Using less American stuff in Poland

So this is one of my resolutions for 2026

Maybe not to boycott but to use less, so that my money doesn't go to taxes used for US bullying

One to start with - I rarely use Starbucks as it's a high calorie rip off but I do use Costa. Not any more - Sowa for me because Costa is owned by Coca Cola

Is there still Polo Cocta in Poland?

Yes, but it is not the original - some dude started the brand again a couple of years back.

Plenty of alternatives to Coke though - Hoop (Polish) Kofola (Czech), Frtiz (Germany) plus own brands. i guess Dino own brand cola is Polish

Starbucks is bizarrely overpriced and full of dreary people.

Sad about Costa, it used to belong to Whitbread. Independent coffee shops are almost always better,

McDonald's is one to avoid. Although some are franchises, in Poland most of them aren't; they belong to the McDonalds company. Not very good for you either,

About Subway Sandwiched, I can never work out what's going on. Lots of branches (probably franchised) but almost always empty.

Costa has been going downhill since the pandemic. High prices and locations getting tatty. Coke are trying to sell the business.

Plenty of good regional competition too like Nowakowski in Warsaw, Piskorska in Wlkp and Lajkonik in South of Poland

Eating while on the road is going to be one of my biggest challenges. For example, between Warsaw and Berlin, I can only think of American options - McDonald's, KFC, Burger King, Subway. Though there is also ORLEN (I just finished boycotting them) and I know both Zabka and Pasibus are thinking of drive ins)

On smaller roads then I will explore more Polish owner options even if it takes more time it will probably be healthier

One of the nicest things about eating in Poland is the roadside diners, sadly only on trunk roads rather than motorways. Many unchanged since the PRL.

Some are a bit crap with plastic cups and plates thought many have good soup and nice things like liver and mash.

I recently had a good goulash at the BP gas station on S3. I can only recommend it.

Will try that

Plenty of options in Shell and Moya too. Amic is out - a front for North Nigerians - and Circle K I like but need to check if the Canadian owners have American capital.

In Ireland, the High Court ruled that the 'bread' in Subway sandwiches cannot be classified as bread due to their sugar content. They have five times the sugar limit allowed in Ireland for bread!

Yes - I remember that case. In fact buying less American stuff aligns with being a healthier better person in many cases - less social media, fast food, junk tv, oil.

Tomorrow I will be thinking about how to replace audiobooks (I love them but Apple and Amazon have a duopoly in English titles). Might just be Empik store

In terms of food, absolutely. There are deep problems with food in America and those who travel abroad notice... you can eat well and healthily in the US but it takes planning and forethought (and it's too easy to just buy processed junk that's full of corn syrup, seed oils and who knows what chemicals....).

About time too!
America no longer rules the commercial world

It's part of the plan...Kill them before they go on Social Security and Medicare.

Just imagine everybody being fit and dying healthy at 100. A financial disaster like never before...

That's why I will never understand gov animosity to smoking...They pay cig taxes and die at 60. What's there to be against?

The same with fentanyl...Let them die and watch the average national IQ shoot up...

I don't even take prescription drugs for pain after a surgery...I noticed that such pain always goes away, but the addiction to the drug may stay a lot longer than a Polish nanny in America...

As far as I know, there are some issues (which have become political) about permitted additives and what can and can't be imported. Also chlorinated chicken and some issues with beef.


I've eaten nicely there, especially pizza in New York. As in Poland and probably the U.K. though, it isn't actually cheese on a lot of pizza; instead, they use 'non-dairy pizza topping'.


Burger buns in McDonalds ar much the same.

There's a lot of product on Netflix and the other streaming services. In Britain at the start of the 90s they had to reduce the amount of American stuff on TV since it was harming quality (in part because of the footage from the cutting room floor they used to put back in due to differences in programme length and the adverts and in part because buying in is cheaper than making original content). This appears to have fallen by the wayside.

Unfortunately it's hard to avoid Microsoft completely (though I mostly do) and Apple (which is much better). There's always Deepseek rather than ChatGPT however that of course is Chinese.

First Iron is ordering American pizza that puts one in debt, now jon is eating pizza with non-dairy pizza topping. Where are you guys getting your pizza?

I've lived here my entire illustrious life and have a very deep and abiding love for pizza and it's always been real cheese (normally provolone or mozarella) and I haven't gone bankrupt.

You guys need the AntV tour of pizzerias.

Most commercial pizza is like that now. Cheaper.

Europe seems to be moving (except for Poland and Czech, sadly) towards using fewer ultra-processed food items anyway; one reason that food exports from across the Atlantic are relatively small.

Starting with the US tech may be wise, but are there good alternatives? Is the Chinese tech stuff more reasonable to buy by Europeans than the American one?

Oh that's right, you guys just get Pizza Hut over there, right?

Those ultra-processed foods are terrible. We are starting to see a bit of a trend away from them, but they do hold a lot of marketshare. I suppose it makes it harder for a guy to bring, say an organic yogurt, to market.

Mostly not

It's recently gone bankrupt in the U.K. and in Poland it's not as popular as it was.


Sadly a poverty indicator


You can get decent enough yoghurt without all the additives. In Poland they like it with sugar in however there's decent stuff too if you buy yoghurt (which I don't).

The strict food regulations (the ones that mean there are not many American foods products in Europe) do help to maintain standards.

Samsung is Korean

But I'm not changing from Apple - too much of a pain in the ass. I will however go as long as possible without replacement, cut down Apple Store purchases etc

For AI then I asked Chat GPT and they recommended French company Mistral

I drove a Samsung car (Renault Latitude) for 9 years. It never broke down. I also have the best experience with Samsung smartphone.

How about not using this American based forum then? If you truly meant it, but we all know youre talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Dont buy anything at all, please!! Europe needs the USA more than we need you! LOL

Which no one would be able to read without the WWW invented in Europe.

Or the physical laptops from China, quite a bit of the tech in phones from around Europe. Even the word forum comes from what's now the capital of Italy.

Oh, and it all (as well as all IT) originates with a large and bulky thing with a lot of valves invented by a gay man in Lancashire who called it the Manchester Mark One.

China's the only real competition with the US, since they simply produce goods and provide services faster and cheaper, like a nation of automatons.

Well ahead of them in terms of computer goods.

Everything in the shops in Europe (and most other places) is from China, almost nothing from America. I bought a Yank vacuum cleaner called a Roomba however that firm's now filed for bankruptcy protection because the Chinese ones are less than half the price and better.

All this is sad. What's going on with the regime there is not the America we know and love. It's as if there's been a fascist coup.

Spot on, sir!!

Youre the same as meathead, leftist brown nose to Europe.

How?
Please explain...if you can.

One Brit and one Jew clearly didn't spend enough time in Dachau to know what fascism really is.

But ...hey...when brains stop working, fascism is whatever these morons say it is...even if 80,000,000 Americans voted for it...

Here is my definition:

Fascism - a system that has hate laws. See the UK and other Euro "democracies"...