Introducing Home Makers

The column will also focus on ways of economizing meagre resources to meet domestic needs. Many women would admit that during the recent seasonal celebrations, they went from one market to the other searching for affordable items such as foodstuff, recipes, and clothing for kids within a limited budget. While we may not be able to afford what we need due to increasing costs, there is joy in being alive to witness a new year hale and hearty and start to plan ahead.

 

It is needless to restate that Economic Confidential exposes readers to economic issues that have direct bearing on the citizens and the homes.

 

What are our new plans for New Year in term of budgeting for essential commodities like food? How do we manage our expenses in an unpredictable economic environment?

 

It is obvious that last salaries for December 2009 and January 2010 would have been committed for the celebrations that might include travelling expenses. As homemakers, everything falls back to us in ensuring the stability and management of the home. The most important concern is likely to be feeding and foodstuffs.

 

This brought us to the issue of comparing prices of foodstuffs from different markets, and finding out about brands or labels.

 

Let me start with one of our stable and common food items: Rice.

 

Rice has been around in Nigeria for long time. It is considered a local stable food, although many Nigerians rely on the imported brands.

 

Despite the high cost of rice in the last four years, it appears however that many households, especially in developing country like Nigeria depend on it to sustain the barest level of survival and for nutrition.

 

There are different kinds of rice in the market, namely; long grain, short grain, and local rice. They all come with different labels and names. For instance we have most of the popular rice that are largely imported from India, Thailand and Brazil in the market with such names as Mama Gold and Caprice brands among the well-liked long grain while the famous brand of short grain are People’s Choice and Americano. Our local rice that has lesser starch are Kura and Ofada rice that are very nutritious if well prepared for family consumption.

 

For health benefit, we should eat more of brown rice than processed one. Brown rice contains insoluble fibre that helps protect against variety of cancer and it relieves constipation. In this edition, we bring you the prices of different brands of rice in the Nigerian market to make the choice in the table below.

 

While I welcome you and the contributions to this column, I wish you a pleasant reading and happy New Year.