Different Meanings of Proper Nutrition: The Sociopolitical Dynamics of the Relationship between Body and State in the 1970s and 2010s Poland

Introduction

Food habits as rudimentary practices of everyday life occupy an essential part of social space. They reflect aspirations, interests, and concerns of people and give insight into individual strategies for dealing with social change. Food is also a crucial element of state and global policies, a tool of political power, regulation, and control. Through the lens of food, we can thus trace social processes viewed both from a macro and micro perspective. In this article, we are going to comparatively analyze expert discourses and lay attitudes to healthy eating in socialist and contemporary Poland. After 1989, the country underwent a landmark transformation, and the relationship to food reflects this change to a large extent. From the material necessity and limited choice caused by the shortages of products on the market, food transformed into abundance and took on more abstract meanings, becoming an essential marker of lifestyles, identities, and social distinctions. The changing ideas about proper nutrition reflect these transformations, as well as other broader sociocultural processes.

The Social Entanglements of Nutrition Science

The connection between food and health has a long provenance manifesting itself in many different beliefs about what constitutes a proper diet. John Coveney ¹ argues that since antiquity, this relationship has been an essential element of the philosophy of life, also associated strongly with morality. However, with the development of the natural sciences in the second half of the nineteenth century, there came a new perspective in understanding the connection between food and the human body. It replaced the previous thinking about eating and health in terms of individual choices based on moderation and restraint, focusing mainly on the nutritional value of products and the energy provided by food intake. The perception of food products in terms of their chemical composition and biological properties, termed as nutritionism by Scrinis ² —turned into a fundamental paradigm in dietetics. Nutritionism was directly related to the development of medicine, social sciences, and statistics and contributed to the emergence of numerous population health programs. The positivist belief in the rationality and objectivity of science, which was meant to be the only one able to provide reliable and valid knowledge, actively facilitated these processes.

Nevertheless, with the decline of the undeniable authority of science since the mid-twentieth century, it is increasingly pointed out that the construction of seemingly objective scientific knowledge is always historically and socially intermingled. In their analyses, scholars like Latour and Woolgar ³ or Law and Mol ⁴ identified different cultural and social processes in which scientific facts and forms of legitimate knowledge are established. In the field of nutrition sciences, similar issues are raised: reducing the relationship between body and health to the biochemical components of diet only, as well as perceiving such an attitude as being exclusively and objectively true, is widely criticized by authors who recognize the various contexts of dietary knowledge and its different agendas. Different processes in which nutritional facts are constructed are identified and the non-linearity, fragmentation and incoherence, numerous internal contradictions, and white spots in nutritional knowledge, publicly presented as absolute and all-encompassing, are analyzed.

Many scholars argue that scientific discourses, once seen as authoritative and rational explanations of dietary problems, are now an object of public doubt and opposition. They also point to the gap between official counseling and popular understanding of healthy eating and the rising tendency to follow the advice of laymen. Bergman et al. ⁵ describe controversies around nutrition expertise in Sweden, which entail general distrust and reverse resistance discourses leading to forms of alternative expertise. Jaliinoja, Jauho, and Makela ⁶ point to the growing tendency in food debates to present lived experience as evidence of the effect of dietary choices on human health instead of those based on scientific research. Nestle ⁷ argues that lay advice and the multitude of dietary information causes nutritional confusion and increases general anxiety and uncertainty. Jackson claims ⁸ that food anxieties have much broader sociological significance, reflecting changing forms of social status, family life, and gender relations.

Some critical works are especially focused on the political and normative agendas of dietetics. Nestle ⁹ indicates the direct links between nutritional guidance and governmental and commercial agents in the United States. DuPuis ¹⁰ shows how in American history ideas about body and proper diet mirrored ideas about society and citizenship. Many American political reformers were also dietary reformers and their thinking about the health of the human body echoed thinking about the health of the body politic. By putting borders between purity and danger, food reformers embraced dietetic regime as a way to differentiate between righteous citizens and those less capable of controlling their bodies. This politic turned larger questions of social and political inequality into a problem of self-discipline becoming part of the middle-class moral culture of deservedness. Similarly, Biltekoff ¹¹ describes how American nutrition scientists and dietitians participated in the process of class formation by pointing to the contrast between the middle class and the “unhealthy others.” Hayes-Conroy et al. ¹² argue that the normative nature of dietary advice promotes the eating style of the privileged classes as being morally superior to other ways of eating.

The above critique of social and political entanglements of nutrition knowledge is particularly vital in the case of dietary advice in Poland in the era of the People’s Republic of Poland (1945–1989) and after the political transition in 1989. During the period of socialism, dietary advice was a tool of civic pedagogy promoting a “socialist lifestyle,” along with the ideas of progress and equality. After the transition, discourses and ideas about proper diet have changed significantly, adapting to the new political order and the free-market economy as well as reflecting global trends in food anxieties and concerns. Many authors have already pointed to the unique role of food in understanding political transformation in post-socialist countries. ¹³ They argue that food’s materiality and sensuality make it a concrete marker of change, transforming external, anonymous social processes into direct and personal experience. The changing attitudes to healthy eating relate directly to establishing and conforming to norms, which form different configurations of the body and the state. Therefore, it is an incredibly useful tool for observing the interpenetration of politics and everyday life.

Research Questions and Data

In this article, we aim to trace the changing status and agency of dietary discourses found in official media coverage in socialist and contemporary periods and compare them to the changing attitudes towards proper nutrition reflected in the narratives and everyday practices of the target recipients of these guidelines. We thus seek to find out how the expert discourses on healthy eating have changed over time and to what extent the sociopolitical context influenced them. We also ask what kind of normative messages this nutritive counseling contained in both eras, and what was its role in shaping the prevailing ideas about a proper diet and attitudes to food. Certainly, there is no simple correspondence between the media message and its reception by people. Apart from the fact that the readership of this type of advice might be varied or even absent, its acceptance may also be highly selective and subject to interpretations. Rather, the task is to determine the intersections of experts’ message and common knowledge: Is there any parallel between expert and lay understanding of healthy body or is there any content from the media discourse penetrating the general consciousness?

In order to answer these questions, we analyzed two different types of available sources from both socialist and contemporary periods. First, we considered expert and lay discourses on healthy eating found in mass media and popular publications. Second, empirical materials from two qualitative sociological research projects (one conducted in the late 1970s and the other in 2014) were analyzed. In the first group of sources, we critically analyzed the content of selected revised editions of the most popular cookbook during socialist times, Kuchnia Polska (Polish Cuisine), written by the employees of the Faculty of Human Nutrition and Rural Household at the University of Life Sciences under the leadership of Stanisław Berger. ¹⁴ At present, it is difficult to find a similarly popular printed equivalent of Kuchnia Polska, with state-legitimized nutritional information. For purposes of comparison, we thus selected the online portal ncez.pl maintained by the National Center for Nutrition Education (NCEZ) and run by the specialist from the Institute of Food and Nutrition Sciences. In addition, we analyzed complete yearbooks of the women’s magazine Kobieta i Życie (Woman and Life, further KiŻ) from 1978 (which consists of fifty-two issues) and from 2014 (which consists of twelve issues). We chose this publication based on its popularity, both in the times of socialist Poland and at present. ¹⁵ The selection of yearbooks was based on the years when the aforementioned sociological studies were carried out.

The qualitative sociological data that form the second group of sources come from two different research projects. The first one, “Lifestyles in Polish Cities,” was conducted among Polish urban families in 1976–1980 under the direction of Andrzej Siciński. As part of this ethnographic research, numerous free-flowing interviews with members of seventy families were conducted at that time (70 percent with working-class families and the remaining 30 percent with families connected to the intelligentsia). ¹⁶ In this article, we analyzed only those fragments of written materials that relate to eating habits. It is only a small part of the whole research that focused on different aspects of the families’ everyday life. As far as food habits were concerned, the respondents were asked about shopping, cooking organization, daily meals, their most common and favorite foods, and their attitude to alcohol. While conducting the interviews, researchers noted statements and then added them to the general description of a given family.

The second set of sociological materials come from a nationwide research project titled “Food Patterns, Lifestyles, and Social Stratification: A Comparative Perspective” conducted in 2012–2016 under the direction of Henryk Domański. ¹⁷ The research focused on the structural determinants of contemporary eating habits in Poland. In addition to survey research carried out on a representative sample of 2,361 respondents, a total of sixty-seven, in-depth, free-flowing interviews were conducted with individuals of diverse sociodemographic characteristics, who were similar to those in the quantitative sample in terms of age, sex, place of residence, and education. Only the qualitative materials became the subject of the analysis described in this article. The interviews lasted between one and three hours and focused on eating issues exclusively; pertaining to shopping, dietary preferences, daily practices, changing eating habits, attitude to traditional and “new” cuisine, diets, healthy eating, and ethical issues concerning food. Interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim.

Sociological materials from both periods differ significantly. Materials from the socialist period are short, up to four pages of handwritten notes, and primarily consist of descriptions of interviews with respondents and sparsely quoted excerpts from their own statements. Contemporary materials are verbatim transcripts of interviews, which are incomparably more extensive, usually twenty pages long. The analysis presented below is, therefore, not symmetrical.

The Sociopolitical Context of Food Consumption in Socialist and Contemporary Poland

Food policy was a critical issue for the governments of the People’s Republic of Poland. It was an indicator of economic development, a measure of the success of the socialist state, and a litmus test of social moods, sparking protests after every hike in food prices. Food was also an important element in the implementation of the “socialist lifestyle” aimed at bridging the gap in living standards between all strata of society. The working class was to be not only provided with access to free education, high culture, and luxury goods ¹⁸ but also to be liberated from the concerns of everyday life to engage more in activities for the common good. Institutional meals, termed by Lenin as the “sprouts of socialism,” ¹⁹ were the fullest realization of this desired lifestyle. They were supposed to release citizens from “thankless and stupefying work” ²⁰ in home kitchens and also assure them of rational, efficient, and functional nutrition based on scientific knowledge that was to best serve the bodies of working people. However, while in other socialist countries communal eating became popular, in Poland, it never gained prominence. ²¹ The reasons for this unpopularity were both practical and ideological. Many consumers of that time ²² complained about the mediocre quality of meals, considering them merely tasteless. It might be partly due to how institutional meals were prepared, using the most economical, poor-quality products without particular care for culinary refinement. However, the reluctance to partake of institutional meals was also associated with a deeply ingrained attachment to the social institution of family meals and their role in strengthening the traditional model of family and the division of gender roles. The idea of family as a mainstay of conservative values was commonly promoted by the Catholic Church, which bounded religiosity with national ideologies and identities. Its role as a moral authority and the central pillar of anti-communist opposition remained much more significant than in other socialist countries. ²³

The government focused, therefore, on controlling food production, and on subsidies for basic food products, whose consumption was considered a priority. Toward the end of the 1960s, except for a general increase in the consumption level, the six-year plan included a qualitative change to the food structure, especially an increase in the consumption of meat and animal products. ²⁴ This objective had political overtones: Consuming large amounts of meat was a sign of prestige, prosperity, and affluence of the state and its citizens. According to Statistical Yearbooks, ²⁵ the level of consumption of meat continued to rise (from 37 kg per capita annually in 1958 to 74 kg in 1978), reaching its peak in the Gierek era (1970–1980), when the highest level of meat consumption since the Second World War was recorded. In 1974, the plenary session of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party adopted a comprehensive program titled “The Further Improvement of the Feeding of the Nation and Development of Agriculture.” It optimistically assumed continued growth in the consumption of most food items until 1990, and in particular, meat, the annual consumption of which was to reach the threshold of 85–90 kg per capita. ²⁶ Yet this streak was interrupted by years of economic crisis in 1980s, caused by discrepancy between the subsidized prices of food and the increasing costs of production and purchase of raw materials. ²⁷ In 1983, a second comprehensive food program was drawn up as an amendment to the one from the previous decade. Its central aspect was the reduction of annual per capita meat consumption by close to 20 kg. This change should not be viewed only in economic terms. Since the dramatic increase in consumption of meat, fats, and sugar at the cost of cereal products and potatoes had caused a sharp rise in coronary illnesses, the crucial aim of the second program was “feeding the nation following scientific nutritional recommendations.” ²⁸

The late 1970s and 1980s saw an escalation in the expert discourse on healthy eating, circulated in increasingly popular women’s magazines, such as Przyjaciółka (Friend), or Kobieta i Życie (Woman and Life), daily press, and cookbooks. Prominent among these was Polish Cuisine cookbook, published in a vast, state-subsidized print, run almost yearly since 1955. Polish Cuisine can be viewed as a codification of the recommended consumption patterns and a tool to implement a specific relationship to food. The introduction to the first edition left no doubts as to its ideological message: “The problem of rational nutrition was not and could not be properly solved in capitalist Poland, where there was a huge disproportion between the poor nutrition of large masses of the population and the luxurious nutrition of the privileged classes . . . by passing on the results of this research to the wide masses, we are contributing to the realization of the tasks stipulated by our people’s government.” ²⁹ Apart from an impressive collection of recipes, the detailed rules of organizing work in the kitchen, and ways of serving meals, it also contained a substantial body of nutrition knowledge. The content of this dietetic advice will be the focus of further analysis.

The political and economic transformation in 1989 brought a dramatic change in the amount and range of products available in the market. Food, from scarcity, necessity, and everyday anguish, transformed into abundance, becoming a token of different lifestyles, identities, and moral choices. The decentralized management system for agricultural production, food industry, and retail trade have gradually reduced the role of state policy in shaping food consumption in favor of the individualized interests of commercial institutions and enterprises. Accession to the European Union in 2004 intensified the processes of adaptation to functioning on the European market and influenced further the transformation of food consumption in Poland. In the conditions of the dynamic development of commercial networks, growing supply of imported goods, diversification of the supply offer, and universal access to information exchange, there is a gradual alignment with Western consumption models. Consumption statistics is indicative of these trends.

Up to 2004, there was a significant decrease in milk consumption (by 50 percent), potatoes (by 40 percent), cereals (by 20 percent), and sugar (by 10 percent) ³⁰ while meat consumption increased from 68.6 kg in 1990 to 74 kg in 2001, thus matching the average of the late 1970s. In 2006, the Eurostat research made it possible to compare the food consumption profile in Poland against the European Union. Despite the abovementioned decrease in potatoes, cereals, and sugar consumption, an average Poles still consumed them more than other EU citizens (especially potatoes: 60 percent more). On the other hand, there was much less milk consumed in Poland (twice as low as in Sweden and Finland), fish (by half lower than average in the EU), and vegetable fats (40 percent lower). ³¹ In 2014 slow changes were observed. While meat consumption remained at the same level (73.6 kg per capita), fish consumption increased by 22.7 percent (up to 13.5 kg), dairy products by 13 percent (205 l), and vegetable fats by 12 percent (32.7 kg). The consumption of cereal products dropped further (by 11 percent), as did the consumption of potatoes, by 22.3 percent (101 kg). These changes can thus be perceived as more consistent with the general EU model and also with nutritional recommendations. ³²

Nevertheless, specialists are still alarmed at the sharp increase in obesity among adults, adolescents, and children as well as an increase in diseases related to diets, such as cancer, heart, or metabolic diseases. Following many earlier public state-legitimized recovery programs, in 2017, the National Center for Nutritional Education (NCEZ) was established in response to these population health concerns. The new institution is supposed to be a source of reliable knowledge about nutrition based on current scientific research. The NCEZ established an online portal, the aim of which was to provide understandable and practical information about a healthy diet. The content of this advice will be analyzed further.

Nutritional Recommendations in Socialist and Post-Socialist Poland

During the socialist regime, all the information in magazines and cookbooks referred to the same, officially recognized, source of knowledge. There were no alternatives: The guidelines created by the Institute of Food and Nutrition were considered universal and indisputable. The responsibility for food choices lay not with the citizens but with the government and the experts, who simply knew better, and who determined “the best, from the point of view of human health, nutritional standards, product selection and rational methods of preparing ready meals.” ³³

The whole dietary guidance had a coherent, monolithic, and timeless nature. It was characterized primarily by the language of objectivity and unquestionable scientific truth, which provided concrete and unambiguous guidance on what is and what is not beneficial for the human body. The dietetic advice was written in rhetoric of nutritious science featuring numerous classifications, figures, tables, and lists. The rational diet was based on the model of 12 nutritional groups, each of which was supposed to be consumed daily in precisely defined proportions. fruits and vegetables made up the largest proportion of daily-recommended food intake and were divided into four nutritional groups: potatoes (26 percent), classified separately from other vegetables (24 percent), milk and milk-based products (21 percent), and cereal products (17 percent). Meat and fish were recommended in much smaller amounts (5.6 percent), along with such products as sugar and sweets (2.4 percent), lard or oils (1.6 percent), margarine or butter (1.2 percent), and eggs (1.2 percent). These precise proportions did not change throughout the whole period of socialism. ³⁴

The discourse also reveals a functionalistic attitude towards the body, which implies that human bodies are like machines, with food being like fuel. Food is primarily used to obtain energy, for efficient work performance and in everyday life. Other aspects, such as taste, appearance, or smell, were also viewed functionally. As the authors of Polish Cuisine write: “If food has a dubious appearance or bad taste, this can inhibit the secretion of digestive juices and further use of the food by the body.” ³⁵ The experts in Polish Cuisine also put special emphasis on progress and scientific development. The preface is devoted to advances in technology, which were supposed to “consolidate or even improve the original nutritional value of natural products.” ³⁶ Industrially manufactured, fortified food was thus perceived as more nutritious than unprocessed food. This message was loaded with political overtones: Only a modern country rationally managing its agriculture and production could feed its population without facing shortages.

The guidance proposed in women’s magazines was based on the same detailed recommendations as those in Polish Cuisine. Authors of the articles were not mentioned by name, as they were merely intermediaries communicating knowledge that was generally acknowledged and not subject to any individual interpretation. Vegetables were the group with the most numerous of products described in the Woman and Life weekly. The argument supporting popularization of new vegetables was not connected with their taste or variety but their nutritional and calorific value. ³⁷ Despite the low recommended amount of meat consumption, the articles in the magazine repeatedly emphasized the particular role of animal protein in the diet. Animal protein and calcium were perceived as the most crucial elements for human health and a high-calorie diet was recommended as necessary to ensure an appropriate level of energy. ³⁸ Plant protein was considered to be incomplete and called for supplementation with animal protein. ³⁹ Numerous articles promoted poultry, offal, or black pudding for daily lunches/dinners. Milk and dairy products, regarded as the only proper source of calcium, were in an equally privileged position.

A significant change in contemporary dietary guidance, compared to that from 1978, is apparent in 2014. There is much more advice available, and the nutrition-related discourse loses its authoritative and monolithic character. From previously being comprehensive, undeniable, and objective, nutritional knowledge transforms into being dispersed, multithreaded, and largely interpretative. There is no single general criterion for a healthy diet in contemporary discourse which would be observed by the media and experts. The National Center of Nutritional Education (NCEZ), however, tries to propose such criteria within the Healthy Nutrition and Physical Activity Pyramid, which is used on the NCEZ website to build further dietary advice. The recommendations in the currently promoted Health Pyramid are more general, leaving much more room for individual choice. Some of the tips remain the same or at least similar as those from the socialist period, such as cutting down on meat consumption and animal fats (replacing them with oils), drinking at least two large glasses of milk (yoghurt and kefir alternatively) every day, and eating fruits and vegetables as often as possible (at least half of their daily intake). The experts also recommend eating cereal products, especially whole grains; drinking at least 1.5 liters of water a day; avoiding sugar, sweets, and alcohol; and eating regularly. ⁴⁰

In contrast to the socialist period, emphasis is put on unprocessed, organic, and local food products. The harmfulness of industrial food praised in socialism is a common topic. Reference is often made to the therapeutic properties of natural products, which may be helpful in treating severe diseases, for example, kale is described as “antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antibacterial product.” ⁴¹ Much of the NCEZ experts’ effort is to fight against various alternative diets that are contradictory to official recommendations. NCEZ strives to be reliable. Each article contains references to particular scientific publications. However, despite these efforts, the guidance demonstrates a crisis of science as a source of authority. The experts themselves note that their efforts to popularize the recommendations of the Pyramid are futile. In one of the articles, the author deplores the fact that Dukan’s high-protein diet and the ketogenic low-carb diet, although considered to be potentially most dangerous for health, are the most popular ones in Poland. ⁴²

In Women and Life (KiŻ) magazine, resumed by a private publishing house in 2008, dietary advice often deviates from those of the NCEZ. Recommendations in the magazine sometimes contradict each other or are mutually exclusive. The editorial team of KiŻ deliberately juxtaposes two opposing experts in a single article on diets to encourage readers to make independent decisions. One example is the article entitled “Gluten-Free Diet Rediscovered,” ⁴³ where two experts speak “for” or “against” such a diet in healthy people. KiŻ frequently publishes articles that purport to resolve doubts, such as “Truths and myths about vitamins.” ⁴⁴ Experts writing for the magazine try to judge whether various popular beliefs about eating and nutrition are scientifically based. Nevertheless, this is never settled with certainty. Thus, the final responsibility for choosing the right option rests with the reader. The healing properties of food are becoming an increasingly popular trend in dietary guidance, often referring to a variety of diet alternatives that contrast with Western medical knowledge and are based on, for example, traditional medical systems in the East, such as the “Diet according to the Five Elements Theory.” ⁴⁵

Nutritional advisers in the magazine do not have to be dieticians or physicians. Advice is also handed out by lay people who do not have scientific qualifications, such as natural therapists, or even readers who have sustained a disease. Personal experience and reactions of a specific body can be a sufficient point of reference. The nutritional guidance of KiŻ ceased to be authoritative. Instead, cautious tips are given in the form of suggestions, for example, “try a treatment with millet,” “try to eat often but little.” ⁴⁶ Progressive individualization of dietary advice is noticeable. The diet is adapted not only to the age group or gender but also to individual taste preferences, health status, or the readers’ eating philosophy (such as vegetarians or vegans). KiŻ developed rotating columns which offer a diet for senior citizens, women who try to stay slim, children, and people who prefer so-called natural solutions. It is also acceptable to make choices based on individual preferences or budgetary constraints. For example, a single issue of KiŻ offers two different slimming diets, another issue suggests three anticholesterol strategies, or three “diets that regulate your metabolism.” ⁴⁷ The dietary advice becomes personalized and ceases to be anonymous. Experts are concrete individuals, mentioned by full name, academic title, often with a photo and biographical note attached.

As shown in the above analysis, after the political transformation, dietary guidance discourse has been fundamentally changed. From knowledge of a unified, coherent, unchangeable, and universal character, it evolved into a much less authoritative tone, which encouraged various alternative ways of thinking and debate. It is essentially different from socialist times when the dietary discourse was perceived as an unquestionable truth aimed at increasing the general level of nutrition throughout the whole population under unifying dietary demands. Today’s dietary guidance lost its legitimacy, becoming strongly pluralized, focused on personal preferences and diverse bodily needs. The target recipients of this advice have also changed from the passive, ignorant citizens who need to be taught everything from scratch to the informed, educated readers who can make the right choices for themselves.

The contrast between the calm and balanced message from the 1970s and the contemporary one, incoherent and often controversial, dovetails the changing character and means of mass communication. The development of internet communication, mass access to different sources of scientific knowledge, and the emergence of online communities encourages more active participation not only in the reception but also in the creation of the message itself, often based on incomplete, commonsense knowledge, and questioning of expert advice. This democratization of media coverage is also visible in the press discourse, juxtaposing various points of view, controversies, and contradictions to increase its attractiveness and adapt to market requirements. Today’s target audience of nutritional knowledge is treated not as an object of educational work, but as customers choosing selected content depending on their own outlooks and preferences. All these phenomena of promoting different truths lead to a crisis of the legitimacy of scientific knowledge. ⁴⁸

Food Attitudes and Practices in Socialist Poland

As evidenced by the statistical data on food consumption, dietary knowledge disseminated through publications barely attracted people’s attention, leaving limited impact on their daily choices. The common perception of a quality diet was primarily associated with the presence of a sufficient amount of rich food, especially meat. Although nutritionists’ recommendations aimed at reducing the consumption of red meat and animal fats were in line with global trends in dietary science, they did not meet with public acceptance. Instead, the public saw this as an element of a political agenda rather than as a campaign for healthier eating.

As can be seen from the analysis of interviews, daily dietary choices largely depended on the availability of food products on the market. Despite the rationing of meat products and supply shortages, as well as the fairly common argument found in Siciński’s interviews that “we eat whatever is available in the shops” [44/B/Rz/PG] fresh and processed meat remained the basic ingredient of meals. Poultry, which was not rationed and most easily available, was not considered to be “real meat.” One of the respondents confesses: “We eat what everyone else eats, things we can buy and pop into the cooking pot. On Sunday, we have a festive lunch, but you cannot always afford to buy a piece of good meat in a commercial store, so we usually prepare chicken in different dishes” [24/L/I/BF]. The daily presence of meat in people’s diet was a traditional sign of prosperity. One of the interviewees, who talked about the improved living conditions after moving to a city, boasts that she has cold cuts every day to put on bread [26/L/R/BF]. Meat also reflected the cultural gender hierarchy, ⁴⁹ so it was considered an essential product for men. One of the female respondents says, “Lunch must include a piece of sausage or meat because my husband works hard, so he has to eat” [65/G/R/EG]. A widow living with her adult daughter says: “We don’t have to eat meat every day, solid, [meat-based] meals are only necessary for men, we can just eat what we have” [43/B/R/MG].

However, as compared to traditional attitudes, there is also a visible change in the overall approach to the quality of children’s diet, which used to receive little attention. Nutrition specialists strongly emphasized the role of animal protein for bodily growth, which was also reflected in the coupon system, where higher meat rations were offered to children and adolescents up to the age of eighteen. ⁵⁰ This view penetrated into general public awareness and manifested itself in people’s desire to provide children with meat in their daily diet: “Mrs. F. sometimes does her shopping holding her child in her arms [which was a way to jump the line] despite feeling dubious about it, but she claims that kids must eat meat” [46/B/I/PG]. The need to feed children and adolescents with milk and dairy products was also strongly emphasized. In the late 1960s, the consumption of these products dropped by half, and this unfavorable trend became a matter of particular concern for nutritionists. Milk was thus strongly recommended. Being easily accessible through the distribution system and subsidized prices, it actually became part of the daily diet of children, women, and the elderly. In the field notes of Siciński’s team, a retired couple declared that they consume 3 liters of milk a day, considering this product to be necessary for people of their age [35/L/ChR/JMI]. The same feeling applied to children. One of Siciński’s female respondents declares: “Every day, everyone but the father drinks milk for breakfast, often cereal, coffee with milk” [26/L/R/BF].

Fish, recommended by dietitians, is also consumed relatively often, but more so because of its availability, relatively low prices, and the promotion of such by the Polish Catholic Church for Friday fasting. Fish is often treated as a cheaper substitute for meat. One of the researchers notes: “They eat a lot of vegetables, and fish only when there is no meat” [30/L/R/JM]. However, fish is not consumed on festive occasions. Another note reports: “they enjoy vegetables and fish; . . . no fish or pancakes are served on Sunday” [63/G/R/MM]. Vegetables are eaten frequently, but never as the main course, rather, as a side dish to the “proper” meal with meat. Most vegetables come from people’s own crops (on land allotments) or from the family and acquaintances living in the countryside. It is also customary to make large quantities of preserves for the winter. There is an awareness, especially among women, that vegetables are an important part of the diet. Some women claim: “I cook dinner after coming from work, it’s soup and the second course, and vegetables are a must” [3/G/I/KZ], “you make sure to include vegetables: fresh salads for lunch, dietary suppers and dairy-packed breakfasts” [32/L/R/JM]. However, this consumption is limited and practiced mainly for the sake of variety in meals, accompanied by the belief that vegetables cannot provide an adequate supply of energy. Mrs. K’s husband [39/B/R/MG] does not like vegetables because they “fool the stomach,” and are ineffective in satisfying hunger.

People are also not very enthusiastic about canned and preserved foods as well as ready-made meals recommended widely by nutritionists as modern and convenient products. They are bought rarely, when nothing else is available. Mrs. G. does the shopping, on her way back from work, near her home and as she claims: “the store is already empty, there is no way to get anything but cans . . . cans and deli are the ‘last resort’ because you can use them to make a quick dinner” [57/B/I/PŁ]. However, the prevailing preference is for dinners made entirely at home and people do not trust industrially produced dishes. A researcher notes: “They used to buy canned meat, but it’s no good now, so they stopped eating it; she does not use ready-made or pre-prepared meals, everything must be made at home because she doesn’t trust dishes prepared ‘in a factory,’ and she never buys frozen food, either” [40/B/Rz/MG].

Very little is said about conscious dietary restrictions, except for those caused by market shortages. Such restrictions are applied occasionally, in the case of more serious diseases or stomach problems. They are rarely associated with being overweight, as this was not yet socially stigmatized: “people say I’m gaining weight but I don’t really care” [60/B/R/PŁ]. Also, fatty foods are not perceived as a real threat: People eat heavy meals with thick sauces. This is regarded as a nutritious meal. Because of market constraints, food choices are limited. The cuisine is not particularly varied. Traditional and commonsense ideas about proper eating are widespread. First of all, meals should be fresh, prepared, and consumed on the same day. People often finish the leftovers from lunch at dinner time or on the next day because “nothing must be wasted.” Eating outside the home is viewed as the worst evil: it is unhealthy, unpalatable, nonnutritious, and unpleasant. Mentioning health aspects of meals is rare or practically absent. The language of expert dietary guidance does not permeate the daily narratives about food. When speaking of the quality of products, respondents only mention the energy value, that is, the ability to satisfy hunger, with very rare mentions of the vitamins found in fruit and vegetables. No one uses the notion of nutritive subdivision into product categories. The prevalent ideas of good nutrition mainly relate to the basic concern to have enough food to eat. Nevertheless, some pieces of dietary advice, especially those concerning a healthy diet for children, entered the respondent’s consciousness. The consciousness of mothers in particular, whose social role as caregivers responsible for “the future of the nation,” obliged them to pay special attention to these issues.

Contemporary Attitudes towards Healthy Eating

In the interviews conducted in 2014, attitudes toward the healthiness of food had changed significantly. From the burdensome element of everyday life in obtaining basic foodstuffs, eating becomes a field of conscious choices and an object of reflection. For many people, food is an essential point of reference in their philosophies of everyday life. In narratives about food, the issue of health is mentioned much more often than in the time of socialism. In fact, apart from taste, the health focus is the main topic of all statements about a good meal. However, healthy eating is understood in various ways, and not necessarily in line with the official messages from nutritionists. Dietary knowledge offered by the media, if at all considered, is treated selectively: certain information is accepted, some either rejected or questioned. Increased reflexivity in food choices is often accompanied by undermining the authority of scientific institutions and the acknowledgment of alternative expertise. Within this lay expertise, medical language is nevertheless present. The selective use of scientific or quasi-scientific discourses and “nutritional” vocabulary are tools for establishing credibility and legitimizing self-styled expert standings. This kind of guidance gains widespread popularity precisely because of the controversy and criticism related to widely recognized truths present in official discourses. One of our respondents talks about his fascination with such an advisor: “She says that wheat, gluten is one of the greatest curses of humanity at this moment. . . . She also wrote that fatty foods can keep us going throughout the day without having to eat once every two or three hours, as the old school of nutritionists used to claim” [59/M/35].

Legitimate expert guidance is perceived here as outdated and irrelevant, not following the latest scientific discoveries. The authority of institutional knowledge is confronted and questioned and general distrust in specialists’ competencies expressed. The individuals rely on their own resources in the search for a specific solution for their nutritional needs. This is especially common when diet becomes a means of self-treatment in connection with various diseases. One respondent describes her efforts to find her own way of healing through her diet: “I was also looking for some scientific studies; some studies from doctors on what to eat, what not to eat, what is beneficial and what isn’t. And I also looked for natural treatment methods because it’s not just about food, it’s also about eating to help you fight the disease. . . . I was looking for blogs where food had a specific purpose: helping people to fight for their health” [27F/32]. The emergence of online communities where people share their lived experience of nutritional self-treatment confirms beliefs that everyone can become a doctor for themselves, and their personal example can help others. The embodied experience as the final guarantee of the effectiveness of a particular treatment is, however, illusory. What seems to be a merely biological reaction is thoroughly social. The very tendency to interpret certain sensations in terms of hypersensitivity to selected products, and the very anticipation of certain diseases, is much in line with current trends. This is also entangled in the dominant medical discourse because subjective reactions of the body have to be confirmed by various biochemical tests (such as glucose or cholesterol levels in the blood) to become fully legitimate. One of the interviewees, who suspected she was gluten and lactose intolerant, first learned how to prepare gluten-free and lactose-free dishes in order to know how to cook when she finally has her tests results. And as she said, “After those tests, I knew that I really wasn’t supposed to drink milk, eat eggs, eat wheat” [33/F/27].

The described group of respondents, mostly middle-class representatives, who devote their time, cognitive effort, and considerable financial expenditure to healthy eating, often negates legitimate expert knowledge in the field of nutrition. Nevertheless, their attitude towards the diet clearly points to thorough knowledge and a strong dependence on the scientific discourse. Confronting official expertise, they express skepticism in authorities and believe in their own competence, agency, and control in the field of proper diet. However, there is also another group who, being equally familiar with the dietary guidance, feel lost and uncertain when faced with a multitude of nutritional advice and its contradictory information, which is difficult to be arranged into a coherent picture. This is clearly expressed in the following quote: “Those stories about gluten being bad for you, dairy being bad for you, well. . . . I must admit that I am also lost somehow. . . . Well, I think that I eat a healthy diet; because it’s somehow, it’s some kind of a gut feeling, some common sense. . . . But I fry things, and someone could tell me, well, you fry your foods but that’s bad for you’” [14/F/38].

The daily choices, driven by “common sense” in this case, do not, however, provide a sense of security. People, especially those of the older generations, thus have a longing for uniform generalized knowledge, some external objective arbitration of “true” and false information to give them a sense of confidence, as was the case in socialist Poland. As one of the respondents reports, “I am from the generation which had one spine; sort of, I mean, we used to have a single set of guidelines. This was a clear situation, one type of information. Nowadays, I am lost in all this. . . . Who I am supposed to believe? You know, the worst thing for me is that I used to have a sense of control over my own life because I knew that when someone published a book, it was yes–yes, no–no, there was simply no other option!” [60/F/52]. Contradictions in dietary guidance, along with the multitude of tips offered, make it difficult for people to choose what is right for themselves as they completely reject guidance about nutrition and are inclined to believe that this type of information only distorts the enjoyment of eating. It seems like pointless torment to them, depriving people of the pleasures of life. A man claims: “If you started digging deeper in it then. . . . Maybe it’s better if you don’t know. . . . When you don’t know, you don’t investigate; it may be better for your health, [just] why should you have some bad feelings afterwards?” [43/M/58].

For many respondents, professional dietary guidance does not provide a frame of reference regarding daily dietary choices. This applies especially to the elderly, the less educated, and those living in the countryside; groups that would rather stick to traditional views on what is or is not good for their health. Here, it is not about completely rejecting the thinking about the health benefits of food, but about applying a different system of knowledge and beliefs. As one of the farmers states: “And I believe that warm food is good for you. Well, you shouldn’t overeat. . . . It’s better if you’re a little hungry, . . . people who lived long were those who survived in poverty, not those who lived in luxury” [42/M/62]. These beliefs contain no trace of abstract “nutritive” thinking. Instead of nutritional value, the question of how the food was produced, and whether it is not chemically contaminated, is of fundamental importance.

Not being in line with dietitians’ guidance may also be conditioned by social status. Healthy food, as it is recommended by dietitians, is a commodity of limited access, and may be thus perceived as a social privilege. One of the respondents from the relatively low-income group says: “It depends. With money and time, my food is healthful. If I have no time, and no money, my food is fast and cheap” [57/F/33]. Eating unhealthily does not necessarily mean that the dietitians’ advice is not taken into consideration, only the range of choices is much narrower for some people. As another respondent explains: “Not everyone can afford such food. Let’s face it. Good things come at a price, and we earn only that much” [6/F/42]. This citation shows that nutritional advice may be a tool of exclusion because of economic constraints limiting recommended healthy choices. Nutritional counseling appearing to be universal and available to every rational person obliterates the structural determinants of eating styles and thus fuels social inequalities.

On the basis of our sociological data, we have distinguished four different types of reactions to the contemporary dietary advice. The first of these is a reflexive attitude, carefully taking into account dietary knowledge and with a critical attitude, focused on seeking individual solutions which give a sense of agency and certitude (at least temporarily). The second attitude is the attitude of increased uncertainty caused by the multiplicity of dietary advice, their inconsistency, and internal contradictions within it. This attitude is characterized by a sense of risk and anxiety associated with making the right food choices. The third attitude is a rejection of professional dietary advice and sticking to traditional beliefs about what is considered proper and healthy eating. This attitude is a form of denial, negating the usefulness of nutritive advice and pointing to their irrelevance in the face of other major threats posed by industrially processed food. Finally, the fourth attitude is the feeling of inability to adapt to the guidance that is considered relevant but unavailable because of the lack of time to spend on preparing a rationalized diet or lack of financial resources that would allow compliance with the recommendations of professional dietitians. These four attitudes largely fit in with social structuring, ranging from the “winners” of transformation who seem to cope best with inconsistent messages of food discourses to the “losers” for whom these discourses are just too exclusive to be followed.

Discussion and Conclusions

Our analyses have shown significant changes in Polish discourses and practices of healthy eating over the past several decades. In the field of nutritive discourse, the most visible change concerns the authoritative position of expert advice and the way it was presented as legitimate knowledge. In the time of socialism, proper nutrition was a universal concept referring to the general needs of working people’s bodies and served as an instrument for disseminating ideas of the progressive welfare state and a new modern lifestyle. Now it is subjected to the logic of a free market, serving diverse and multithreaded, individual needs and generating alternating wants by popularizing new products, diets, and recommendations. We can see the transition in attitude toward the recipients of dietary advice: from subordinated citizens and only passive objects of experts’ actions, to the self-governing subjects, which are active agents of their own choices and are individually responsible for their own well-being. This juxtaposition of differences in socialist and capitalist discourse shows how perceptions of healthy eating change with perceptions of the role of the individual in society and how expert opinions on proper nutrition refer not only to the human body itself but also to social order. Michael Foucault ⁵¹ argued that all expertise is a political tool that mediates between government and individuals. Norms, presented as neutral, scientific, and practical, are forms of power that influence how people perceive themselves and how they act.

Describing the Polish political transformation of 1989, Elizabeth Dunn ⁵² showed, using an analysis of a particular company and its employees’ activities, how economic and political processes taking place at the state level are reflected in individual life. Dunn argued that creating a new type of personality who takes responsibility for itself, manages itself, and makes choices was of fundamental importance in shaping liberal democracy and Poland’s market economy. From a committed and socialized person, characteristic of the socialist period, it had to transform into a privatized and individualized one, best adapted to the neoliberal rules. Analogous transformations can be found in the changing ideas about healthy nutrition analyzed here.

The socialist state’s ideology penetrated the dietary discourse and shaped citizens’ perception of themselves as part of an organism—a society in which everyone had a role to play. A healthy body had a utilitarian character—it was part of an efficient production system, serving society’s good. The state took responsibility for its citizens’ health by strictly defining their bodies’ needs based on demographic characteristics—age, gender, and kind of work performed. This paternalistic attitude permeated people’s consciousness, who defined specific categories of persons such as physically working men, growing children, or pregnant women through their diet rich in meat, calcium, nutritional value, and energy. People also perceived themselves as ordinary citizens, eating what everyone else did, having similar bodily needs (echoed in the popular slogan “We all have the same stomachs”) and craving the same scarce products. Unable to get them, the people felt cheated by the state, which should have provided them with adequate food.

By entering the social space shaped by the socialist system, the neoliberal order introduced a different body–state configuration, atomizing the individual and weakening the state’s functions controlling all areas of life. Poles had to undergo a transformation process, as a result of which recipients of goods distributed by the state became active consumers, making their own decisions depending on individual capabilities and preferences. Self-regulation, rather than reliance on the state, has become the basic principle. In our interviews, contemporary respondents feel that they have to fight for health and that they are on their own in this fight. The shift of responsibility for healthy eating into the area of individual control means that health-promoting practices become a supportive force of the neoliberal order in which individuality and agency are valued.

Nevertheless, these decisions are not free from social status. They require different types of capital: educational (scientific discourse, language about nutrition) and economic (time and money), which are not evenly distributed. Thus, the healthy eating discourse, which encourages focus on one’s own body requiring individual, special treatment, becomes a tool for shaping social inequalities, strengthening the mechanisms of distinction. In the analyzed contemporary interviews of the emerging middle class, we can observe a kind of fixation on staying healthy, connected with the growing importance of a well-kept body as a determinant of social status. Healthy food becomes a symbolic capital pointing to the mastery of desirable middle-class qualities. However, these are the characteristics of those who have best adapted to the market economy. There are also those who are “lagging,” “maladjusted,” poorly educated, low paid, stuck in old, traditional ideas, and paradigms. The nutritional discourse remains beyond their reach because they do not meet a modern, neoliberal subject’s characteristics. Lost, “backward,” and marginalized, they cannot adapt to the desired lifestyle due to the “deficits” stigmatized by the free market.

When analyzing the contemporary sociological interviews, we also noticed that the multitude of proposed dietary solutions and their internal contradictions result in increased anxieties about proper food choices. This is in stark contrast to the time of socialism when the main concern about food was related to its shortage on the market and difficulties obtaining basic products. Currently, we are dealing with a peculiar “paradox of plenty” ⁵³ where the abundance of food generates even more varied concerns and worries than in the time of its shortages. These increased anxieties are undoubtedly associated with the rapidity of political, economic, and sociocultural changes that have taken place over the past thirty years in Poland. The accelerated and compressed mode of transformation to the capitalist system brought tension, uncertainty, and insecurity and resulted in the coexistence of various contradictory forms of old and new ways of dealing with everyday reality. ⁵⁴

Nevertheless, while political transformation in Poland after 1989 has had a significant impact on the situation in the food market, the ways of its production, distribution, and marketing; food anxieties; deep concerns about food safety; and general distrust in the institutions responsible for its safety and quality are global phenomena that have been confirmed in numerous studies elsewhere. ⁵⁵ According to many sociologists, ⁵⁶ fear and anxiety have become an everyday condition of modern life that, in the face of instability and fluidity of social forms, increased reflexivity, questioning everything from scratch, plurality of options, and forced choices in each sphere of life does not provide any sense of security and confidence. The physical body becomes the most stable and durable axis of human existence, and its healthiness is treated as the supreme value. Healthism, as this phenomenon was called by Robert Crawford, ⁵⁷ shifts health management from the public and professional sphere to the area of individual control. Excessive concern for health and body, and feelings of loss and uncertainty in finding the right solutions, reflect and reinforce the peculiarities of our epoch, described by sociologists as an age of unprecedented risk, contradictions, fluidity, and pluralization of truths. The changing meanings of healthy eating, constructed in relation to changing social reality and structures, are systematically included in these global phenomena.