Relief for Tarahumara Indian Children of Mexico

In 2002, Rotarians in Ohio’s District 6600 contacted the Power Flour Action Network that is supported by Rotarians in east central Wisconsin’s District 6270. The topic of concern was about seriously malnourished children in the Copper Canyon of northwest Mexico. The Ohio Rotarians had been providing a nutritious dehydrated vegetable soup mix for these Indian children with considerable success, except that the younger children continued to die from insufficient caloric intake.

At first, the Power Flour Action Network tried supplementing the vegetable soup mix with Power Flour. PFAN soon discovered that there was not enough starch in the vegetables in the soup mix to convert to sugar by the enzymes in the Power Flour.

In search of a better solution, tests on various blends of maize and rice with Power Flour were conducted by the Food Science Department at Kansas State University. Soon the children were growing normally and had good appetites.

The tests revealed that there needed to be at least 50% starch in the starting porridge. If the starch content was as high as 65%, the supplemented hot porridge had even greater caloric content for the children. The KSU Food Science Department analysis revealed that the dehydrated soup mix had only about 30% starch content, providing insufficient calories when converted by Power Flour.

PFAN continues to send shipments of Power Flour to these Indians who grace the beautiful Copper Canyon area. Currently, a special blend of Power Flour with oat flour is being evaluated for some of the children there. PFAN is calling this new product, "Power Oat Flour."