Scrimshaw's Porridge

Nutrition experts from 22 Latin American states gathered in Guatemala City last week. Meeting under the joint sponsorship, of the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, their talk was of vitamin A and protein deficiency, carbohydrates and carotene. But behind the technical jargon, each delegate had his own mental case histories of poverty-crippled children back home with grotesquely protruding bellies, infected livers, horny thickening of the palms of their hands. Such symptoms are the result of the starchy foods (yams, corn meal, potatoes, plantains, rice) that make up a child's daily fare throughout large areas of Latin America. But last week Dr. Nevin Scrimshaw of the U.S. proudly exhibited a greyish meal that offered a promise of real help.

Nine years in the developing, Mixture Eight was the discovery of Scrimshaw and two other nutrition scientists, Dr. Robert L. Squibb of Rutgers University and Dr. Moises Behar, a Guatemalan pediatrician. It contains 50% corn meal, 35% high-protein sesame meal, 9% cottonseed meal, 3% Kikuyu grass (for vitamin A) and 3% nonfermenting yeast. The mixture cooks into a tasty porridge or a cake that tastes like the familiar tortilla. Last year Scrimshaw tried it on a test group of Guatemalan children. Said Scrimshaw: "The children had swollen bellies, black skin, open sores, were apathetic, suffered from lack of appetite and were underdeveloped. After three weeks, the swelling and the sores were gone, and the kids were starting to put on weight. After eight weeks the children were the healthiest they had ever been in their little lives."

Mixture Eight's ingredients are cheap and plentiful, and manufacturers in El Salvador and Guatemala have already contracted to produce it commercially.

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