Polacy jedzą więcej mięsa i piją mniej alkoholu. Więcej mięsa?

This week I came across a statistic that made me stop for a moment: Poles are eating more and more meat.

More meat?

I was convinced they were already eating quite a lot of it.

Anyone who has spent some time around a Polish family table knows what I mean. Meat-filled pierogi. Karkówka. Kotlet schabowy. Kiełbasa, of course. Ham. Roast meat. Homemade food prepared the old-fashioned way, with potatoes, dumplings or salads on the side. And if you are eating at somebody's home, there is a good chance that one meal will somehow turn into three courses.

I'm not complaining. Quite the opposite.

According to the latest data from Statistics Poland, the average Pole ate 82 kilograms of meat in 2025. That was 7.5% more than the year before and almost 23% more than in 2005. Egg consumption also increased. Interestingly — at least for anyone with a stereotypical image of Polish cuisine — over the longer term Poles are eating considerably fewer potatoes. Notes From Poland

There is, of course, one famous exception to this meat-eating tradition: Christmas Eve. In many Polish homes, people still do not eat meat that evening.

I have always found the symbolism of this tradition slightly amusing. We celebrate the birth of Christ, and on that particular evening meat disappears from the table. Considering what later happens symbolically to the body of Christ in the liturgy, perhaps it is better not to analyse it too closely.

Fish, however, apparently does not present a problem.

The second part of these statistics is perhaps even more interesting: Poles are drinking less alcohol.

Beer consumption has fallen noticeably from its 2018 peak. People are also drinking less spirits and wine. This no longer looks like a random fluctuation from one year to another, but rather like a genuine trend. Although, to keep things in perspective, it is worth adding that alcohol consumption is still somewhat higher than it was twenty years ago. Notes From Poland

I have somewhat mixed feelings about that.

Alcohol in Poland has always been extremely easy to obtain. Small shops, petrol stations, kiosks, supermarkets and places open at hours when no sensible person really needs to buy anything except cigarettes, beer and questionable snacks.

And of course, that availability has its dark side.

There are health consequences. There are families damaged by alcohol. There are people who drink far too much. Poland is not unique in this respect, but pretending that it is all just harmless fun would be dishonest.

On the other hand, there is also something about Polish drinking culture that I have always liked.

Two beers bought on impulse. One for you, one for me. Maybe another one each because the conversation became interesting. A bench somewhere in a park — not always entirely legal, which only makes the story better afterwards — or a small pub that we entered “for a moment” and left much later.

Situations like that have a remarkable ability to produce direct, spontaneous conversations. Politics, family, work, history, the neighbour, the brother-in-law, why Germany is wrong again, why Warsaw is too expensive, and why the national football team will once again fail to win anything.

Nothing planned. Nothing optimised. Just conversation.

There is something very Polish about it.

And Polish beer is good. Żywiec, at least according to my completely unscientific experience, has at times behaved almost like the water of life. I will no longer repeat the claim from my younger years that Żywiec gives you “no hangover”, however. Age has provided me with some counterarguments.

So perhaps the decline in alcohol consumption really is good news.

What surprises me a little is that a more serious policy of reducing consumption did not appear earlier, particularly during the years when PiS presented itself as the defender of traditional Catholic values. Alcohol is, after all, not a marginal public-health problem. Perhaps restrictions were simply too unpopular. Governments generally find it easier to defend principles until those principles begin interfering with voters' everyday habits.

If Poles really do gradually drink less, the small shops will manage somehow. They can sell coffee. Lotto tickets. Energy drinks. Allegro parcels. Or some other slightly questionable business to replace late-night vodka sales.

And as for the meat: enjoy your meal.

Just keep an eye on your waistline.

The beer belly may be getting smaller. It would be rather funny if it were replaced by a pork-cutlet belly.

The data that inspired this article were reported by Notes from Poland, based on statistics from Statistics Poland. Notes From Poland