I am running an experiment in Cebu, Philippines on the effectiveness of caring for individual people in need  (through  food/shelter/support), in exchange for their spending time studying/learning a trade and encouraging them to do the same with others. (versus a givedirectly type approach, which I regard very highly). 

From a practical perspective, I'm struggling with figuring out what food(s) provide the best value per $.  Powdered milk seems to be a solid option. Long shelf-life, easy to transport/distribute, easy to procure and I thought fairly healthy. 

  1. It's not enough for a healthy diet.
  2. I'm buying nestle milk online (shoppee), got to be better options. 

This HAS to be a problem that's been studied and "solved". I'd rather not reinvent the wheel. I'm still fairly new at EA, so hoping -someone- here has an org that does this in the Philippines, or a post or -something- to recommend.

Rather overwhelmed as it is by the day-to-day operations and dealing with need (both physical and emotional) on a constant basis, so unable to fully research the topic.
A bit more gritty than the usual EA post, but I was hoping we could do practical as well :) 

Any help appreciated, and if anyone is doing work in Cebu I'd love to connect.

Cheers!

6

0
0

Reactions

0
0
Comments4


Sorted by Click to highlight new comments since:

I did something similar in the Philippines a few years ago. After consulting my nutritionist friend, she recommended giving out peanut butter for its high nutritional value. You could also try ordering in bulk from local vendors for better quality ingredients, which is what I did. The local community is very strong, so it’s not difficult to find someone who makes peanut butter. I also believe rice is a good option, as people always need more. 

I’m extremely skeptical about giving dairy powder in this context, mainly because of its contribution to animal suffering. Additionally, many Asians are lactose intolerant, and the environmental impact of dairy milk is significant.

I emailed WFP philippines, I'll see if I can source stuff from them (and/or other local NGO's). I think I'll keep Peanut butter on hand though, thank you :) 

I'm not completely clear on what your requirements are, but here are some ideas:

  • Have you considered giving cash rather than in-kind resources? Cash is more flexible to beneficiaries' needs.
  • If you are giving food, you probably want to consult with the WFP to see what they would do / are doing in the Philippines. They have thought about this quite a bit.
  • In terms of dollars per calorie, the best value is probably pulses and grains. Conveniently these are also healthy (but are not by themselves a complete diet). You will notice this is also the foundation of the WFP food basket.
  • I am skeptical that the best prices will be found online, especially in the Philippines. If you are buying in bulk then you can deal directly with manufacturers/wholesalers; if not local markets may offer a better value.
  • In particular, if the goal is to provide a complete balanced diet at the lowest possible cost, I doubt you will do better than groceries at the local market, even if you have to pay for food preparation.
  • If you are looking for a packaged shelf-stable food that provides complete nutrition, then you might consider some kind of packaged ration. For example the US government sells surplus humanitarian rations. Here are some for sale in bulk.

Fantastic, thank you. And -I- probably am not clear on what the requirements are either :p

  1. As I mention, I'm quite fond of givedirectly. The idea here is to see if it's not possible to do -better- than just giving cash (which I do as well). 
    (one of) My concern with direct cash is that we'll just get more of what we have now, just with less financial suffering. 
    I'm hoping to communicate love and care to the recipients, and teach them to -keep- that and pass it along to others.  

    I basically am trying to assess how much it would costs to change the underlying principles that society bases itself on. From a consumerist/capitalist perspective, to a Sharing/caring/loving community.  The mechanisms can remain, but if we alter people's perceptions and values on a large scale, I feel we can help address not only most of EA's xmas wishlist, but that it would go a long way towards -preventing- new issues from coming up.
    There are 700 million people in misery, I figured that may be a place to start.

2. Great! I knew -someone- had!

3. Yeah rice is the basic staple. They -will- eat rice if nothing else. I prefer to try and procure nutrients they are likely missing. I will check pulses. 

4 I am skeptical as well, hence my post :)

5 yep, buying groceries locally and preparing meals. But I want to have supplies people can take home as well. 

6 Yessss rations thank you!! I'll look into that, though i'm unsure how well-received it will be. Getting people to eat their vegetables is challenging :|  (New foods/new tastes often just aren't practical, hence the milk)

 

thanks again! 

Curated and popular this week
 ·  · 10m read
 · 
I wrote this to try to explain the key thing going on with AI right now to a broader audience. Feedback welcome. Most people think of AI as a pattern-matching chatbot – good at writing emails, terrible at real thinking. They've missed something huge. In 2024, while many declared AI was reaching a plateau, it was actually entering a new paradigm: learning to reason using reinforcement learning. This approach isn’t limited by data, so could deliver beyond-human capabilities in coding and scientific reasoning within two years. Here's a simple introduction to how it works, and why it's the most important development that most people have missed. The new paradigm: reinforcement learning People sometimes say “chatGPT is just next token prediction on the internet”. But that’s never been quite true. Raw next token prediction produces outputs that are regularly crazy. GPT only became useful with the addition of what’s called “reinforcement learning from human feedback” (RLHF): 1. The model produces outputs 2. Humans rate those outputs for helpfulness 3. The model is adjusted in a way expected to get a higher rating A model that’s under RLHF hasn’t been trained only to predict next tokens, it’s been trained to produce whatever output is most helpful to human raters. Think of the initial large language model (LLM) as containing a foundation of knowledge and concepts. Reinforcement learning is what enables that structure to be turned to a specific end. Now AI companies are using reinforcement learning in a powerful new way – training models to reason step-by-step: 1. Show the model a problem like a math puzzle. 2. Ask it to produce a chain of reasoning to solve the problem (“chain of thought”).[1] 3. If the answer is correct, adjust the model to be more like that (“reinforcement”).[2] 4. Repeat thousands of times. Before 2023 this didn’t seem to work. If each step of reasoning is too unreliable, then the chains quickly go wrong. Without getting close to co
JamesÖz
 ·  · 3m read
 · 
Why it’s important to fill out this consultation The UK Government is currently consulting on allowing insects to be fed to chickens and pigs. This is worrying as the government explicitly says changes would “enable investment in the insect protein sector”. Given the likely sentience of insects (see this summary of recent research), and that median predictions estimate that 3.9 trillion insects will be killed annually by 2030, we think it’s crucial to try to limit this huge source of animal suffering.  Overview * Link to complete the consultation: HERE. You can see the context of the consultation here. * How long it takes to fill it out: 5-10 minutes (5 questions total with only 1 of them requiring a written answer) * Deadline to respond: April 1st 2025 * What else you can do: Share the consultation document far and wide!  * You can use the UK Voters for Animals GPT to help draft your responses. * If you want to hear about other high-impact ways to use your political voice to help animals, sign up for the UK Voters for Animals newsletter. There is an option to be contacted only for very time-sensitive opportunities like this one, which we expect will happen less than 6 times a year. See guidance on submitting in a Google Doc Questions and suggested responses: It is helpful to have a lot of variation between responses. As such, please feel free to add your own reasoning for your responses or, in addition to animal welfare reasons for opposing insects as feed, include non-animal welfare reasons e.g., health implications, concerns about farming intensification, or the climate implications of using insects for feed.    Question 7 on the consultation: Do you agree with allowing poultry processed animal protein in porcine feed?  Suggested response: No (up to you if you want to elaborate further).  We think it’s useful to say no to all questions in the consultation, particularly as changing these rules means that meat producers can make more profit from sel
Thijs Jacobs
 ·  · 28m read
 · 
TL;DR: During a research stint at AIM the idea of a policy charity advocating for a ban or limitation of fish stocking in Canada was evaluated. Fish stocking is the practice of releasing cultured fish into natural water bodies to maintain or enhance fish populations. The idea was dropped as the probability of policy success was estimated to be merely 5% and the uncertainty is large, including doing harm with the intervention. These major uncertainties concerned key factors like fish suffering levels, re-catch rates of the stocked fish, and effects on wild populations, making it too risky to pursue. Epistemic status After researching this idea for about 100 hours, I am fairly certain that it is not worthwhile to pursue advocacy efforts against Salmon stocking in Canada. Do note that this is dependent on a bunch of subjective judgements, and one's risk appetite.  This research was done as part of the AIM Research Program, so keep that in mind. Whilst the findings were sense checked by the AIM research team, I have limited research experience of this type. Lastly, certain findings likely shift whenever different fish-species, fish stocking amounts and practises, geographical contexts or political contexts are considered[1]. This might also change the overall conclusion, i.e. it might be a worthwhile pursuit in other contexts Credits Attention to this intervention came via a country report from Animal Ask on potential effective interventions in Canada. Noteworthy progress on this topic from an animal welfare perspective was first made by Rethink Priorities in 2019. I would like to thank those authors for bringing this topic to the forefront in the way they did. I would like to thank Koen van Pelt and George Bridgewater for their feedback on an earlier draft of this post. Special appreciation to Vicky Cox for excellent guidance, mentorship and frequent back and forth during the research program. Mistakes are my own. Other introductory notes The majority of this pos
Recent opportunities in Effective giving
63
· · 1m read
34