General Nutrition Features:  

Heart Smart comes with a small food log database. Although you can add new foods easily, doing this is time consuming. You must also add each food's nutritional value.

Heart Smart has a menu planner and a recipe screen that displays nutritional values (calories, carbohydrates, protein, fat, sodium and cholesterol) in a pie chart and as single items. The program also includes a convenient shopping list tool.

Heart Smart's small physical activity database requires you to input any exercises you opt to add. We had to, since some of our favorite exercises weren't included. But adding exercises was a frustrating task because, for each activity, you must calculate the 60 minute calorie expenditure.

The program doesn't offer weight calculation and body measurement tracking, but Heart Smart lets you set weight goals and track progress. But the program doesn't have a calendar to gauge your improvements.

Diet Management:  

If you have prior experience with nutrition software programs, Heart Smart will be easy to navigate. If you are new to this type of software, you will need to review the help section.

Ease of Use:  

Heart Smart was simple to install. We encountered no problems throughout the process.

Help/Support:  

Heart Smart offers adequate program help and documentation to help you find your way around. The program has a content-sensitive help section and topics list designed to give "how-to" instructions. There are also tutorial popup windows that offer detailed instructions right where you need them.

Heart Smart is a basic nutrition software program that lacks bells and whistles found in higher-ranked products. Due to the limited food, recipe and exercise databases, you must spend time adding common items to each. And the nutrition information is narrower than that of higher-ranked products. The program also does not print reports.