Monthly ration in Poland, early 1980s

And far too few darts
- Meet the black market.
Seriously. It's what I'm buying for myself for a gaming evening if I don't want to get drunk.

0.5 liter of vodka? What were they supposed to do the other 29 days of the month?

Let alone the rest of the first day?

ah 12 packs of cigarettes and a half a litre of vodka. a complete balanced breakfast.

ah...
blin.
- did you say abe lincoln?

That is around 970 calories a day if you take 1/30th of each edible item on the Table.

It's not enough, but surprisingly almost half the needed amount.

If Poland is anything like the US, families were expected to keep a garden where they grew many vegetables and fruits, and often kept chickens.
- Are you referring to 'Victory Gardens' in WWII?
  If so, that's a bit of an apples to oranges comparison, since Poland had been at peace for over 35 years.
You supplement it with potatoes, carrots, cabbage, cucumbers and other veggies. And some apples and seasonal fruit.
Things sucked but people weren't malnourished back then.
Also not shown here: gasoline was also rationed, as were cars themselves.

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

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.

12 packs of cigs seems like a huge luxury

For a month? It's just dried shredded leaves wrapped in paper, cigarettes are super cheap to produce, tax makes them expensive.
You didn't live in the eighties I bet. It was cheap back then and everyone smoked.
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.

I was trying to figure out how to make it work for week but a month?

Their priorities were fucked up. Cigarettes and alcohol, obviously, but more sugar than rice? Huh?

Also, lots of meat but no other food groups?

Elsewhere in the comments it's mentioned that these were just the rationed things; there were unrationed foodstuffs.
Rice is not precisely native to Poland... The staple food is potatoes, which weren't rationed.

Alright, where are the anti capitalist tankies defending this?

This has little to do with socialism/capitalism and more with that fact that the economy was centrally (terribly) governed and most of the products were exported to the "friend nation USSR"
- 75% of sugar output exported to the Sovs while the citizens of Poland 'enjoyed' sugar rationing.
- Comunimsm is not that bad! It only has a 100% failure rate, but that's the CIA/UFO/Soros fault!
You do realize that all nations ration as necessary right?
- Here in the USA I can buy whatever I want, even if it's bad for everyone.
They are in the same place where pro-capitalist liberals are when people talk about food insecurity in today's West, and let's face it, the rest of the non-Western world.
There goes the sweets! Now she’s even more annoyed!
I can and do live very well off less than that.

Unpopular opinion: we need to ration electricity consumption as well as fuel today, even in capitalists countries. Because that stuff actually has incredible impact on the planet, and will (must) drive consumption down, so that companies / individuals start integrating "efficiency" into their thinking

I don't see any other solution to the "exponentially growing power consumption" problem.

I don’t see any other solution to the “exponentially growing power consumption” problem.
In the U.S., at least, power generation has been roughly flat for the last 20 years, not growing exponentially:
- That's excluding our hard on for AI the last few years. Would love to see this updated.
- electricity is only a tiny fraction of energy use.
- I'm surprised by how much natural gas makes up the mix.
c/selfhosted has entered the chat
- Power for the power god
- time to self-host a powerplant?
Pigouvian taxes are a traditional solution to negative externalities, and they are often better received by the public than rationing.
It's expensive to be poor - the lights turning off a few days before the end of the month will incur even more costs than a higher electricity bill.
Taxes raise money for other programs, instead of costing money to enforce rationing.
Higher taxes in general will also help reduce inflation.
Tax revenue can be spent on stimulus checks to offset the cost for people who use less energy than average.
- Rather than stimulus checks we need to be using the money to subsidize alternatives. And we can just switch subsidies. Some examples of that include that by reducing cattle subsides we can subsidize lower emissions meat alternatives or even offer free classes on how to cook meals that happen to be lower emissions, and we can stop funding airports and put that money into rail systems, similarly by removing mandatory minimum parking and reducing road funding that money can be put into transit solutions that enable less car centric lifestyles.

Four and a half kilos of carbohydrates and sugars, goddamn.

For a month, that’s only about 600 kcal/day from carbs. Maybe potatoes are unrationed.
A loaf of bread is about half a kilo of flour, that's not much for a whole month!
- I wonder why it's 1.3kg. The soviet union adopted the metric system, so it seems like an odd choice. Maybe Poland had a historical measure that size.
lot of problems, but not diabetes

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.

Half a liter of vodka monthly? Aren't the Poles known for their consumption of vast quantities of the stuff?

Yeast is not on the list but the 2kg of sugar wasn't just for cakes I'm sure.

I'm not gonna say that's anywhere near sufficient, but as a US citizen where do I sign up

To be ration-limited by what you can purchase? I'm sure that's a fad diet somewhere.
- I might bring tankies out of the woodwork for saying this, but I remember one time a tankie told me that scarcity in communist countries is by design and it's a good thing, after I pointed out that people had to be on the waiting list just to get a car. What if the person lives in rural with no access to public transport?
  I understand capitalism is wasteful, but doing the extreme opposite and making people wait to own a car or giving someone bare essentials is not a good thing. Having a scarcity economy is not good, especially considering that the Soviet Union produced more tanks than cars throughout its history. The American military industrial complex is rightly criticised for overspending, but communist countries are worse since the case is that more tanks were made than civilian cars. It means more budget went to the military than to producing consumer good. Talk about priorities.
Well if you really want to be restricted purchasing the maximum amount of those items then you don't need to sign up. Just limit your monthly amount to be as displayed.

This ladys eating better than I do

How?
With an average net income ranging from 1100 USD to 2400 USD, any average worker should eat better than this
This lady monthly rations amount to approximately 160 USD, while the average minimum wage workers spends from 260 to 350 USD worth on groceries
Which I really doubt is a problem, given that the median of the monthly income in usa is about 5k usd

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?

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.
- But what if I wanted to eat the soap?
- You get another 333 calories from the sugar, add it to the vodka!

Vodka and cigarettes are not necessities. Different times, obviously. If the vodka was being made either from potatoes or grain, even if of lower quality, those would be better put towards adding extra available calories for people.

p.s

This made me remember being told there was a time, my country being at war then, where cigarette packs were distributed to soldiers with a banner stamped on it that stated "Have a cigar and relax".

They weren't starving, most fresh produce wasn't rationed at all and was readily available. The items you see here are the just what was rationed due to supply.
Neither is meat or butter
- Philosophical options aside, meat and butter are very energy dense food sources.
  But it would make sense replacing that cooking oil with a large tub of universal purpose vegetable based butter: it would introduce more available calories, both for cooking and direct consumption.

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~~ last a week or two, but I assume it was supplementary in nature.
- 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?
- 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.
Pretty sure they’d grow their own vegetables

They have almost as much sugar as starch, 2.5kg of meat, and no other protein?

Looks equivalent what you'd get at a Canadian food bank nowadays that's meant for 3 days.

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

Oh, she looks so happy!

Was this meant to be supplemented?

That's a very good question

That's not enough butter. I would have been put down young for rioting about criminally low amounts of butter.

I thought I used a lot of butter. You use more than a pound a month?
- Holy shit that's a lot. I use about 10 grams per portion of 1 meal, usually breakfast.
  I don't eat that daily but even like that, 30 full days non stop , that's like 300 grams
  What the hell are you guys doing up there with a pound of butter?
  Oh no, don't tell me. I don't want to know

If you could even get all that, and if you could you had to queue for days

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.
- Good so we got flour figured out. How many homeless people did Poland have in the 1980s? How many does it have now?
- They can. And how many people have to live under bridges to allow for that?

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.

Is that like for a whole family?

The meat and sweets for the adults, the ciggies and vodka for the kids
Individual, I believe.
Well, the kids usually take the vodka.

For a month, that’s only about 600 kcal/day from carbs. Maybe potatoes are unrationed.

No see. US imperialism is bad therefore communism good.

500 ml of vodka? Bullshit, there was plenty of vodka and it was distilled legally and illegally.