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The following chart compares NutriBase Personal Plus with two "high-end" nutrition software products: Food Processor 7 by Esha Research and Nutritionist Five by First DataBank. For convenient access to this information, you can print this chart. This chart was last updated February 6, 2004. Please click the footnotes (located as required throughout the chart) for details.

This web site includes an update history page that itemizes the enhancements as they are introduced in each new update or upgrade.

General InformationNutriBase Personal PlusFood Processor v.7Nutritionist Pro v.1
Name of the company who develops, markets, and supports the software product CyberSoft, Inc. Esha Research First Databank
Suggested retail price (SRP) for a single-user, non-network edition with CD and User's Manual $89.95 $599.00 $595.00
Toll-free technical support? YES YES YES
Does the software's End User License permit you to install the software on your desktop PC and your notebook PC for simultaneous use (without paying for an extra copy of the software)? YES no no
Free updates and toll-free technical support during the first year after purchase? YES YES YES
Free updates and toll-free technical support after the first year? YES no no
Additional annual fee for updates and product support after the first year? no $150/year $300/year
Does the company's Web Site provide a link list to its competitors? YES no no
Does the company provide free Internet downloads of updates for registered users? YES no no
Is the product available for secure on-line credit card purchase and immediate download from the Internet? YES no no
The Numbers <1> NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Total number of clients (users) handled.10unlimitedunlimited
Total number of food entries in nutrient database 37,000+ 29,000+ 18,000+
Number of unique brand names in the database 1,200 500+ 500+
Number of nutrients and nutrient factors featured in the database 88 <2> 133 80+
Number of restaurants featured in the database 58 20+ 20+
Number of restaurant menu items 4,227 1,603 ?
Support for the Palm PDA NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to record food and exercise intakes on your (or your client's) Palm PDA? YES no no
Ability to "roll your own" food database for your Palm PDA based on any of over 37,000 food items? YES no no
Easy, automatic installation that occurs on the first HotSync you perform after selecting foods for your nutrient database? YES no no
Nutrient Database Features and Capabilities NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to open, position, and size multiple windows simultaneously to facility the creation of intakes, recipes, meals, and meal plans ("cycle menus")? YES no no
Ability to resize and reposition the nutrient data display and have the software remember the display's location and size? YES no no
Ability to display the nutrient data for more than one food item at a time as a result of a search across the software's nutrient database? <3> YES no no
Does the software flag nutrient totals that include values from food items with missing values for any nutrient values in reports? <6> YES YES YES
Ability to define which nutrients get displayed as a result of searches in the nutrient database? (For example, can you display only the saturated fat, sodium and cholesterol values for all the foods located by a search of the nutrient database?) YES YES no
Ability to search on either food names or brand names? <7> YES YES YES
Search screen that permits you to search by food name, brand name, recipe (by ingredient or by name), or meal (by ingredient or by name)? YES no no
Ability to add an unlimited number of foods to the program? YES YES YES
Ability to view live nutrient data (alphabetically, by food name) in a tabular, spreadsheet format of columns and rows? <8> YES no no
Ability to resequence the columns of live nutrient data by dragging-and-dropping their column headers? (This allows you to compare the nutrient values, on-screen, for several similar foods at once.) <8> YES no no
Ability to resize column-widths of live nutrient data by dragging the right edge of column headers left or right in the nutrient database? (This allows you to display more columns of live data on the screen at once.) <8> YES no no
Shrink and/or magnify (zoom) the point size of live nutrient data to display more or less data to the screen? (This allows you to see more live data on-screen without having to increase your screen resolution within Windows.) YES no no
View data for any food item located in a single-screen view by selecting it and double-clicking on it? YES no no
View data from two different areas of the nutrient database at the same time with a split-screen spreadsheet view (This capability is very similar to the split-screen viewing feature made popular in the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program.) YES no no
Ability to display categories of foods (such as: "cereals, ready-to-eat" or "diabetes/glucose intolerance") and their associated nutrients (alphabetically, by food names) in a tabular, spreadsheet format? YES no no
Does the software provide separate food name, comment field, and brand name fields? <9> YES no no
Ability to instantly generate a listing of all unique food names and/or brand names in any food category and "jump" to the first occurrence of that name in the nutrient database by double-clicking on the food or brand name of interest? YES no no
Include Food Exchanges/Food Guide Pyramid? YES YES YES
Nutrient Database Ranking (Data Sorting) Capabilities NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Rank (sort) foods from high-to-low or low-to-high based on their values for any selected nutrient? <12> YES somewhat <13> no
Rank (sort) food items from high-to-low or low-to-high based on Percent Calories from Protein, Percent Calories from Carbohydrates, or Percent Calories from Fat? YES no no
Rank (sort) food items from high-to-low or low-to-high based on their Calories from Protein, Calories from Carbohydrates, or Calories from Fat? YES no no
Ability to Rank (sort) recipes, meals, and personal food items from high-to-low or low-to-high based on any nutrient by clicking on the column header for any nutrient? (Then reversing the sort by clicking the header again?) YES no no
Query (Boolean AND search) Capabilities NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to query the nutrient database to show you all the menu items from, say, Burger King, McDonalds, and Wendys? YES no no
Ability to query the nutrient database to show you all the menu items from, say, Burger King, McDonalds, and Wendys with at no more than, say, 8 grams of saturated fat, sorted from low-to-high based on their values for saturated fat? YES no no
Conduct simple queries (Boolean AND Searches) on the nutrient data by specifying upper or lower limits on as many or as few nutrient components as desired? YES no no
Conduct complex queries (Boolean AND searches that specify more than three criteria) on the nutrient data by specifying upper or lower limits on as many or as few nutrient components as desired? YES no no
Conduct queries (Boolean AND Searches) on the nutrient data for specific foods, brands, and/or serving sizes by specifying upper or lower limits for as many or as few nutrient components as desired? YES no no
Intake Management <15> NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to open your intake manager, the search screen, and the search results screens sumultaneously? (Then resize and/or reposition all these screens and have the software remember the sizes and positions?) YES no no
Ability to assign an intake item (a food item) to a particular meal or snack while adjusting its serving sizes? YES no no
View analyses of an intake day's individual meals or snacks (both numerically and graphically) by simply clicking their tabs? YES no no
Ability to copy intakes (or selected meals and/or snacks from a day's intake) from any client to any another client (or clients) on any day (or days) you specify? YES no no
Ability to create a food list that will be auto-recorded to a client's intake each time you open a new day's intake for that client? YES no no
Ability to select and copy intake food items (and portion sizes) into an editable shopping list? YES no no
Calendar that can be set up to award "thumbs up" (or "thumbs down") icons when clients meet (or don't meet) daily nutrition goals? YES no no
Ability to subtract ingredients from any intake? Example: "Whopper without mayonnaise and pickles." YES no no
Analyze intake relative to auto-selected RDA's (or any other customized client goals)? YES no no
Automatically display Total Calories and the PCF (Protein-Carbohydrate-Fat) Ratio (or CPF Ratio) for all intakes? YES no no
Compose any nutrient intake <16> (sort all intake items based on % content and actual content of any nutrient)? YES YES somewhat <17>
Set alarms to trigger when clients exceed any nutrient limit(s) you program for them? YES no no
Client calendar that awards clients a thumbs up" icon on days when they meet their personal nutritional goals? (And a "thumbs down" icon on the days they don't.) YES no no
Recipe Management NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to open your recipe manager, the search screen, and the search results screens sumultaneously? (Then resize and/or reposition all these screens and have the software remember the sizes and positions?) YES no no
Compose any recipe <18> (sort all recipe ingredients based on % content and actual content of any specified nutrient in ranked order from low-to-high or high-to-low)? YES YES <19> somewhat <20>
Ability to organize recipes into a tabbed notebook? YES no no
Ability to organize tabbed notebooks of recipes into Recipe Folders? This allows you to organize your recipes by type (i.e., low-fat, low-sodium, vegetarian, weight-loss, etc.) YES no no
Tabbed notebook for recipes with the ability to add, delete, and/or rename recipe tabs? <21> YES no no
Tabbed notebook for recipes with the ability to drag and drop recipes between tabs? YES no no
Ability to move recipes from recipe folder to recipe folder? YES no no
Ability to select and copy recipe food items (and portion sizes) into an editable shopping list? YES no no
Are recipes compatible, exportable, and transportable across all editions of their software? YES no no
Stamp recipes with your byline (author, credentials, copyright, company, phone, etc.) before distributing them? YES no no
Ability to spell-check your recipe instructions? YES no no
Ability to format cooking instructions by setting fonts and point sizes, inserting bullets, italicing, boldfacing, underlining, and aligning your text? YES no no
Ability to subtract ingredients from any recipe? Example: "Whopper without mayonnaise" YES no no
Automatically display Total Calories and the PCF (Protein-Carbohydrate-Fat) Ratio (or CPF Ratio) for all recipes? YES no no
Record recipes-within-recipes? YES YES YES
Ability to record a recipe as either a recipe (one entry) or as a list of ingredients? YES YES no
Change the number of servings per recipe? YES YES YES
Recipe scaling (changing the amount of each ingredient in a recipe to make a different total amount)? YES YES YES
Meal Management NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to open your meal manager, the search screen, and the search results screens sumultaneously? (Then resize and/or reposition all these screens and have the software remember the sizes and positions?) YES no no
Ability to organize meals into a tabbed notebook? YES no no
Ability to organize tabbed notebooks for meals into Meal Folders? This gives you the ability to to organize your meals by type (i.e., heart-recovery, weight-loss, body-building, etc.) YES no no
Ability to drag and drop meals between tabs? YES no no
Ability to drag and drop meals from Meal Folder to Meal Folder? YES no no
Are meals compatible, exportable, and transportable across all editions of their software? YES no no
Ability to subtract ingredients from any meal? Example: "Whopper without mayonnaise" YES no no
Meal Planning NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to open your meal plan intake manager, the search screen, and the search results screens sumultaneously? (Then resize and/or reposition all these screens and have the software remember the sizes and positions?) YES no no
Stamp all meal plans with your byline (which can include author, credentials, copyright, company name, phone number, etc.) before distributing them to clients? YES no no
Ability to create, edit, copy, analyze, export, import, and distribute meal plans to clients and users of the software? YES no no
Are meal plans compatible and transportable across all editions of their software? YES no no
Copy any day's intake (or selected meals and/or snacks from a day's intake) from any meal plan day to another day (or days) of the same meal plan? YES no YES
Copy any day's intake (or selected meals and/or snacks from a day's intake) from any meal plan day to another day (or days) of a different meal plan? YES no no
Automatically and prominently display Total Calories and the PCF (Protein-Carbohydrate-Fat) Ratio (or CPF Ratio) for meal plans? YES no no
Ability to copy a meal plan to a client's intake for up to four-weeks? YES no no
Analysis Capabilities NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Does the software allow you to create "analysis templates" which allow you to conveniently save and recall previous analyses when desired? YES no no
Nutrient intake analysis that lets you select the client (or clients), the dates (cherry pick or select a range), the meals and/or snacks, the nutrients, the factors (percentages, totals, averages, etc.) and personal information YES no no
Recipe analysis that lets you select the nutrients you wish to analyze and offer the option to include complete nutrient information for every ingredient in the recipe, if desired. YES no no
Meal plan analysis that lets you select the days of the meal plan, the meals and/or snacks, the nutrients, and the factors (percentages, totals, averages, etc.). Generate a checklist format summary organized by meals for clients to carry with them. Record the meal plan as the client's intake, then edit it for changes from the hard copy summary? YES no no
Fitness Management NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Ability to calculate exercise calorie expenditures that takes the client's body weight into consideration? YES YES no <24>
Set exercise calorie expenditure goals (with calculations based on your client's current body weight) and track them? YES YES no <24>
Create, edit, save and retrieve workouts fo use with clients? YES no YES
Ability to calculate exercise calorie expenditures that take the client's age and gender into consideration? YES no no
Ability to calculate exercise calorie expenditures that take the client's resting pulse and exercise intensity (as measured by heart rate or by perceived intensity ratings)? YES no no
Full support for Target Heart Rate Training with the ability to customize up to five Training Heart Rate Zones (by letting you define Zone Names, set min and max zone ranges, and the primary benefits)? YES no no
Ability to move exercises and activities from list to list (to prevent having to scroll through dozens or even hundreds of activities you rarely perform to find the few that you actually perform)? YES no no
Ability to produce a client-specific Expenditures Report listing how the exercise calories a client would burn with calculations based on the client's age, gender, body weight and exercise intensity (as measured by in-zone heart rate) in performing any of a variety of exercises for 30 minutes? YES no no
Support for Synchronizing Client Information, Recipes, Meal Plans, etc. Amongst Multiple PC's NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Simple, quick, and foolproof backup and restore program to keep your home, office, and travel PC's perfectly synchronized? (This feature make's it simple to keep identical client, recipe, and meal plan information on multiple machines.) YES no no
Information Tracking Features NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
Track and graph body weight progress for all clients? YES no no
Track and report on body chemistry (triglycerides, uric acid, etc.) and personal information (doctor, pharmacist, etc.)? YES no no
Establish weight goals based on percentage body fat content, then track the progress for all clients? YES no no
Track and report on measurements (waist, pant size, etc.) and miscellaneous items (ovulation, cigarettes, etc.)? YES no no
Track and report on anything you want to track (with date and optional time stamping)? YES no no
Miscellaneous Features NutriBase Personal Plus Food Processor v.7 Nutritionist Pro v.1
User Customizable Tool Bar? YES no no
Ability to select which formulas are used to calculate calories requirements, calorie expenditures, max heart rates, training zones, etc? YES no no
Ability to modify the selected formula (by changing the formula's variables) to modify the way the software calculates calories requirements, calorie expenditures, max heart rate, training zones, etc? YES no no
Nutritional data published in world's most popular series of nutritional information books <26>? YES no no
Ability to set user preferences for general, prompts, settings, fitness manager, reports, and Tool Bar? This allows you to customize your interface with the software. YES no no
Ability to select frequently used food items from the nutrient database and organize them as personal food items in a tabbed notebook for quick access for use in your recipes, intakes, and meal plans? YES no no
Ability to organize your personal food items by adding tabs, renaming tabs, and deleting tabs? YES no no
Ability to add your personal food items to a tabbed notebook, then organize them by dragging and dropping these items from tab-to-tab? YES no no
Ability to organize tabbed notebooks for frequently eaten foods into Personal Food Item Folders? This gives you the ability to organize your meals by type (i.e., supplements, frequently eaten foods, recipe ingredients, etc.) YES no no
Ability to move personal food items not only from tab-to-tab but also from PFI Folder to PFI Folder? YES no no
Ability to add food items to the program by entering the Percent Daily Values (as provided on Nutrition Facts Labels)? YES no YES
Glossary of foods, healthy food substitution lists, dieting tips, toll-free numbers for food makers? YES no no
Rigorously tested under Windows 95, 98, Me, XP, 2000 and NT? YES ? ?

Note: This chart was prepared to help you sort out the differences in these various packages. Because of the many complex and often subtle interactions that exist among the software components of today's high-end nutrition programs, there is often more than one way to get a job done. CyberSoft acknowledges that it may be possible that these software packages can accomplish one or more of these tasks in a way that was not immediately clear to us. For this reason, we recommend you visit Esha Research and First Databank for up-to-date information regarding their latest software. Their telephone contact numbers are also provided above.

Footnotes:
0. If you represent an educational facility, you qualify for a special discount pricing on the Network Edition of NutriBase.<back>

1. Some of these numbers were difficult to determine. As difficult as it may be to believe, most nutrition programs cannot generate a simple alphabetically sorted list of the unique food names or brand names by food category. (NutriBase can generate these alphabetical listings and can then take you to the first occurrence of any food name or brand name in the list that you double-click on.) <back>

2. These 88 nutrient factors include six calculated fields that provide the percent calories from protein, percent calories from carbohydrates, and percent calories from total fat plus the calories from protein, calories from carbohydrates, and calories from total fat. In NutriBase, all six of these fields are searchable - that is, NutriBase permits you to perform rankings and queries on these calculated columns. (You can, for example, rank all restaurant menu items from low-to-high based on their values for percent calories from fat. <back>

3. Looking at the nutrient data for one food item at a time is like looking at a huge nutrient database through a pinhole. This is how you view the live nutrient data with F7 and NPro... you can only display nutrient information for one food item at a time. NutriBase can display the nutrient data in a tabular, spreadsheet format for as many as 30 columns of nutrient information for over 60 food items simultaneously. (With NutriBase, the bigger and better your monitor (and the more monitors you have hooked to your PC), the more nutrient data you can view.) <back>

6. The ability to flag missing values is a very important capability for most users. All of these programs include this capability to some degree. NutriBase flags and footnotes missing values in every report (the user has the option to disable this feature in the User Preferences section). FP7 indicates missing values for nutrients in two of their report types (by showing a "-" where the nutrient value would normally appear); FP7 does not flag the nutrient totals or footnote the nutrient totals to indicate that they were derived by summing food items with missing values. <back>

7. In FP7 and NPro, the food name and brand name searches are actually the same search because the brand names and food names are mixed together under their food descriptions. (NutriBase provides separate fields for Food Name, Brand Name, and Comments.) <back>

8. "Live nutrient data" is the actual nutrient data from the database that the product relies on for its nutrient information. "Live nutrient data" does not apply to pre-selected lists of food items such as those that may exist in reports for intakes, meal plans, food frequencies, or recipes. <back>

9. The food name, comment, and brand name fields are mixed together in FP7 and NPro. Sample food description listing from NPro: " ENSURE with Fiber ". Sample FP7 food description: "EnsureNutritionDrinkw/FiberComp-BtrPcnRL ". Sample listing from NutriBase Clinical (note the use of three individual fields): Name: "ENSURE, WITH FIBER, RTU" (Ready to use) Comment: "fiber fortified - supplemental/total nutrition; oral/tube feed, Kosher, gluten/lactose-free, low residue, not for parenteral use " Brand: "Ross Laboratories ". Because these fields were separated, NutriBase can allow you to perform a variety of useful queries. NutriBase will allow you, for example, to display all the chicken frozen food entrees that have one of several selected brand names that have a maximum of, say, 4.5 mg of Saturated Fat. (Neither FP7 or NPro can do this.) <back>

12. NutriBase can rank (sort) a list of 3,820 food items from low-to-high (or high-to-low) based on the values for any nutrient and display the results to the screen in 1.14 seconds (400 MHz Pentium II with 64 Mbytes RAM). <back>

13. FP7 sorted a list of 2,080 food items from low-to-high based on their values for calories over zero (to produce a low-to-high ranking) in 16 minutes, 21 seconds on a 400 MHz Pentium II PC with 64 Mbytes of RAM. As soon as the FP7 "high/low" search begins, the cursor freezes - you are not able to run any other application while this search is in progress. NPro cannot rank nutrient data.<back>

15. NutriBase defines an intake as a list of food items that a client has eaten (or has been recommended to be eaten) over a specified period of time. FP7 refers to an intake as a "foodlist" (FP7 also calls recipes and meal plans "foodlists.") NPro refers to an intake as a "diet." <back>

16. In NutriBase, composing an intake performs a composition analysis on that intake. It lists the food items in ascending or descending order based on the values for that nutrient. It tells you what percentage of the recipe is contained in each food item, along with the actual amounts. This function will tell you instantly where all that Fat or Sodium is coming from. <back>

17. NPro displays nutrient values for foods in a "diet" (A "diet" is NPro's nomenclature for an "intake") in a spreadsheet format. This makes it fairly easy to see which food contains the most Fat or Sodium, as long as the intake doesn't include too many ingredients. NPro doesn't rank the food items based on selected nutrients or show the percentage of the nutrient that comes from each food item in the recipe. <back>

18. "Composing" a recipe performs a composition analysis on that recipe. It lists the food items in ascending or descending order based on the values for that nutrient. It tells you what percentage of the recipe is contained in each food item, along with the actual amounts. This function will tell you instantly where all that Fat or Sodium in your recipe is coming from. <back>

19. FP7 lets you select the nutrient you wish to see "sources and amounts for single nutrient." The bottom portion of the screen shows the amounts, the percentages, and a bar chart. As you click on other nutrients, the data on the screen changes to provide information for the selected nutrient. All rankings are high-to-low... FP7 won't display the values sorted low-to-high. <back>

20. NPro displays nutrient values for all ingredients of the recipe in a spreadsheet format. This makes it easy to see which ingredient contains the most Fat or Sodium... as long as the recipe doesn't include too many items. NPro doesn't rank the ingredients based on selected nutrients or show the percentage of the nutrient that comes from each ingredient. <back>

21. NPro organizes recipes in its cookbook into a tabbed notebook composed of 26 fixed tabs labeled "A" through "Z". <back>

24. NutriBase and FP7 both take the client's body weight into consideration when calculating calorie expenditures. NutriBase uses "Kcal/hr./lb." or "Kcal/hr./Kg," depending on whether the user has selected "English" or "Metric" measurements in their User Preferences. FP7 uses "Kcal/hr./Kg of body weight. NPro uses "calories per minute" values which completely disregard the client's body weight - NPro will calculate the same calorie expenditure for 30 minutes of aerobics for an 82 lb. girl or a 250 lb. man. <back>

26. CyberSoft holds the copyright to the seven books in the best-selling NutriBase series of nutritional information books. (Avery Publishing Group, publisher.) <back>


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