Peanut Butter to the Rescue

Can peanut butter solve malnutrition? I was reading an article that reports on research of how a supplement of peanut butter given to children in Malawi helped treat malnutrition. In Malawi (in southeast Africa) one out of eight children dies because they do not get enough food. This is a really scary statistic! The supplement given to them is basically peanut butter, with added vitamins, minerals, some sugar and a little bit of milk powder. In the hospital that distributed this peanut butter supplement, 93% of the children made a full recovery. Researchers are hoping to use this peanut butter food in more hospitals in the country. A similar product is used to temporarily feed children in war-torn parts of the countries. Many nutrition researchers were hesitant to use peanut butter to prevent malnutrition because of the potential of food allergies. However the results in Malawi may indicate that food allergies should not be a concern. They did test feedings while the children were in the hospital, and out of the 500 children helped by this peanut butter project not one had an allergy. Food allergies in developing countries seem to be less than the percentages in the United States and hopefully this peanut butter food can assist in fighting malnutrition.