Plumpy'Nut is a peanut-based paste, packaged in a plastic wrapper, for treatment of severe acute malnutrition. Plumpy'Nut is manufactured by Nutriset, a French company.[2][3] Feeding with the 92 g packets of this paste reduces the need for hospitalization. It can be administered at home, allowing more people to be treated.[2]
Plumpy'Nut may be referred to in scientific literature as a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) alongside other RUTFs such as BP100.[4]
Nutriset has been criticized by Médecins Sans Frontières for enforcing its Plumpy'Nut patents.[5] However, as of 2018, Plumpy'Nut patents have expired in the US, UK and the European Union.
Use
Plumpy'Nut is used as a treatment for emergency malnutrition cases. It supports rapid weight gain derived from broad nutrient intake which can alleviate impending illness or death in a starving child. The product is easy for children to eat because it dispenses readily from a durable, tear-open package. The fortified peanut butter–like paste contains fats, dietary fiber, carbohydrates, proteins (as essential macronutrients), vitamins and minerals (as essential micronutrients). Peanut butter itself is a rich source of vitamin E (45% of the Daily Value, DV, in a 100-gram amount) and B vitamins (particularly niacin at 67% DV).[6]
Plumpy'Nut has a two-year shelf life and requires no water, preparation, or refrigeration.[2] Its ease of use has made mass treatment of malnutrition in famine situations more efficient than in the past.[3][7] Severe acute malnutrition has traditionally been treated with therapeutic milk and required hospitalization.
Composition
The ingredients in Plumpy'Nut include "peanut-based paste, with sugar, vegetable oil and skimmed milk powder, enriched with vitamins and minerals".[2] Plumpy'Nut is said to be "surprisingly tasty".[3]
Production
While the majority of Plumpy'Nut was made in France as of 2010, this therapeutic food is easily produced[3] and can be made locally in peanut-growing areas by mixing peanut paste with a slurry of other ingredients provisioned by Nutriset.[14]
A number of partner companies make Plumpy'Nut, including two U.S. nonprofits, Edesia Nutrition in Rhode Island and Mana in Georgia.[15] There are six factories in African countries (Niger, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Sudan, Madagascar, Kenya), one in Haiti and another one in India.[14][16]
History
Inspired by the popular Nutella spread,[3] Plumpy'Nut was invented in 1996 by André Briend, a French paediatric nutritionist, and Michel Lescanne, a food-processing engineer.[2] Nutella is a spread composed of sugar, modified palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skimmed milk powder, whey powder, lecithin, and vanillin. In contrast, Plumpy'Nut is a combination of peanut paste, vegetable oil and milk powder, without including chocolate, but containing sugar, vitamins and dietary minerals.
Patent issues
Nutriset holds or held patents in many countries (including, published in 2002) for the production of nut-based, nutritional foods as pastes, which they have defended to prevent non-licensees in the United States from producing similar products.[7]
See also
- Citadel spread
- Famine relief
- Humanitarian daily ration
- List of peanut dishes
- Mantecol
- Nutribun
External links
References
- Plumpy'Nut® Nutriset, retrieved 4 April 2018^
- Plumpy'Nut®: Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) Nutriset, retrieved 2 August 2011^
- Andrew Rice. The Peanut Solution New York Times Magazine, 2 September 2010, retrieved 2 September 2010