Saved My Husband's Life

Dear Dan,

A week after your surgery now, I hope you're home and your recovery is going even better than the doctors expect. Maybe you have a little extra time to read emails now? I'd like to tell you why I bought your Cook'n program, and how much it has meant to us.

It was 2 years ago last fall that the doctor told Glenn (my husband) "If you don't get your cholesterol numbers down, it's not a matter of IF you die of a heart attack -- it's WHEN." This news scared me to death!

Glenn had been on medicine to lower his cholesterol, and I'd believed it was under control until I learned this. He brought home some papers about what he should & shouldn't eat, but it left me confused. So I made an appointment to talk with his doctor and find out more about what I could do at home.

I learned that not only was his cholesterol dangerously high, but his blood sugar was borderline diabetic. (Both of his parents died of heart failure, and his mother was also diabetic.) Glenn had to go on a low-fat, low-carb, low sugar diet.

I left the doctor's office learning that he could have no potatoes, no rice, no pasta, no bread or anything else made with much flour, some vegetables should be limited and corn avoided, limited low-fat dairy, only the leanest of meats, seafood is good (which I'm not too fond of) and rather than cream bases, tomato bases are a good substitute (which Glenn isn't crazy about).

When I returned home, I told Glenn, "Well honey, my cooking job is going to be really easy from here on out. I'll just boil us some cardboard 3 times a day!" I love to cook and make up recipes, but this was too much at once -- I felt defeated. Hopeless. Lost.

The next day my stubborn streak was kicking in again, and I decided to get on the internet and search high-cholesterol diet solutions and then search the same for diabetes. I spent the next 2 or 3 days reading facts, tips, solutions and printing a few recipes from the various sites. Finally I ran across the biggest help of all -- in a blog left by another reader, she mentioned 2 computer programs (Cook'n was one) where you could enter your own recipe and it would compute all the nutritional values so you could see exactly how good or bad your favorite recipes were!

I immediately researched both programs, bought yours, and the rest is history. With my love of creating recipes, it has been a godsend to have your program!

I started by putting in some of our favorite old recipes and kept tweaking the ingredients (with healthy substitutes) until I came up with the nutritional numbers I wanted. Then I'd make them, and surprisingly I've been able to salvage MANY of our favorites with little or no discernable difference in taste.

I also went to work creating new recipes in the same fashion. (I seemed to have met my "Waterloo" in brownies though. We both love brownies so much, I set out to make a brownie so healthy that the more you ate of them, the better off you'd be!

Well 3 times I made big 9x12 pans of such brownies, confidently adding nuts each time to make them a costly blunder if I failed. I made myself eat 1 of them and 3 times, threw the whole panful in the trash. Searching for "heaven-sent" I kept finding "god-awful." I've decided my goal was unreasonable, that I should try again, settling for a healthier brownie that would be fine as long as you eat one serving sized for sane people).

I recently grew tired of our menus, and went back to my Cook'n program to try some new recipes. I'm currently working on developing oatmeal cookies -- Glenn's favorite, and I figure we've gone without them long enough. Cook'n is all I need & always there for me.

Glenn's blood count numbers have vastly improved, though they're not yet where the doctor wants, so we keep on keeping on. (If I could get him to quit eating the cinnamon bagels at work! A little fat, more than a little carbs... and where there's cinnamon, there's sugar, right?)

I just wanted you to know that your program has been a provision straight from God -- I have no doubt of that. I told our doctor about Cook'n and how this program has helped us. I told him to be sure and recommend it to others needing a drastic change of diet, and that he could refer them to me if he'd like, for encouragement and tips. So far I haven't received any such calls for help. I assume that like me, once they get your program, you've made it easy (or at least manageable) from there. (Either that OR he's forgotten. Grrr!)

Your program and a little American ingenuity really are all one needs to face such drastic but life-saving changes. I HOPE he's passing the word!

I CANNOT thank you enough. I have such a dear, sweet, wonderful husband, and thanks to you, he should be around a long time yet to put up with his stubborn, sometimes difficult wife. I'm keeping you & your recovery in my prayers. You are both blessed and a blessing.

Sincerely yours,

Judy Hageman