Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food

https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/malnutrition-miracle-what-ready-use-therapeutic-food/30730

by brudgers • 9 years ago

27 18 9 years ago

A tasty, energy-packed paste made from peanuts, oil, sugar, milk powder and vitamin and mineral supplements

What do they do about peanut allergies? If they are so common and dangerous (as witnessed by many US schools banning peanut products) why doesn't this food use an alternative protein source?

colbyh3• 9 years ago

peanut allergies are really only common in the west. weirdly, there doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between parts of the world that eat peanuts regularly and those that don't wrt childhood peanut allergies - peanuts are super common in sub-saharan Africa but the allergy is exceedingly rare. and in Sweden, where they eat peanuts at roughly the same rate as the US/UK, their peanut allergies tend to show up after the second year of life while in the US it tends to show up by 9 months.

which isn't to say there isn't a chance of allergic reactions to the RTUs, but given that their typical consumer is in Africa/India it seems like much less of a concern.

rrauenza• 9 years ago

One theory is that we're causing peanut allergies by keeping them from our children until too late:

     https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2017/01/10/peanut-allergy-early-exposure-is-key-to-prevention/

The other problem is a single exposure and then too long of a delay to a subsequent exposure.

daphreak• 9 years ago

Some experts believe those bans are an over reaction.

The Wikipedia article on the topic is pretty US-centric, but I get the impression allergy rates are lower in other parts of the world.

Peanuts are cheap and nutritious. I'm sure that's why they are used.

6d6b734• 9 years ago

Wouldn't that be a great way to implement a form of UBI all over the world? Just have all these non-profits,government and people advocating UBI sponsor these food packs and distribute it to every child in the world that needs it. Quickly and fairly cheaply get rid of child hunger and malnutrition and move to a next problem.

It costs about $0.30 per packet.There are about 1bln children in the world under the age of 15. It would cost 300mln/day to give every child this little life saver. It would cost 109bln to feed all kids in the world. Because of the volume I think it is safe to assume that we could lower the price to half of that. Since not every kid needs it,the real cost would probably be closer to 25bln$/year..

sp3322• 9 years ago

The point of UBI is that it's cash. The providing agency doesn't get to prescribe that it goes to food, clothing, medicine, hobbies, etc. Also everyone gets the same amount so "not every kid needs it" doesn't matter.

What you're describing is some other form of welfare, and I'm not really against the idea, but it's not UBI.

6d6b734• 9 years ago

But it could be a great way to experiment with UBI. Give everyone access to this basic food pack and see what happens. It will be cheaper to do than UBI, less controversial and really help a lot of people.

sp3322• 9 years ago

Why was the 10-month-old suffering from severe acute malnutrition if he was getting breastmilk and buffalo milk?

YCode• 9 years ago

Possibly the mom* was not in great shape either and thus not able to produce all the nutrients he needed.

They mention he had persistent diarrhea, which could also be pretty detrimental without things like electrolyte solutions and antibiotics a child in a first world country would receive.

* Maybe the buffalo? Article doesn't really say if it's cattle or carton.

trelliscoded• 9 years ago

I suspect the serving vessel for the buffalo milk may have been contaminated. Running water to wash dishes with isn't the easiest thing to find out there.

Mom may have been malnourished as well.

blacksmith_tb• 9 years ago

I thought these had been in use for quite a while - Plumpy'nut [1] being the variety I'd seen mentioned most commonly. I see that there's some patent nastiness[2], which could explain some things.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut#Patent_issues

Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food

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