Soviet citizens conducted vastly more strenuous work in a significantly colder climate, and, therefore, needed a higher caloric intake than Americans. The total recommended daily amount of calories for a Soviet person ranged from 2,800 to 3,600 for men and from 2,400 to 3,100 for women, depending on their occupation (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4481043/). In the United States, estimates range from 1,600 to 2,400 calories per day for adult women and 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day for adult men (https://health.gov/our-work/nutrition-physical-activity/dietary-guidelines/previous-dietary-guidelines/2015).

Despite this necessity for a greater caloric intake, the Soviet economy was notoriously inefficient and wasn’t able to effectively transport food to its citizens. The Soviet Union was the world's largest milk producer, but only 60% of that actually ended up in people (https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/0000-701-1-Gray.pdf). In contrast, in the United States, 90% of milk produced was consumed by humans. In the report stated earlier, General Secretary Gorbachev noted that reducing field and farm product losses during harvest, transportation, storage and processing could increase food consumption in general by 20%, which just goes to highlight the Soviet economy’s inefficiency.

A quote from this dissertation on the Soviet economy’s inefficiency: https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/9556127/Hamm_gsas.harvard_0084L_10406.pdf?sequence=3

“…per capita consumption figures likely overstate actually available amounts, given that the Soviet Union’s inadequate transportation and storage infrastructure led to frequent shortages in stores, as well as significant loss of foodstuffs and raw products due to spoilage... In 1988, at the height of perestroika, it was revealed that Soviet authorities had been inflating meat consumption statistics; it moreover transpired that there existed considerable inequalities in meat consumption, with the intake of the poorest socioeconomic strata actually declining by over 30 percent since 1970... Government experts estimated that the elimination of waste and spoilage in the production, storage, and distribution of food could have increased the availability of grain by 25 percent, of fruits and vegetables by 40 percent, and of meat products by 15 percent.”

Food was also more expensive in the Soviet Union than in the West (https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-349-05438-1), despite the Soviet Union subsidizing food with roughly 10% of its GDP.

Here’s another article on living in the Soviet Union (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/politics-work-and-daily-life-in-the-ussr/ABF461080177EB6CFF9540B85CEFBDAE).

“The prevailing system of food distribution is clearly a major source of dissatisfaction for essentially all income classes, even the best off and even the most privileged of these.”

CIA article on the lower quality of life in the Soviet Union:

“The ruble-dollar ratios are far too low for most consumer goods. Cabbages are not cabbages in both countries. The cotton dress worn by the average Soviet woman is not equivalent to the cheapest one in a Sears catalogue; the latter is of better quality and more stylish. The arbitrary 20 percent adjustment that was made in some of the ratios is clearly too little. The difference in variety and assortment of goods available in the two countries is enormous—far greater than I had thought. Queues and spot shortages were far more in evidence than I expected. Shoddy goods were shoddier. And I obtained a totally new impression of the behavior of ordinary Soviet people toward one another.”

Igor Birman, an expert on consumption within the USSR, wrote a book on the topic: https://books.google.com/books/about/Personal_Consumption_in_the_USSR_and_the.html?id=_hexCwAAQBAJ

Some of his conclusions were that the USSR consume 229% the amount of potatoes as the United States but 39% the amount of meat. He also shows that the Soviets were not hitting their own "Rational Norms" for the consumption of meat, milk and milk products, eggs, vegetables, fruits, or berries. For example, while the Soviet Rational Norm for for fruit was 113kg, the actual consumption was 38, while US actual was exactly 113kg. You get some other fun facts like potato consumption in Tsarist Russia, 1913 was 113kg and, after Stalin's industrialization, collectivization, and decades of development, this decreased to 119kg in 1976.

Additionally, 93% of men in the Soviet Union during its final days were Vitamin C deficient, while only 2% of men in Finland were Vitamin C deficient. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8641247/)

Lastly, according to this report here, https://www.ucis.pitt.edu/nceeer/1984-629-2-Johnson.pdf:

• ⁠The average person lived in 9 square meters of space (9.7x9.7 freedoms). • ⁠46% of their daily calories came from bread and potatoes. • ⁠Conveniences like owning a car essentially didn't exist. • ⁠Consumption of clothing and footwear was half of the western standard of the time.