Plumpy Nut

CBS reran a story on yesterday's broadcast of 60 Minutes about a ready-to-serve food that children in underdeveloped countries could eat in order to bring them back from a state of malnutrition. Anderson Cooper started the segment by saying that every year malnutrition kills 5 million children. That is one every 6 seconds. He interviewed Dr. Milton Tectonidis, who started Doctors without Borders, and he told about this product developed by a dietician because mothers in countries like Niger can't produce enough milk for the babies, and powdered milk is not helpful because of a lack of clean water. Plumpy Nut is made up of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and enriched with vitamins and minerals. He also interviewed Dr. Susan Shepherd of Butte, Montana who runs Doctors without Borders in Niger. They can now treat 120,000 children with this product, whereas 3 years ago they could treat only 10,000. In one of the pics you can see women in line to pick up PN, and in another you can see one carrying it back to her home. Anderson travelled 12 hours by car from the capital of Niger to get to the village to get this story. He reported that there are approximately 20 million malnurished children in the world and only 3% of them can get a fortified, ready-to-eat food such as Plumpy Nut.