Mäni’s Blog Café

Can you take the heat?

In a recent tip on RealAge.com there's information about Capsaicin, the stuff in chili peppers that gives them heat.  Here's what RealAge.com has to say:

Capsaicin, the compound in chili peppers that gives them their heat, may help protect against liver cancer, according to a recent study in which capsaicin helped kill cancerous liver cells. Use hot salsa made with chili peppers to flavor your favorite foods, such as omelets, mixed vegetable dishes, and burritos.

It's the white flesh around the seeds where the heat resides.  Read more about capsaicin here.

Winter Foods Boost Health

A tip from RealAge.com stresses once again the benefits of winter squash.

Winter squashes such as acorn squash and butternut squash are high in potassium, a mineral your body needs to support cardiovascular, bone, and kidney health.

You can meet your potassium requirements with Mäni’s soups this week:

Wednesday:  SQUASH AND LENTIL

Ingredients:
Vegetable Stock, green  lentils, Olive Oil, onions, tamari, chili powder, cumin, Kabocha squash, butternut squash, salt, black pepper.

Thursday: HOLIDAY SQUASH BISQUE

Ingredients:
Vegetable stock, onions, yams, butternut squash, anise star, salt, nutmeg.

Mäni's Morsel: Sugar, Naturally

If you've been keeping up with all the talk about artificial sweeteners lately, you may have thought of switching to sugar... after all it's natural!

You may even be one of those Mäni's customers who - noticing our occasional use of organic evaporated cane juice - commented, saying ..."it's still sugar." "Sugar is sugar!"

Have you ever really thought about the process of refining sugar? Most people think it's just about making the sugar whiter by some probably simple process.

Well, get ready to catch your jaw as it drops. There's more than you think to the process of sugar refining. So, before you save money and go back to "natural", better read on...

Low Carb or Healthy

This week we heard that the Atkins diet company aka Atkins Nutritionals has filed for bankruptcy protection after losing popularity in the low carb diet category.  It seems like just yesterday everyone would pass on bread, desserts, pasta, etc in order to be on a low carb diet.  Some customers asked us if we would have low carb cookies, cakes and meals.

We respectfully declined to be involved in any regimented diet that didn't consist of a well balanced diet from all four food groups: protein, carbs, vegetables/fruit and fat.  Because that's what Mäni’s is all about.  Healthy food, whole grains when possible, less refined ingredients. Carb are important, especially complex carbohydrates.  They give us the energy and stimina we need for our active lifestyles.

In the mid 90s (yes, we've been doing what people like for 15 years!) there was a low fat craze.  It was very similar to the low carb fad, but that's exactly what it was, a fad.  Here at Mäni’s we've never been too interested in fads or diets, except for one.  That's a healthy well balanced diet.  Our foods need to be natural, wholesome and nutritious. 

Often we are asked for nutritional contents, which is understandable.  But since we're a small from scratch bakery/restaurant we don't have lab analysis budgets. Our ingredients are always available. And we don't claim them to be part of any special diet.

So when people want a healthier meal or bakery item, Mäni’s is often the place.  Soon there will be another 'in' diet, but we won't cater to that, but we'll be here doing what we do best:  Serving up food and baked goods that's good and good for you.

Larry