook'n for Diabetics helps you plan diabetes-friendly meals for the whole family. With a particular focus on children living with the illness, counting carbohydrates is simplified while you compile nutritious and delicious menus that will please even the choosiest young palates. Unlike many cooking programs, which come with a massive archive compiled from a number of cookbooks, Cook'n for Diabetics has a tight focus and a smaller set of recipes. All of its meals come from Kids, Food and Diabetes by Gloria Loring, a cookbook which focuses on making foods children will enjoy while accommodating the specialized dietary needs of diabetics. To this end, the electronic version of Loring's work makes extensive use of features that analyze the nutritional content of recipes--not only the ones provided in the book, but any recipe you care to enter into the program. As long as the ingredients are in the Cook'n database, this program will give you the good and bad news on any proposed dish.
Cook'n for Diabetics can also be imported as a single chapter into the larger recipe archive of Cook'n 2000. The two programs' interfaces are identical, with function buttons at the top and the core data below in the remaining screen. It is simple to use, for the most part, but lacks the flexibility and powerhouse features of better-known cooking software. Its recipes cover the full nutritional spectrum--from breakfast to dessert--and offers some excellent tips for involving children in meal preparation.
Parents looking to simplify the nutritional challenges of feeding a diabetic child will find the information in Cook'n for Diabetics to be both entertaining and useful. --Alyx Dellamonica
