I wanted to touch on this topic here on Moni’s blog, as many Moni’s customers probably eat a fair amount of carbs (Hello, pasta!).  Over the past couple of decades, carbohydrates have really gotten a bad wrap from people like Dr. Atkins and other fad diet trendsetters.  As a result, people have started to dodge carbs as if they were bullets.  But are they really that bad for you?  Yes and no.

Did you know that the USDA recommends that 65% of your daily calories come from carbohydrates?  Did you know that there are “good carbs” and “bad carbs”?  Do you know what foods contain each type of carbs?  If you answered “no” to any of these, you’re in the right place!

“Good carbs”, or complex carbs, are carbs derived from plant based foods (i.e. fruit, beans, grains, etc) that are packed with fiber.  These carbs are absorbed slowly into our systems, and do not cause a spike in blood sugar levels.  There are numerous benefits to eating these kinds of carbohydrates. Fiber (while in and of itself cannot be absorbed by our bodies) slows down the absorption of other nutrients, including carbs! This prevents blood sugar spikes and dips, lowering your risk of type 2 diabetes.  Fiber can also lower your bad (LDL) cholesterol, increase satiety (making you feel fuller longer, due to the slowed absorption), and increase bowel regularity, lowering your risk for polyps, hemorrhoids, and colon cancer.

“Bad Carbs”, or simple carbs, are the carbohydrates that are found in refined and processed foods (white breads, pasta, etc) or sugary foods.  These carbs pretty much turn to sugar the second they hit your blood stream.   This is great if you’re a runner like me and need a quick supply of energy in the form of glucose, but not so great if you’re diabetic! (So, as you can see, even the “bad carbs” aren’t bad in all circumstances.)

So, what can you do?  Well, I don’t recommend cutting carbs out of your diet altogether.  One, that’s not healthy, and two, it’s miserable!  Carbs are in nearly everything you eat, with the exception of meat.  The best thing to do is find a balance. I’m all about balance.  Increase your good carbs, and decrease your bad carbs.  One habit you can kick immediately to nix excess sugar and bad carbs?  Get rid of soda and other sugary drinks.  Switch to diet, unsweet (or sweetened with Stevia or Splenda) tea, or water.  This will cut an insane amount of sugary carbs from your diet.

The recommended daily fiber values are 25-35 grams for women and 35-45 for men. So, add in good, fibery carbs by eating more fruits and veggies, oats, grains, and beans, and by choosing wheat bread over white, whole wheat or fiber enforced pasta, etc.  Also, there are quite a few tasty, fiber-fortified snacks out there made by brands like Fiber One (who make a variety of tasty snack bars and brownies) and Fiber Plus, who also make some great tasting snack bars.  Both brands make high fiber cereals, which my husband loves as his primary source of fiber.  There are a couple of unlikely sources of fiber that I am happy to bring to your attention. Popcorn is an excellent source of fiber!  But before you go to a movie and order a jumbo bucket of butter-laden popcorn (as I think that would completely offset any nutritional benefit), try the 100 calorie pop varieties of lightly buttered or (my personal favorite) kettle corn.  They are quite tasty and offer 4g of fiber per bag.  Another unlikely source: Hostess 100 Calorie Snack Cakes (chocolate and cinnamon streusel) carry 5g of fiber per package!  Finally, one of my all time favs: Vitalicious VitaTops.  They pack 8-9g of fiber per 100 calorie VitaTop, and they come in flavors such as Deep Chocolate, Fudgy Peanut Butter Chip, Banana Nut, Pumpkin, etc.  Order them online or find them in your grocery store (they can be a little hard to find).

Finally, a good rule of thumb for carb selection is: the whiter the food, the more refined and processed it is.  However, some “multi grain” breads on the shelves at your grocery store are actually more refined than you would think!  A lot of them actually dye the bread a brown color to give it a more “grainy” appearance.  Yuck!  Your safest best is to flip it over and look at the label yourself.  You’ll want to look at the fiber and sugar content, both found under the total carbohydrates value (see image).  To know how many “good carbs” you’re getting, subtract the number of sugar grams from the total number of carbohydrates.  The carbs from sugar are the “bad carbs”.

Another thing you’ll want to watch out for is low fat or no fat snack foods.  This recent reduced fat or fat free snack trend is causing Americans to unwittingly eat more added sugar, as most of these foods substitute sugar for fat (hey, the flavor’s gotta come from somewhere!).  Added sugar adds carbs and calories without increasing the nutritional value.  Again, read your labels.

So, next time you’re serving up your favorite Moni’s sauce, try substituting some whole wheat pasta for white to up your fiber content.  Oh, and by the way, tomatoes have fiber too!

Until next time, age well and live long!
Freelance Writer- Holly Bone

This post is that of a freelance writer and not an employee or affiliate of Moni’s Natural or its subsidiaries nor reflects the views we may.

Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Atkins, Beach Body, South Beach, Slim for Life, Slimfast, Shakeology and so on.  They all have one thing in common: they all claim to have found the secret to losing weight, losing it quickly, and keeping it off. Well, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: there is no secret formula to weight loss.  Well, okay, I take that back.  Yes, there is:

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) – ( 6.8 x age in year )

Or, to make your life easier, you can just go here and have this handy little web page calculate it for you!  It’s called your Basal (or resting) Metabolic Rate.  More simply, it’s how many calories your body burns sitting on your behind doing nothing.  You might ask, “How does this tie in with weight loss”?  Well, there is this little thing known as the calorie.  To spare you the lengthy, scientific explanation of what a calorie is and how it works, I’ll explain it in simple terms.  A calorie is a unit of energy that your body requires to function.  You fuel your body by eating calories, and your body burns calories by performing bodily functions and work (exercise).  In order to burn MORE calories, your body needs to use more energy, i.e. move more.  See, I told you it wasn’t a secret.  The more calories you eat, the more calories you must burn, or else your body will store the excess energy as fat.  So what is the secret to all of the aforementioned diet guru’s success?  In my honest opinion, they are all over complicating things.

Sure, there are some tricks to speeding up your metabolism.  For example, you can lift weights to build muscle.  Muscle weighs more than fat, which means you can weigh the same (or more), but have more lean muscle mass, which when plugged in to the formula above, will exponentially increase your ability to burn calories, while also making you appear thinner since one pound of muscle is about half the size of one pound of fat (see image).  But, at the end of the day, it is still calories in, versus calories out.  You eat more calories than you burn, you gain fat.  You burn more calories than you eat, you lose fat.  Plain and simple.  Really, all you need to successfully lose weight is a pen and paper, or one of these nifty web sites that help you track the food you eat and the calories you burn through exercise.  Make sure the # in is less than the # out, and you’re on your way!

Suggestions: www.sparkpeople.com, www.fitnesspal.com, www.thedailyplate.com,
www.fitbit.com.

I also want to add, that it’s NEVER healthy to lose a lot of weight very quickly.  It usually is an indication that you are not consuming enough calories to safely and efficiently fuel your body, and it’s almost always temporary.  The level of restrictions you would have to have in place to drop more than a pound a week would be unsustainable and miserable!  So, go eat some delicious food and burn some calories!  Just use common sense and a calorie calculator and remember it’s all about balance!

Until next time: Live well, and eat well!

This post is that of a freelance writer and not an employee or affiliate of Moni’s Natural or its subsidiaries nor the views we may have on the article.

5/8/2012

You’ve heard all the criticism; High Fructose Corn Syrup is bad for you and you should never eat it…ever! But is it really all that bad for you? Let’s start out, for you folks who may not even know what HFCS is, by defining what High Fructose Corn Syrup really is. It is basically a genetically modified sweetener that has had much of it’s glucose converted to fructose. Are you scratching your head yet? In short, it’s virtually identical to table sugar (sucrose), but it’s cheaper. So, now the question is, what are the types of foods it’s found in? Sweets, cakes, sugary drinks, etc, right? Well, yes. But it’s also found in some not-so-obvious places as well. While HFCS is found in things such as sodas, cereal bars, and processed “snacks”, it’s also found in crackers, condiments (ketchup!), and “healthy” cereals.

So, back to the original question: is it bad for you? Metabolically, studies indicate our bodies break down and use HFCS and sucrose the same way. But, many people ban it since it is “artificial”, and eating “natural” is becoming all the rage. In truth, anything you eat can cause you bodily harm if you eat too much of it. Take for example the recent trendy diet “yo-yo” effect: “Carbs are bad! Carbs are good! Some carbs are better for you than others.” “Fat is bad. Only certain fats are bad. Fat is good, you need fat!” “Sugar is BAD. Sugar is ok. Sugar is definitely better than artificial sweeteners. X artificial sweetener is better for you than Y, which 20 years ago was perfectly fine.” “Butter, margarine, butter, margarine.” “Olive oil is good. Olive oil is bad, use canola. Canola is bad unless it’s organic.” Is your head spinning yet? The point I’m trying to make is that if you wait 10 years, all the foods you’re currently eating will be bad for you. Our culture tends to overdo it when we are told something is good or bad for us. We make drastic cuts in some areas in our diet, while eating in excess in others. It just gets confusing.

The solution? Everything in moderation. HFCS can kill you, but so can sugar if you eat too much of either. Try not to let the “HFCS is evil” hype scare you. There are much more important things to worry yourself about.

What is your opinion of HFCS in your family’s diet?

This post is that of a freelance writer and not an employee or affiliate of Moni’s Natural or its subsidiaries nor the views we may have on the article.

When people hear the words “gluten free” they instantly think “no bread, no pasta, no wheat.” While that is true, anyone who has to eat gluten free can tell you that it doesn’t just end there. Gluten is in a surprising number of items where you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find it. 

The four primary sources of gluten are: wheat, barley (including malt), spelt and rye. Aside from the usual suspects, here are a few surprising items that contain gluten:

• Wheat gluten is often the basis for imitation meats, including mock chicken, duck, fish, pork and beef.
• Gluten is also frequently used as a stabilizing agent in ice cream, ketchup, sauces and dressings.
• Additionally, gluten is also used as a binder in products like sausages or as a thickener in soups, stews and gravies.

The other concern often encountered by those following a gluten free diet is cross-contamination. This occurs when food which is otherwise gluten free comes in contact with gluten and/or gluten containing products. As a result, nearly anything can be off limits for someone with celiac disease or a gluten intolerance unless proper preparation and handling methods are followed.

At Moni’s Natural, we understand these concerns since the wife of Moni’s founder has to eat gluten free. That’s why we’ve designed all of our products, everything from our sauces to our dressings, to be entirely gluten free. Additionally, everything is prepared in our certified gluten free facility, so you’ve got no worries about cross-contamination.

If you have to eat or cook gluten free, what’s been the most surprising gluten-containing item you’ve come across?

1 package mild italian sausage, casings removed
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 bell pepper, sliced
1 onion, sliced
1 jar Moni’s Original Mariana
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup mozzarella
1 lb fettuccine, cooked and drained
Parmesan, for serving

Cook sausage, bell pepper, and onion in olive oil until sausage is browned and crumbly. Add marinara and salt; simmer for 5 minutes. Add mozzarella and heat until melted through. Serve over fettuccine and top with parmesan.

Check out Cristine’s Blog: http://cristinecooks.blogspot.com/2012/03/sausage-pepper-fettuccine.html

There are militant meal planners who plan every last detail of each meal. Then there are those who follow a general plan each week. And then there are those who fly by the seat of their pants and make meals on a whim based on whatever sounds good and the ingredients they have available. Yet all those types, and all the ones in between, have one thing in common – they all have nights where getting dinner on the table is nearly impossible.

No matter where you fall on that spectrum, I’m sure you’ve had to make your share of emergency dinners. Instead of struggling when those nights occur, be prepared for them ahead of time. Here are a few of my favorite tricks and meal ideas for emergency dinner plans.

• Prepare for the inevitable. Accept that you’ll have nights where even your best-laid plans will fall apart and be prepared for them. An easy way to do this is by stocking your freezer with an extra meal or two. The easiest way to do this is to make extras of a family meal, such as a lasagna (made extra special with Moni’s Natural Original Marinara Sauce), a meatloaf or even a chicken and rice casserole.
• Keep an emergency pantry stock. Some good items to have on hand include pastas, rice, tuna, dried or canned beans and tomato sauces and dressings. With those items available, you can easily throw together a simple meal that will satisfy and sustain your family.
• Think easy and few ingredients. When a time crunch hits and you realize dinner needed to be on the table an hour ago, your best mantra is to “keep it simple!” Turn to meals that require just a few ingredients and that come together quickly. Here are several ideas you can rely on: Frozen cheese ravioli or tortolleni tossed with Moni’s Natural Spicy Garlic Marinara; Boneless, skinless chicken breasts covered with Moni’s Natural Famous House Viniagrette and baked until done; Tortillas filled with refried beans and shredded cheese; an Omelette filled with whatever you have available; or even sandwiches or cereal will work in a pinch.
• And if all else fails, ignore what I said earlier, pick up the phone and call for delivery!

Do you have any tricks or meals that you rely on for emergeny dinners?

3/8/2012

Here at Moni’s Natural, we love tomatoes! A quick glance of our product list will verify that. Tomatoes play a crucial role in five out of our six products. Obviously we think that the taste of tomatoes just can’t be beat, but when you add in all of the health benefits, well…you’ve got one powerful fruit on your hands!

Let’s take a look at some of the health benefits of the incredible tomato.

• Tomatoes are a great source of folic acid, potassium, Vitamin A, Vitamin C and Vitamin E.
• Tomatoes are packed with natural inflammation-fighting properties.
• You can help protect your skin from sunlight damage with the beta-carotene found in tomatoes.
• Tomatoes may offer cancer-fighting properties thanks to their lycopene, phytoene and phytofluene.
• Specifically, studies have indicated that tomatoes may potentially reduce the risk of the following: ovarian cancer, digestive tract cancers, cardiovascular disease, asthma, chronic lung disease and prostate cancer.

Enjoy Moni’s Natural Spicy Garlic Marinara, Garlic and Basil Marinara Sauce, Original Marinara Sauce, Famous House Viniagrette or Famous Light Tomato Viniagrette for a delicious way to get your fill of the incredible tomato!

The vast array of pasta shapes and sizes is staggering. Navigating the pasta aisle at your favorite grocery store is difficult when you don’t know which type of pasta is best for which sauce or which is appropriate for a recipe you are preparing.

We understand that feeling and want to help you ensure that you always select the perfect pasta to use with your favorite Moni’s Natural sauce. Here’s a list of 12 popular pasta shapes and the best ways to use them.

CAMPANELLE
Use with the following sauces:

• Butter and/or oil
• Cream or cheese based
• Meat
• Or in pasta salad

ANGEL HAIR/CAPELLINI
Use with the following sauces:

• Pesto
• Seafood
• Tomato
• Soup
• Butter &/or Oil
• Cream

FARFALLE (aka Bow Ties)
Use with the following sauces:

• Meat
• Pesto
• Tomato
• Cream or cheese
• Soup
• Vegetable

FETTUCCINE
Use with the following sauces:

• Cream or cheese
• Butter & Oil
• Vegetable
• Meat
• Tomato
• Seafood

GEMELLI
Use with the following sauces:

• Meat
• Pesto
• Pasta Salad
• Baked
• Butter & Oil
• Vegetable
• Cream or cheese
• Soup

LASAGNE
Use with the following sauces:

• Baked
• Cream or cheese
• Vegetable
• Tomato
• Meat

MACARONI
Use with the following sauces:

• Cream or cheese
• Baked
• Meat
• Tomato
• Vegetable

MANICOTTI
Use with the following sauces:

• Baked
• Meat
• Tomato
• Vegetable

PENNE/MOSTACIOLI
Use with the following sauces:

• Cream or cheese
• Meat
• Baked
• Pasta salad
• Tomato
• Vegetable

ROTINI
Use with the following sauces:

• Pasta salad
• Meat
• Cream or cheese
• Tomato
• Vegetable
• Baked

EGG NOODLES
Use with the following sauces:

• Meat
• Tomato
• Cream or cheese
• Baked

SPAGHETTI
Use with the following sauces:

• Meat
• Tomato
• Seafood
• Butter & Oil
• Baked
• Cream or cheese
• Vegetable

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