I have seen rice and potatoes go for like 0.20$ a pound, thats pretty cheap (at least here in the US).
It seemed to me that a few dozen years ago the cheapest products were in the Soviet Union in comparison with prices all over the world.
Yea, the dirt they were eating was
soooo cheap.
On a more serious note, however, since they had so little they cant afford to pay much of anything for food. The prices really weren't cheap. For example: if monthly wages were 0.10$ and it costs 0.80$ to feed a family for a month then, in a sense, food is really expensive.