MW Life is cheap this Christmas
By Brett Arends
You can restore a starving infant to health for about $40
The nativity, as imagined in Zocalo Square in Mexico City.
If you think you can't get much for $38 this Christmas, think again. You can save a life.
A mere $38 is how much it costs Edesia, a long-running nonprofit based in Rhode Island, to make enough of its "ready-to-use therapeutic food" to restore a starving infant to health. The product, called Plumpy'Nut, is based on peanut butter and milk powder.
Navyn Salem, founder and chief executive of Edesia, tells me it typically costs a few bucks to deliver the seven-week supply to where it's needed, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. So call it maybe $41 or $42, all in.
Where else can you get so much for $41?
The cost, surprisingly, has fallen since I first wrote about Edesia many years ago. Back then, a supply cost $49. Salem says they've made manufacturing efficiencies since then.
She adds that Edesia is expanding beyond restoring the health of starving infants to do more in the way of prevention. In the life of a child, you can't replace the first two years. That's when so much critical development takes place, and children who are malnourished can never make up the loss. Edesia's latest product is a supplementary food for infants in the first two years to make sure they get all the nutrients they need. Cost: $15 for six months, or about 8 cents a day.
Really, what you can buy for Christmas that costs $15? Let alone 8 cents?
The nonprofit accepts donations. Oh yes, and you can donate stock as well as cash, which means you won't have to book capital gains on those Nvidia shares (NVDA).
Providing these simple, natural therapeutic foods is among the most cost-effective ways of getting obvious bang for your donation buck. Kevin Phelan, the senior nutrition adviser of the Alliance for International Medical Action, says there isn't enough of these foods available in the hardest-hit parts of the world. ALIMA is a nonprofit involved particularly in providing medical and humanitarian care in areas hit by crisis and conflict. They're often to be found in the midst of an Ebola, cholera or severe malaria outbreak. (Their work in Ebola epidemics led them to develop something called "the Cube," a simple, mobile isolation chamber that allows better treatment for patients. ALIMA, too, is taking donations.)
The needs are especially great this year, after the Trump administration's deep cuts to overseas aid provided through USAID and other organizations. Official federal budget data tracked by the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School show that federal spending on international assistance, including USAID, has been slashed so far this calendar year by more than 50%, from $30 billion in 2024 to just $13 billion in 2025.
The trivial amounts involved in providing these lifesaving interventions may come as a shock to many - especially after all the grotesque misreporting and misrepresentations on the subject. International aid accounts for 0.16% of federal spending, or $1.60 out of every $1,000 spent by the federal government.
Put another way, while the Trump administration has saved U.S. taxpayers $17 billion by cutting from this year's international aid budget, it has burdened them with extra payments to farmers - much of those aimed at making up for foreign retaliation against new U.S. tariffs.
Extra spending on the USDA Farm Service Agency in 2025? Er ... $15 billion.
Take that, big government!
Oh, yes, and "international aid" often consists of payments made inside the U.S., anyway. Edesia, for example, manufactures its products in the U.S., and its products are 100% made with U.S. ingredients.
Meanwhile, donations are particularly apt at Christmas. As ALIMA's Phelan points out, "children under 5 and pregnant women represent the most vulnerable groups in a crisis."
The question, as usual, is whether people are too busy celebrating the story of the nativity to make room at the inn.
-Brett Arends
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December 24, 2025 09:57 ET (14:57 GMT)
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