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Today's paper. Last Updated: 02/22/2012

Top Doctor Recommends Anti-Crisis Diet

People should ditch kolbasa and fizzy drinks and turn back to homely foods such as kefir and cabbage to beat the crisis, Russia's chief doctor said in a new report.

The list of dietary recommendations -- dubbed the "anti-crisis diet" by Komsomolskaya Pravda -- was published by the Federal Consumer Protection Service, headed by Gennady Onishchenko.

"The aim is so that people don't panic and know that in any situation there is a way out, including in nutrition," a spokeswoman for the service said by telephone.

Such detailed recommendations are being published for the first time, she said.

Reminiscent of wartime rationing, the hearty if bland diet includes approximate prices and promises that an adult can eat healthily on just 2,780 rubles ($77) per month.

That includes 110 kilograms of potatoes per year and 40 kilograms of cabbage.

The downloadable report promises that the menu is "accessible to lower-income groups."



































Crisis Menu
Recommended diet for a man aged 16 to 59Cost of each food
Rye bread

75 kg6.25 kg160 rubles
Potatoes110 kg9.17 kg153 rubles
Cabbage40 kg9.17 kg40 rubles
Other root vegetables40 kg3.33 kg63 rubles
Fresh fruit65 kg5.42 kg271 rubles
Cookies1 kg0.08 kg6 rubles
Candy1 kg0.08 kg15 rubles
Chicken27 kg2.25 kg225 rubles
Milk and kefir120 liters10 liters281 rubles
Eggs27022.590 rubles
Source: Federal Consumer Protection Service






Start the day with a fried egg and some porridge, it recommends, then have a second breakfast of tea and a cheese sandwich.

Lunch could be borshch, vegetable salad and boiled chicken with rice and mayonnaise, while a dinner suggestion is fried fish with mashed potatoes. And don't forget a glass of kefir before bed, it says.

There's no sign of such Russian delicacies as caviar and vodka, but Western dieters may be surprised by the inclusion of tea with sugar and the recommendation of two breakfasts.

The menu -- drawn up on the advice of the Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Sciences -- allows people to "economize and satisfy the demands of their bodies," Onishchenko said in presenting the report last week, Interfax reported.

Russians need to cut down on kolbasa and other fatty, low-nutrition foods, Onishchenko says in the report. "When it come to obesity, Russian women are among the leaders in Europe," he says.

The diet includes 110 kilograms of potatoes per year for an adult man but cuts back harshly on processed candies and cookies. An adult is allocated just one kilogram of each per year.

In folksy advice, Onishchenko berates Russians for peeling potatoes and forgetting their traditional recipes.

"Try to remember the last time you made pancakes or baked a pie," he writes. "Who knows how to cook with pumpkin, or make jellied or marinaded fish, kisel [a starch jelly], kholodets [jellied meat] or custard for a homemade pastry?"

He also speaks out against kolbasa, the processed sausage popular with Russians -- "35 percent or more fat" -- and fizzy drinks, which he recommends replacing with milk.

The report includes soft-focus photographs of the recommended food, reminiscent of the illustrations in the Soviet heavyweight cookbook "A Book on Delicious and Healthy Food."

The Federal Consumer Protection Service also opened a "anti-crisis" hotline number this month that offers advice on all consumer issues.

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