Was there no palm oil in the USSR? | – #palm #oil #USSR
The Soviet government did not recognize accountability
According to reports, from February 15, polythene bags will be charged in stores. In this regard “Facebook“, I talked about net baskets that were very popular in the Soviet era, called “avoska” in Russia, and “setka” in Azerbaijan. In the article, I also explained the connection of the basket’s name in Russia with the Soviet deficit.
“In the USSR, you couldn’t go to the store whenever you wanted and buy what you wanted. In the country, the verb “find” (достать) was used more than the verb “buy” (купить). There was also to meet. For example, when you come home from work, you go into a store and find a miracle: there are sausages on sale, or canned Bulgarian tomatoes, or Dutch cheese, or canned Hungarian green peas, or shoes from the Yugoslavian “Partizan” company, or Czechoslovakian There’s a “Mister D” t-shirt, or some other rarities. Then you would take out this bag in your pocket.”
Certain discussions about the Soviet era arose both on my post and on other pages sharing that article. Among those who praised that era, there were also those who denied the deficit, but there were few, and the majority claimed that “although food was not abundant, it was of good quality, there was no palm oil, etc.”
On the one hand, the question of quality is true, and on the other hand, it is not. In this regard, the USSR was not a benchmark compared to the developed capitalist countries of that time. On the other hand, then you can grow cucumbers, tomatoes, watermelons, etc. to increase productivity and fill the plan. it is no secret how many chemicals are sprayed on the fields. The claim can only be true in comparison with today’s Azerbaijan. It is no secret that the main producers and importers of products in our country are big, very big officials. No one has the courage to check the quality of those products.
But how true is the claim that “there was no palm oil in the USSR”? Before looking for the answer to this question, I should mention that palm oil, which is widely rumored in our country, has not been banned in any country in the world. It is true that palm oil is on the list of products recommended by the WHO to limit its use in order to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke. But at the top of that list are butter, butter cheese, cream, which were “pure in Soviet times”.
The claim is fundamentally wrong. The Soviet Union first imported 583 tons of palm oil from Indonesia in 1961. There are different versions about the reasons. More plausible is the creation of a butter deficit and therefore the decision to use cheaper palm oil to make many state-produced products.
Already in 1963, palm oil import increased 3.5 times to 2033 tons. A year later, the import volume reached 2249 tons. It is true that in the 1960s palm oil imports were not very large. Import volume decreased in the second half of the decade. In 1961-1969, a total of 15,921 tons of oil were imported. This was an average of 1,769 tons per year, which was not much for a country with a population of 239.5 million.
In 1970-1975, the import of palm oil was almost stopped. In 1974 alone, 3,000 tons were imported. Instead, suddenly in 1976 10 It reaches 400 tons. In the following year, 46,600 tons of palm oil were imported into the country, which was 1.6 times more than the total amount imported in the previous 15 years. In 1979, palm oil imports reached six figures for the first time (105,220 tons) and continued until the fall of the USSR.
1980 – 101 457 t.
1981 – 180,631 tons.
1982 – 376 259 t
1983 – 315,975 tons.
1984 – 279,840 tons.
1985 – 237,079 tons.
1986 – 205,680 tons.
1987 – 268 269 t.
1988 – 142,606 tons.
1989 – 429,624 tons. (record)
1990 – 201,784 tons.
1991 – 107,990 tons.
During these years, the USSR bought palm oil from Malaysia as well as Indonesia.
Let me add that soybean and coconut oils were also imported to the Union. Without boring the reader with numbers, let me say that in 1983 and 1984, 300,997 tons of soybean oil and 134,295 tons of coconut oil were imported into the Soviet Union.
Azerbaijan the topic of “palm oil in the USSR” has not been discussed much in the Internet space. Russia social networks are not like that. During the discussions here, many pro-Sovietists claim that palm oil was used to make soap. This is not true either. Oil is obtained from the pulp and kernel of the palm fruit. First food for, the second is used for technical purposes (making soap and candles). To distinguish them from each other, the second is called palm kernel oil (I can’t tell which one we were given now).
In the USSR, palm oil was used in the preparation of margarine, vegetable oils, chocolate, ice cream, cookies, pies, cakes, fats, salos and other products, including “pure” butter. Even produced to replace mother’s milk child food was no exception.
In the Soviet Union, the production of products was determined by the state standard called GOST. If you search the internet, you can find some standards regarding the use of palm oil. For example, it is proof that I wrote the standards adopted in 1976 for the production of vegetable oil or in 1986 for the production of margarine.
In addition to GOST, there were also TU (technical conditions). Those TUs often allowed the substitution of one component for another without changing the information on the composition of the product. For example, according to GOST, butter should be used in the preparation of cake, while TU allowed to replace it with palm oil or margarine made using palm oil. As before, the box of the cake read “Ingredients: butter…”.
The Soviet government did not recognize accountability. Major accidents and tragedies were hidden from the public, no information was given about the causes and measures taken. In this case, one ingredient with another in the composition of ice cream, cookies substitute only the naive can believe that honest information will be given.