For comparison, here's Nicolae Ceausescu, the leader of the Romanian Communist Party, in a Romanian supermarket during the great food shortage in the 80s.

Americans and Western Europeans can hardly grasp the idea of food shortage and the coupon system that many of us in Eastern Europe had to endure in the late 80s/early 90s.

My family was lucky that I was born in 1990, so we were a family of four, so we had four rations, despite the fact I was a baby and didn't need more than my mother's milk and some pureed veggies. They still got sugar, flour, etc. in my name even if I didn't need it per se.