Desperate measures resorted to consuming anything remotely edible to survive.

In the following table, Item A, B and C are all plant based sources of food. Take a moment to compare the nutritional differences.

Now.. the interesting part! Item A is Pine Tree Saw Dust, Item B is Pasta from refined flour and Item C is Pasta from whole grain.... Not big Nutritionally Dense Power Houses Here...

As ridiculous as the comparison might have seemed at first hand, using sawdust in bread was a real thing. So it just goes to show under certain circumstances, cheapening food is a thing.

During World War II, particularly during the Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944), the Soviet population faced extreme food shortages, and some people resorted to using sawdust, cellulose, and other inedible fillers to stretch their meager food supplies.

In Leningrad, which was blockaded by Nazi forces for nearly 900 days, food rations dropped to starvation levels. Bread was adulterated with non-food substances, including sawdust, wallpaper paste (which contained starch), and even ground-up cottonseed husks, to make it last longer. Many people also ate leather belts, glue, and anything remotely edible to survive.

While sawdust itself isn’t digestible by humans, it was sometimes mixed with flour to make bread more substantial, although this provided little nutritional value. The extreme hunger led to widespread death and, in some cases, even cannibalism.

During the Siege of Leningrad (1941–1944), the city faced extreme food shortages, leading to the production of bread that contained inedible fillers. Historical records indicate that from November 1941 to February 1942, daily bread rations were reduced to 125 grams per person, with 50–60% of the bread consisting of sawdust and other inedible admixtures. 

Additionally, scientists worked on creating digestible wood cellulose from pine sawdust to add to bread as a desperate measure to combat starvation. 

These extreme measures highlight the severity of the famine during the siege, where citizens resorted to consuming anything remotely edible to survive.

So, while not a common practice across all of Russia, the use of sawdust as a food additive was indeed one of the desperate measures taken during the war, especially in Leningrad.

For a more detailed account of the rations and the fate of civilians during the siege, you might find the following video informative: