The Medical “Gold Standard”: Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF)
An “Essential Medicine”
What is RUTF? An inexpensive mixture of ground peanuts, powdered milk, sugar, oil, and vitamins and minerals. Together, these ingredients form a complete food product. RUTF is also energy-dense and highly nutritious, filled with micronutrients and antioxidants. It needs no cooking or refrigeration.
Best of all, toddlers can eat RUTF in their own homes, thus avoiding the need for an expensive stay at a distant hospital. A mother or sibling can feed the malnourished child with RUTF as often as eight to ten times a day.
Because of all these advantages, leading organizations — UNICEF, Doctors Without Borders, and the World Health Organization — have declared RUTF an “essential medicine.” They advocate that all the world’s malnourished children have access to this revolutionary treatment.
By rescuing children from severe malnutrition, MFK gives them the chance for the normal development of their brains and bodies — and the hope for a healthy adulthood.
The Benefits of RUTF
Research conducted over the past 15 years demonstrates that RUTF has the following benefits:
- It can rapidly put weight on a sick child.
- It costs less and is more effective than hospitalization or dry food therapy.
- With RUTF treatment, more than 85% of children recover, while only 25-40% recover after other treatment methods.
After six to eight weeks and about 30 pounds of RUTF, toddlers are transformed. Their sparse, reddish hair grows in thick and black. They look healthy and energetic. Their eyes are bright and clear. In the words of one mother, whose child was in the MFK program, “My child was small. Now she is like a double child from the one I had. Now I can hold her and play with her.”
Childhood malnutrition is a crushing problem in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Related problems are high unemployment and poor agricultural practices, which result in low crop yields.
