In The USSR, If You Wanted Dessert, Then You Took Fish Oil!

[Waynish]

I was talking to some friends in Ukraine and they made me realize that during the USSR fish oil was heavily pushed. When they were kids, if they wanted their sweets, then they had to take their fish oil supplements. So the impression people have today that fish oil is some fledgling discovery - regardless of its efficacy - is totally bunk. Anyone do more research in this area to figure out who pushed fish oil in USSR and what they believed it was supposed to do?
@haidut

 

[Hugh Johnson]

Are you sure it wasn't cod liver oil? That has been traditionally used, and it is a good vitamin source, despite the pufa

 

[snacks]

Russian pharma industry and health industry was really into it for some reason. I think it was bigger in the ukrainian SSR than most other places but I think even here if I looked around the house I could find an empty bottle of рыбий жир from the 50s lol

 

[Waynish]

Are you sure it wasn't cod liver oil? That has been traditionally used, and it is a good vitamin source, despite the pufa

Not sure that wasn't also used, but the image in the OP talks about fish oil...

 

[Waynish]

Russian pharma industry and health industry was really into it for some reason. I think it was bigger in the ukrainian SSR than most other places but I think even here if I looked around the house I could find an empty bottle of рыбий жир from the 50s lol

Are you in Ukraine? Interesting... Any idea what their claims were & who their "scientist" backers were?

 

[snacks]

Are you in Ukraine? Interesting... Any idea what their claims were & who their "scientist" backers were?

Russia, but closeish to the border. No idea where it comes from but I will say seafood both freshwater and saltwater always had a kind of positive association with status. Dont know if this was still trie in the early 1900s tho

 

[Sulcuscentralis]

Can confirm. I was born in 89 Ussr, but even in the early/mid 90’s could see bottles of it on the market. My parents didn’t bought into that though. They’ve bought into pufas though (which is even worse) - we lived off margarine and sunflower oil - I’m paying the price now unfortunately. Ussr=PUFA.

 

[Vinny]

- we lived off margarine and sunflower oil - I’m paying the price now unfortunately. Ussr=PUFA.

Same with me and my family during the communist period in Bulgaria.

 

[Waynish]

Same with me and my family during the communist period in Bulgaria.

And the reason was (can you ask grandma)? a) it was cheaper, or b) actively promoted for some (now forgotten) pseudoscientific reason c) maybe a mix of both

 

[Sulcuscentralis]

And the reason was (can you ask grandma)? a) it was cheaper, or b) actively promoted for some (now forgotten) pseudoscientific reason c) maybe a mix of both

Not sure about Bulgaria, but in Soviet Union there weren’t many options lol - either you had food or not.

 

[Vinny]

And the reason was (can you ask grandma)? a) it was cheaper, or b) actively promoted for some (now forgotten) pseudoscientific reason c) maybe a mix of both

No need to ask grandma :)
Sunflower oil was the only one cooking oil widely available in those sweet times. And of course, nobody had even the slightest idea about what do PUFA do.
We had also access to butter, tbh, but for some reason preferred the toxic sunflower, which we ingested in immodest amounts.

 

[Waynish]

No need to ask grandma :)
Sunflower oil was the only one cooking oil widely available in those sweet times. And of course, nobody had even the slightest idea about what do PUFA do.
We had also access to butter, tbh, but for some reason preferred the toxic sunflower, which we ingested in immodest amounts.

I feel like people are missing the point of my thread. It doesn't matter if they were poor & starving if PUFAs were actively pushed & advertised as a health food... People seem to have forgotten that they were! And I've not seen any evidence demonstrating why the advertisers/scientists of that era were doing so.

Now that communism is coming to the west (pushing its vegan foods & PUFAs) - and the west is stockpiling food (predicting shortages) - the difference between "modern" and "ol USSR" is closing. So consider "today's experts" and the communist scientist (that Peat seems to praise) could be pushing fish oil on children for the same reason(s): population control & subversion.

 

[Sofia]

I can confirm, as a child I was in children hospital for a month and every day I and all other children had to take a big spoon of sunflower oil (i lived in ssrs at that time).

 

[GelatinGoblin]

Not sure about Bulgaria, but in Soviet Union there weren’t many options lol - either you had food or not.

Lol... Not quite. Maybe in the 90s late 80s or 40 early 50s. Otherwise you had plenty of options with plenty quantity (I'm talking late 60s, 70s, early mid 80s), I can post exactly if there's a wish for it.

 

[GelatinGoblin]

It was Cod Liver Oil for Vitamin D, people. Not because it lowers Cholesterol or whatever reasons the West used them. How do you think the Eskimos and whatnot get Vitamin D?
In hospitals sunflower oil... I wouldn't know why or if this is really so. People still use them to avoid Rickets in children. It is medicine so of course you should probably eat it, maybe sweets as a reward.

Maybe people now think evil USSR wants to cause diabetes and obesity via PUFA ?

 

[tankasnowgod]

Not sure that wasn't also used, but the image in the OP talks about fish oil...

Well, Cod is a fish, and fish have livers, so Cod Liver Oil could still be considered "fish oil." Plus, it's a translation, so there could be something lost between the languages. Also, different things take on different meanings over time. So, it might be very different from what's now being pushed as fish oil.

 

[high_metabolism]

My father was born in Smolensk just before its liberation from the Nazi occupation. In the refugee camps, apparently, people would queue daily for their dose of CLO. He and his parents nearly starved to death, and he always claimed that the CLO had a direct effect on their recovery. Unfortunately, under this advice, I have consumed 10s of bottles of CLO prior to reading the work of RP.

 

[Starship]

I was born in USSR in 1990. There was no fish oil push in my particular country but people were heavily using sunflower oil in everything. People even used it as dressing for salads. My family gladly was super poor so we barely could afford sunflower oil. We usually boiled potatoes instead of frying them and so on.

 

[GelatinGoblin]

My father was born in Smolensk just before its liberation from the Nazi occupation. In the refugee camps, apparently, people would queue daily for their dose of CLO. He and his parents nearly starved to death, and he always claimed that the CLO had a direct effect on their recovery. Unfortunately, under this advice, I have consumed 10s of bottles of CLO prior to reading the work of RP.

Same case of doing the polar opposite to Peat's ideals before finding about him.