crappy American meat

[ChrisD(RJ)]

Charles:
Right, the choice of decent food is considerable,
but then think about the health and social system
collapse many Russians have suffered, and you
have to wonder if a lack of the old diet hasn't
contributed to it. 
------------
Me:
It's not because of the quality of food they eat. Russians in rural areas,
where the real poverty is, don't have a diet much different from what they
did in the 70s and 80s (much of which they grow or gather themselves). In
the cities, most people, if they're not eating at home, will go by a kiosk
and order shashlyk or shaurma (there are health risks with doing that,
though, since street kiosks don't have much in the way of quality control,
which is why McDonald's is so popular in Moscow). People mostly eat
traditional Russian food -- pelmeni, Kiev-style cutlets, borshcht, pirozhki
and so forth.

The health collapse is mostly due to an enormous increase in alcoholism --
the result of a combination of easy access to bad alcohol and despair --
smoking and stress-related diseases, not diet. It is general consensus among
people I know who lived in the USSR (that is, almost everybody I know) is
that Soviet food sucked, with some regional variations; Georgia, Armenia and
Moldova are supposed to have had great food. Cigarettes and vodka are
supposed to have been good, though. The beer was crap.

Chris Doss
The Russia Journal