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Reminds me of the leftist venezuelan regime monthly rations in the form of cajas clap.
Absolutely disgusting food.
Thank goodness I was able to escape the dictatorship with my family
That catsup can go 2 ways. Ketchup or Cat Soup
Thank you for posting this. I don’t understand what a lot of those foods are. It looks like a heck of a lot of it is pasta/noodles based though. And maybe milk powder? Where is the protein other than the canned tuna(?) up at the top.
That was it. No more than that. Worst thing is that almost all this products are from Mexico. Before the collectivists and leftists took power in Venezuela, we used to make all these products
Left to right
4 blue pasta packages, 200 grams each
4 green rice packages, 1 kg
4 yellow spaghetti packs. 200 grams each
6 shredded tuna cans. 130 grams each
1 oil bottle. 1 liter
2 red bottles, tomato sauce/ketchup. 220 grams each
2 orange packs, corn flour, 1kg each
1 pack of refined sugar, 1kg
1 white pack, dry whole milk, 500 grams
2 green packs, black beans, 1kg each
3 yellow packs, egg spaghetti, 290 grams each
3 red packs, elbow shaped spaghetti , 200 grams each
1 blue pack, lentils, 1 kg
Take into account that this is supposed to last a family of 4 a month. If it ever arrives.
Because it’s assigned per family
Also, as most of these products are from Mexico, the transportation is not the best and most of the time they arrive corroded, open by rats, or with less or very different products than advertised
So yeah I’m glad I escaped the collectivistic hellhole with my family mostly intact
12 packs of cigs seems like a huge luxury
average smoker smokes about 20 cigarettes a day. so it’s a little less than half of a monthly use of cigarettes.
from what i understand the ration was meant to supplement what you consume, not provide everything
Is 20 cigs a day honestly the average nowadays?? Mind blowing and sad. My mum who was an addicted smoker since she was 10 years of age and went through maybe 5 to 10 cigs a day.
it’s been the average for a long time. it’s due to nicotine’s pharmacological effects. its half life is roughly 1~2 hours. so a smoker on average will feel the compulsion to smoke an hour or so after the last cigarette. since most people are awake somewhere 16 hours a day, that’s about ~16 cigarettes a day.
your mom’s smoking habits were definitely atypical
You didn’t live in the eighties I bet. It was cheap back then and everyone smoked.
For a month? It’s just dried shredded leaves wrapped in paper, cigarettes are super cheap to produce, tax makes them expensive.
Can someone calculate the calories in that? I’m too lazy.
Maybe don’t include the sugar. That’s a shit ton of sugar to go through in month.
Ballpark estimate, excluding the sugar:
2.5kg beef: ~6265 Calories
0.5l vodka: ~1082 Calories
1.3kg white rice: ~4743 Calories
1.3kg flour: ~4732 Calories
500g butter: ~3585 Calories
300g cooking oil (Google says rapeseed oil is popular in Poland so I used that): ~2652 Calories
250g chocolate: ~1338 Calories
Total: 24,397 Calories or ~813 Calories per day
Some other people online also did the math and came up with similar numbers. For example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37027027 came up with 33,063 Calories (including the sugar)
Nice, that was super fast. I guess it’s probably enough for one person to survive if they practically don’t move at all the entire month, for a little while at least.
Still not pleasant I imagine.
What would you be willing to do to ensure that your fellow citizens aren’t dying of literal hunger on the streets?
(Clearly to most Americans, that answer is “absolutely nothing”)
Exactly, and thst sounds like the sort of rations Americans had during the world wars. It was supplimented by a mass movement of community gardens. Personally I’m more a fan of the ration points system we used so that you aren’t stuck with stuff you won’t use and those who’d rather eat like Hannibal of Carthage and go less hungry can do that while those who’d rather eat more resource intensive foods like meat can accept the cost of their demands in the form of calories. Though that may just be because I’ve always been the sort who’d rather be full of lentils and potatoes than hungry after a burger, even before I quit meat.
That’s what the cigarettes are for
You get another 333 calories from the sugar, add it to the vodka!
But what if I wanted to eat the soap?
This thread is basically:
Scarcity in socialist countries 40 years ago: pearl clutching.
Scarcity in capitalist countries fucking now: yawn.
Bruh, you can buy more flour than that with change dropped in a fucking parking lot.
They can. And how many people have to live under bridges to allow for that?
How many had to live on park benches and prison camps in Warsaw Pact states to allow for their ‘generous’ rationing?
I think you thought I was defending the USSR. I wasn’t.
Good so we got flour figured out. How many homeless people did Poland have in the 1980s? How many does it have now?
Good so we got flour figured out. How many homeless people did Poland have in the 1980s?
Uncertain, because like the Soviet Union, homelessness was illegal and official stats weren’t kept. Nevertheless, ‘vagrancy’ was a serious and recurring problem in Warsaw Pact states.
Would they have been expected to grow their own vegetables, or did they just embrace the average young male diet?
I believe vegetables weren’t rationed
What was the reason for rationing, was it inflation, unemployment, drought or what? I though Poland economy was free to do what it wanted, or was it subject to the same problems as the Soviet Union?
Same essential problems as the SovUnion, but in the early-mid 1980s, the Polish economy was struggling.
I fail to see how limiting how much product can be bought and sold would stimulate an economy, outside of a major excess issue like the one that led to The New Deal in the USA.
You’re thinking too much in market terms. It should be more “Our allocation of production has resulted in shortages of these goods; we must figure out a way of distributing these goods without resorting to ‘highest-bidder’ style market economics.”
Typically, in market-oriented economies, this happens during wartime when the government doesn’t trust market economies (rightly) to deliver the needs of the war while there are still civilians willing to outbid the government. In command economies, this happens whenever the priorities of the government and the civilian population are at odds (such as Poland exporting most of its sugar to the SovUnion despite massive domestic demand for sugar and higher sugar production per capita than ever before).
It’s hard to take your very legitimate explanations seriously when your username is bolded as OP, and top of mind to me. Haha. Seriously though, thanks for taking the time to type it out.
I have a game wishlisted on Steam called Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic that I’m hoping might prove educational to better understand how that system worked because sometimes it seems so foreign to me.
Market economies are very psychological - “How do you encourage people to consume/produce X?” But command economies are simpler in a sense, because it’s all very material - “What do we make, and who do we give it to?”
Excellent game, btw
That’s like, half a days worth of vodka
And far too few darts
Meet the black market.
How many cigarettes do I get if I trade in all my soap, washing powder, flour and rice?
Two.
worth it!
Seriously. It’s what I’m buying for myself for a gaming evening if I don’t want to get drunk.
Is that like for a whole family?
Individual, I believe.
Well, the kids usually take the vodka.
The meat and sweets for the adults, the ciggies and vodka for the kids
I’m as anti-capitalist as it comes but how the hell would this even last half a week, let alone a night with the vodka, rice, and sweets
These are just the goods that are rationed/limited. These were the goods with the highest demand and lowest supply. There are unrationed goods that could still be purchased, like potatoes.
This makes so much more sense.
Didn’t know! I limited potatoes sounds good
The rice is about 6 us measuring cups worth, and 1 cup is enough for 2 people to have a meal after it soaks up a bunch of water (plus a bit little vodka and sugar for taste).
The Flour can make several loaves of bread as well, it’s about 5000 Calories for that bag without considering oil added for a nice focaccia or butter and milk for a classic brioche.
If each person gets this then it can be sufficient, but I assume it was supplementary in nature.
One cup of uncooked rice does not make enough for me for dinner, I don’t know how you think two can dine on that.
Well, the typical serving size for uncooked rice is 1/2 cup. Or 1/4 cup if it’s a side dish. That’s typically what I make for my wife and I when we have rice. Perhaps you just like more than the average person does?
Fluffy rice is pretty filling, imo.
There’s no yeast included though. Are they also maintaining a sourdough starter with that ration? Also a brioche would probably use up quite a bit of their ration for the month and possibly last about a week. Lastly, who puts vodka in rice?
Voda: 10/10 with rice
Ah right, Monthly lol I was thinking more like weekly or biweekly. Yeah, this isn’t enough.
Pretty sure they’d grow their own vegetables
I find it funny that a lot of people seem to be assuming that this is everything that they were allowed to eat. Fruits and veggies have been completely banned, in this world! Haha
Have fun obtaining them.
Fruit is often hard to grow, but simple veggies like potatoes and onions are a no-brainer. Garlic too!
More on the history of this photograph here: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/food-rationing-communist-poland/
Thank you for the effort, that was an interesting read.
Who the hell writes like this, felt like a student that had an x word paper due and added literally every adjective they could think of to pad it.
Oh, she looks so happy!
This is what Conservatives around the world want and glory hallelujah we are almost there! The only difference is all those rations will not come from the government but from corporations paid for by the government.
- 4 boxes Kraft Mac and Cheese
- 6 cans Heinz Beans
- Etc.
If you still gained a salary from work and could buy the rest of what you need this really isn’t that bad
I don’t think you got this for free, it was probably just the maximum you could buy of any of these items in a month. That’s how war time rationing worked in the UK.
This was the USSR. They didn’t pay for this.
Apparently you’re incorrect: https://polishhistory.pl/a-ration-card-for-survival-rationing-in-communist-poland/
To buy sugar, cigarettes, shoes, petrol and many other goods they needed not only money, but also special coupons.
I wonder how they used it. Fancy baked goods the first days, then a rush to bake long lasting good before the perishables spoil? Did widowers ask family to bake with their rations?
Now you know why people don’t smile in Poland.
Hey, I’m Polish and I do sometimes smile. I am living in Denmark, dough.
