A different kind of gift-giving
Once again it’s the time of year when we decorate trees and go caroling and send cards to our loved ones. We shop and eat and drink too much. And we spend too much money, and gain too much weight, and then New Year’s rolls around, and we promise that next year, we won’t do this to ourselves again.
What if we chose to take an alternative path? What if we stopped overeating and overspending and instead shared some of our excess with others?*
What if we chose to share with those who desperately need something as simple as food to eat? What if there was an easy way to provide a hugely nutritional food for about $1 a day?
Doctors without Borders has found a solution. It’s called Plumpynut, and a 60 Minutes news segment is touting it as possibly “the most important advance ever to cure and prevent malnutrition.”
Plumpynut is an easy-to-prepare paste made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and fortified with vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a peanut butter paste. It is very sweet, and so kids love it.
According to the Doctors without Borders web site, “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.”
Says Doctors Without Borders Chief Nutritionist Dr. Milton Tectonidis, "Now we have something. It is like an essential medicine. In three weeks, we can cure a kid that ... looked like they’re half dead. We can cure them just like [with] an antibiotic…"
Every year, malnutrition kills 5 million children – one every 6 seconds. In Niger, for example, most mothers have watched at least one child die of malnutrition. There, mothers often cannot produce enough milk for their children; other milk, if parents can afford it, can’t be refrigerated, and powdered milk isn’t useful because there’s a lack of clean water with which to mix it. Plumpynut, on the other hand, doesn’t need refrigeration, water, or cooking, overcoming many of the obstacles faced in delivering and using food aid.
At this point of the year, millet is pretty much the only food left in Niger. Millet doesn’t have enough nutrients to keep kids alive – we use it for birdseed in America.
However, with Plumpynut, the 60 Minutes segment says, one six-month-old child gained a pound in a week. One pound may not seem like much, but when you weigh only six pounds, that’s almost seventeen percent of your body weight, and that weight gain is amazing.
In this time when we remember the birth of Christ, please stop to remember God's commandments to take care of one another. Please think of other children and donate to Doctors without Borders. UNICEF also distributes Plumpynut, as does Project Peanut Butter, an NGO in Malawi.
*I am a firm believer in sharing with others throughout the year, not just at happy, fuzzy-inside times like Christmas.
What if we chose to take an alternative path? What if we stopped overeating and overspending and instead shared some of our excess with others?*
What if we chose to share with those who desperately need something as simple as food to eat? What if there was an easy way to provide a hugely nutritional food for about $1 a day?
Doctors without Borders has found a solution. It’s called Plumpynut, and a 60 Minutes news segment is touting it as possibly “the most important advance ever to cure and prevent malnutrition.”
Plumpynut is an easy-to-prepare paste made of peanut butter, powdered milk, powdered sugar, and fortified with vitamins and minerals. It tastes like a peanut butter paste. It is very sweet, and so kids love it.
According to the Doctors without Borders web site, “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.”
Says Doctors Without Borders Chief Nutritionist Dr. Milton Tectonidis, "Now we have something. It is like an essential medicine. In three weeks, we can cure a kid that ... looked like they’re half dead. We can cure them just like [with] an antibiotic…"
Every year, malnutrition kills 5 million children – one every 6 seconds. In Niger, for example, most mothers have watched at least one child die of malnutrition. There, mothers often cannot produce enough milk for their children; other milk, if parents can afford it, can’t be refrigerated, and powdered milk isn’t useful because there’s a lack of clean water with which to mix it. Plumpynut, on the other hand, doesn’t need refrigeration, water, or cooking, overcoming many of the obstacles faced in delivering and using food aid.
At this point of the year, millet is pretty much the only food left in Niger. Millet doesn’t have enough nutrients to keep kids alive – we use it for birdseed in America.
However, with Plumpynut, the 60 Minutes segment says, one six-month-old child gained a pound in a week. One pound may not seem like much, but when you weigh only six pounds, that’s almost seventeen percent of your body weight, and that weight gain is amazing.
In this time when we remember the birth of Christ, please stop to remember God's commandments to take care of one another. Please think of other children and donate to Doctors without Borders. UNICEF also distributes Plumpynut, as does Project Peanut Butter, an NGO in Malawi.
*I am a firm believer in sharing with others throughout the year, not just at happy, fuzzy-inside times like Christmas.
