
Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food - brudgers
https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/malnutrition-miracle-what-ready-use-therapeutic-food/30730
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blacksmith_tb
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut)
2:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut#Patent_issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plumpy%27nut#Patent_issues)

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6d6b73
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..

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sp332
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.

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6d6b73
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.

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brudgers
The reasons that people might prefer universal basic income over receiving a
food pack are the same reasons that people tend to prefer a paycheck from
their employer in lieu of employer provided food and shelter. My mentor, the
late David Crane FAIA, described it as "poor people wanting the same things I
do." Employer provided food and shelter in lieu of cash wages would also be
cheaper.

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6d6b73
Yes and I agree, but it would be easier to get people behind something like
Universal Basic Nutrition. I mean who doesn't want to keep kids healthy and
well fed? and if it only costs few cents per kid?

But use this program to get some data point on how universal program like that
would work, what problems would we need to solve, and what's the ROI.

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brudgers
It's probably even easier to get people behind not doing much and acting as if
it is significant. The problem that universal basic income is attacking is a
larger one than childhood nutrition and produces less feel good public
relations. It is also possible to have both universal basic income and provide
an independent infrastructure for providing food security...which is also a
much less sexy idea problem than feeding malnourished children.

Or to put it another way, the ceiling can be set by considering what the
people on the receiving end actually want rather than by people on the giving
end.

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sp332
Why was the 10-month-old suffering from severe acute malnutrition if he was
getting breastmilk and buffalo milk?

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YCode
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.

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benkuykendall
> 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?

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colbyh
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.

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rrauenza
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.

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colbyh
yeah I've read a few things about that, certainly seems reasonable. doesn't
quite describe the situation where different countries have different allergy
timelines though.

