Porter County Consumer & Family Science

FOOD REFLECTIONS: Sorghum and Celiac Disease (March 2009)

As many as one in 133 people may have celiac disease, of which the majority has not been diagnosed. One of the stories I heard was of a boy everyone thought for years was kind of sickly. Of course when he got really sick and didn’t eat much, he got “better.” The symptoms of celiac disease vary widely and a gluten-free diet is the only way to treat celiac disease. As more work is being done in recipe development for celiac disease, one of the grain flours that has emerged is sorghum. Whole grain sorghum flour provides important fiber and has a mild flavor that won’t compete with the delicate flavors of other food ingredients. For this month’s Food Reflections, they are sharing an article they developed that tells more about celiac disease, provides helpful links to additional information and other foods to avoid, plus several sorghum recipes.View the article at: http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/gluten-free-sorghum-recipes.shtml

Save Money – Brilliant!

In these times, any helpful suggestions on how to manage your life and save money are welcome.  I was reading a wonderful pamphlet this week put out by the Consumer Literacy Consortium whose website is at:  www.66ways.org.  They have up-to-date suggestions for checking out products and prices on the internet before you buy – always a good idea even if you don’t end up buying on the internet.  I also liked their ideas on buying cars – new or used.  Always start with your research in the “bluebook” on price before you go talk to the dealer.  But they also recommend going to the library for new car guides to do research.  These tell you things like depreciation rate and miles per gallon on gas, which is as important as initial purchase price.  They even have some good information on leasing cars and why that isn’t really that great an idea even if the lease payment per month is lower than a traditional auto loan.   There were six suggestions for saving money on your telephone service.  Starting with drop services you don’t need, such as inside wire maintenance.  It took me years to figure out I didn’t need that!  They even had three ideas for saving money on funerals, always a good thing to have a family discussion about before you need the service.  The pdf version of this pamphlet can be viewed at:

http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov/cic_text/money/66ways/66ways.pdf

I would recommend it.  With 66 different ideas, there are bound to be several good ones you haven’t thought of yet.