Reading some WWII histories, I see that the first things rationed were sugar, metal, and rubber. I understand the latter: metal and rubber were needed to build tanks, etc. But why was sugar rationed? Is it an ingredient in bombs or something?
Refined white sugar was not as common as it is today. Honey was the sweetner used most often by my parents when they were growing up in the 30’s and 40’s. Also, most sugar came from Hawaii general shipping was curtailed at the onset of WWII. Among other items rationed during WWII included butter, chocolate, gasoline, and even a new fabric called nylon.
Coincidentally sugar is used in some homemade bomb formulas but that wasn’t the reason it was rationed. Careful research found that our boys fighting in the European and Pacific theaters needed things in addition to hardware, weapons and ammunition. Like food. Sugar wasn’t the only food rationed as meat, eggs, butter and others were.
In addition to the things others have said, a lot of the WWII rationing was to conserve transportation resources. If smaller amounts of commodities are used then not so much has to be hauled around. And, as was mentioned, a lot of our sugar came by ship and ship space was at a premium.
Much of the gasoline rationing was caused by a shortage of transportation rather than a shortage of gasoline. I took advance flight training at Ft. Sumner, NM in 1944. We did a lot of night cross country flying over toward the Texas panhandle. Much oil refining was done by fractional distillation so in order to get a lot of high quality gasoline to turn into aviation fuel a lot of lower grade stuff had to be produced. This was run off into big containments and burned. We could see the fires burning all over the place over toward Midland-Odessa. It had to be disposed of somehow because there just weren’t enough tank cars to carry it away.
In addition to everything else noted, the sugar producing areas on the U.S. mainland (Florida, Louisiana and Texas for surgar cane and Minnestoa and surrounding areas for surgar beets) could have been diverted to other, more valuable crops, like wheat or corn.
Did you know that Jello wasn’t rationed, and its 80% sugar?
Well, there’s always room for Jello.
Yeah, but just try using it in your coffee.