Essay About Plumpy Nut And Mixing Of The Product

Plumpy Nut
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PLUMPY NUT
The problem of malnutrition is a world wide problem. Every time I turn on the
television I see stories of malnourished children all over the world. Most recently I have
been hearing a lot about hunger and malnutrition in Africa. It was amazing to me to know
that something as simple and as common as peanuts and vitamins can make a big
difference in a childs life. That is what Plumpy Nut is made out of.
Inspired by the popular Nutella spread, which is like a peanut spread,
plumpy nut was formulated in 1999, by a French scientist named Andre Breind. The
product is manufactured by Nutriset, a French company that specializes in making food
supplements for relief work in their factory in northern France. We manufacture 80% of
our products in a 2,500 m2 plant.Our production capacity is around 30 tons/day and we
have storage space for 400 tons. we can switch from one shift to two or three shifts a day
depending on demand. (Nutriset) It is a high protein and high energy peanut-based paste
that can be administered by parents to their children at home without the supervision of
doctors or nurses. The prescription given mothers here is simple: Give one baby two
packets of Plumpynut each day. Watch him wolf them down. Wait for him to grow.
Which he will, almost immediately: By eating Plumpy nut, badly malnourished babies
can each week gain one to two pounds, or roughly 454 grams to 907 grams.(Wines
Niger). Perhaps most revolutionary, however, is the mother, not doctors, can give it to
their toddlers. That not only reduces costs, but frees the doctors to attend the sickest
children, who often suffer not just from malnutrition, but from diseases like malaria or
dysentery. (WinesA5). Traditional malnutrition therapy hospitalizes children , nursing
them to health with steady infusions of vitamin laced milk. Then they are sent home with
powdered milk formula to complete their recovery it works well, but milk is costly, must
be mixed with water and is prone to spoil. (Wines A5).
Prior to the discovery of plumpy nut, the company used powdered milk formula
called F-75, and F-100 to treat malnutrition. This required the mixing of the product with
clean water, which often is not available in those areas. In order to make sure