Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food | Hacker News Reader

Ready-To-Use Therapeutic Food

unicefusa.org

27 pointsbrudgers18 comments

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

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..

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.

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.

but this wouldn't prove anything about UBI, as a previous person commented this isn' cash therefore isn't an income. I support the idea don't get me wrong. but basic income it is not (unless there is some sort of secondary liquidity market and that seems to be counter productive to your first point).

Yes, it's not ubi, but I still think it would help as an ubi-related experiment. If it helps, instead of UBI call it Universal Basic Nutrition.

We would learn a lot from it - can we even manage program this big. Are people going to abuse it, and how we can prevent the abuse. will it help as much as we help it could. Will it improve health and well being of the people, and how it affects the economy. Is it sustainable?

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.

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.

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.

The reason cash is better is because it can be turned into (nearly) any good. Vs receiving the food pack and having to try and sell it to get the cash for something else, say antibiotics. Also if everyone else is getting the food pack, good luck selling it for much money.

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

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.

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.

> 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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com