Everyone seems to think that meat and dairy products in Belarus are natural and tasty.
Meanwhile, it seems to me, as usual, that this is largely just a manifestation of the quirks of human thinking. Subconsciously, many people think something along the lines of “things used to be better” (I mean the parallel with the USSR) and “if a country is agrarian, everything there is natural.” Meanwhile, when we were in Belarus for Ligo, I illegally brought a couple of cans of their canned meat under the NYAM-NAM brand back here. Tried it recently — it tasted way too salty/MSG-heavy, and afterwards I even felt kind of unwell. The ingredients on the label list monosodium glutamate.
But then I happened to buy some of our local canned game meat labeled “Jekabpils Viesuli”, venison to be exact. No glutamate was found in the ingredients on the packaging. The percentage ratio of meat to fat is also slightly better than in the Belarusian canned meat. (Though they probably have a GOST standard for this stuff). I liked the taste much more than the Belarusian one, although I’d dial back the saltiness here too.
Of course, the Belarusian pork/beef was cheaper per can than our venison, despite the can itself being three times larger. But still, try to think objectively and skeptically, even in such a simple matter as grub.