Even when foreign aid reaches starving children, the food that fills their stomachs may not be nutritious enough to save them from disease and death, an international relief organization said Wednesday.

Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, called for expanded use of what is called ready-to-use food (RUF), a blend of such ingredients as milk powder, peanut butter, vegetable oil, sugar, vitamins and minerals in individual packets designed to provide all the nutrients a young child needs.

A child suffering from malnutrition is photographed at a feeding centre in Maradi, Niger, in 2005.
(Associated Press)

In food shorthand, the initials RUF may eventually become as familiar as MREs, the "meals, ready to eat" carried by U.S. combat troops.

The doctors group, which won the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize, is launching a campaign under the slogan Food is Not Enough, asking donors, researchers, governments and international organizations to help provide the cash and know-how required to get RUF to those who need it.

But RUF packets cost more than the corn, wheat and soybeans often shipped to the hungry in Africa and elsewhere, and they face obstacles in Washington from policies intended to ensure that U.S. aid dollars buys U.S. farm products.

The group, known by the initials MSF, said wide distribution of RUF packets could prevent many of the estimated five million deaths a year related to malnutrition in children under five.

"In Somalia, we are giving acutely malnourished kids packets of ready-to-use food and we see them gain weight and begin thriving within a couple of weeks," Dr. Gustavo Fernandez, MSF head of mission in Somalia, said in a statement.

Advocates say the packets have many virtues:

• They can be prepared in many countries.
• They are calorie-dense, tasty and easy on small stomachs.
• They are easy to store, transport and use.
• They don't require mothers to find clean water, which is often unavailable, or to gather firewood in places where they may risk rape or death.

MSF said it has been fighting malnutrition with RUF since such products became available in the late 1990s, treating more than 150,000 children with acute malnutrition in 22 countries in 2006.

RUF comes in airtight foil packets that resist bacterial contamination and have a long shelf life in hot climates, the group said.

In Niger, where MSF is reaching more than 62,000 children with RUF supplements, the packets have proved significantly more effective than the traditional approach of supplying fortified flours and cooking oil to mothers of young children, it said.

"It's not only about how much food children get, it's what's in the food that counts," said Dr. Christophe Fournier, MSF's international council president.

"Without the right amounts of vitamins and essential nutrients in their diet, young kids become vulnerable to disease that they would normally be able to fight off easily."

U.S. barriers to distribution

Of 20 million young children estimated by the World Health Organization to suffer acute malnutrition at any given time, MSF estimates that only three per cent will receive RUF in 2007, the statement said.

But looming in the background are U.S. policies on food distribution.

Speaking to reporters in Nairobi, Dr. Susan Sheperd, head of the MSF mission in Niger, said those policies could cost children's lives, the Associated Press reported.

The United States, the world's biggest food donor, gives most of its food aid in the form of surplus U.S. crops or money provided on the condition that it is spent buying U.S. products.

A bill to make aid more flexible is stalled in the U.S. Congress by politicians defending farm and shipping interests that benefit from the policies, AP said.

With a report from the Associated Press