Food is not enough to combat malnutrition.
A revolution in nutrition and a product called Plumpynut will.
Nobel Prize-winning relief group Doctors Without Borders want an expanded use of a product called Plumpynut, a nutrient dense ready-to-use food, to help reduce the annual death of five million children under the age of five from malnutrition.
Doctors Without Borders use of Plumpynut is featured on CBS’s 60 Minutes segment reported by CNN’s Anderson Cooper.
According to Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), “Current food aid, which focuses on fighting hunger — not on treating malnutrition — is not doing enough to address the needs of young children most at risk.”
What is the nutrient dense ready-to-use food Plumpynut?
Plumpynut is a peanut/milk-based paste made of milk powder, sugars, and vegetable fats that also contain all the nutrients, vitamins and minerals essential to treat severe acute malnutrition. Inexpensive and made locally, Plumpynut is wrapped in airtight foil packets that requires no refrigeration.
Cooper traveled to the desperately poor country Niger in West Africa, where mothers routinely lose their youngest children to malnutrition. In Niger, small factories manufacture Plumpynut. A daily dose of Plumpynut costs about one dollar. The report states that many other countries in Africa want a factory.
From 60 Minutes, “In Niger, most children need help now during what’s called the hunger season, just before the new harvest. Old food supplies have run out and about all that’s left is millet, a basic grain women pound for porridge. But millet doesn’t have enough nutrients to keep kids alive. In America we use it as birdseed.”
Doctors Without Borders would like to see the the United States and the European Union spend a portion of their food aid on Plumpynut.
UPDATE: You can donate to Doctors Without Borders online, by mail, or by calling 1-888-392-0392 (24 hours a day 7 days a week.)
To learn more about donating money to Doctors Without Borders and/or holding a fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders, visit the Doctors Without Borders donation page. I would suggest indicating that you would like your donation to go to providing Plumpynut to save young children.
