Take a peanut based Paste packed with 500 calories and almost 13 grams of protein. Keep it in a 92-gram sheet, so it can be easily sucked by hungry babies on the front line. No water or refrigeration is required, meaning it can be distributed in drought -hit areas and maintained at surround temperature up to two years. Only a few daily bags can lead to a 10 percent weight growth over six weeks, supporting healing of severe sharp malnutrition for less than $ 60 per child. Saving life, it turns out, literally costs peanuts: only 71 cents for service.
This life below is Plumpy’nut. Developed by Normandy-based manufacturer Nutriset in 1996 by French pediatrician André Briend, it was the first ready for using therapeutic food (Rutf): Energy-dense pastes that accelerated survival rates of severe sharp malnutrition in children of less than 25 percent to about 90 percent.
The dough saved tens of millions of lives. “It’s an incredibly effective emergency food,” says Dr. Steve Collins, founder of a lawyer group valid nutrition. “Rutf contains all the essential foods needed for someone to recover from severe sharp malnutrition. They are easily transportable, extremely energetic and do not need a cold supply chain or clean water to work.”
While Nutriset’s product was the first RUTF developed, it is not the only brand in this important field. ManualFor example, there is a US-made RUTF produced in Fitzgerald, Georgia. The company states that it can make 500,000 pounds of product daily – enough to fill four shipping containers, and feed 10 million children a year.
Before lead, cases of severe sharp malnutrition-mainly occurring among children less than 5-year-olds, diagnosed by a very low weight-to-height score and an arm circus conference-needed round at therapeutic nutritional centers. Nurses at these improvisational hospitals in often remote areas would feed babies F100, high-energy dairy powder also made by Nutriset. Bacteria were often rich. “There was always a risk that water was contaminated and carried a disease,” says Collins. It is one of the reasons why deaths for in-patient care has been hidden about 20 percent.
More than half of Plumpy’nut is made of peanut paste and vegetable oils. Nutty’s primary base contains foods with fats, as well as protein, energy and fatty acids that fire recovery. Nearly a quarter is shaken milk powder, containing milk protein and essential amino acids, the buildings of protein. Another quarter is reserved for sugar – masking the taste of the added micronutrients: potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, zinc, iodine, copper, selenium, and vitamins A, D, E, B -complex, C, and K.
The apocryphal story is that idea of Briend for the Marvel, who is lead, came from a jar of Nutella. In reality, it came from a first-time experience on the first line in the Sahel: the water solution did not work-the arrivals are still dead. Working with Nutriset founder Michel Lescanne, his idea was to add F100 to a spread of peanuts (common crop in areas of malnutrition and natural protein-rich source) with oil and sugar.