If I may digress for a moment, why was sugar rationed in WWII? Was the military so large that it was needed to feed them? Was it used to manufacture something else, like gunpowder or explosives?
Sugar is used in home canning. But (in the US) from what I can see, it was also largely because it’s a “basic luxury” everyone wants (remember how much more home baking there was then), used in many manufactured foodstuffs people wanted, and good for morale if everyone could get some. The US also got a lot sugar from the Philippines, and lost that when Japan conquered the Philippines, so they were going to have less than people wanted.
When people knew rationing was going to go into place, but it hadn’t yet, there was definitely some hoarding, and that’s generally not deemed good (attitudes in media sometimes chastised it, but sometimes called it intelligent foresight, so attitudes were mixed).
#1 - You don’t get to control your thread.
#2 - The very first thing I said, which you failed to quote, directly addressed your preferred thread course. If you don’t want to play by your rules, then don’t comment.
#3 - WW2 era didn’t have the artificial sweeteners we have today. Sugar could be easily swapped out if necessary.
#4 - Again, as several have stated, what are we rationing? The thought experiment is rudderless without that information, as it will directly affect the approach and enforcement of rationing by TPTB.
Wouldn’t which specific items were rationed depend mostly on who our allies/enemies are? During WWII most of our manufacturing was done in the US and that determined rationed items. That’s no longer true. So if we go to war with China, for example, we could expect a shortage of the products or manufacturing elements that come exclusively from China. Would the US ration these products or simply let the market decide? This would probably be decided by politics. It’s such a complex scenario it’s nearly impossible to discuss without more details. But I can’t see a reason chickens would be rationed – it’s easy to scale chicken production.
My Grandmother had a newspaper editorial clipping from WWII. A fellow complained that he had no sugar for his morning grapefruit. She wrote back that her son was having his ass shot at, and this guy could go jump in the lake. The grapefruit letter implies that there was no sugar in the guy’s household. Perhaps his wife had baked a cake with their weekly or monthly ration.
I don’t think I have ever heard of putting sugar on a grapefruit. Is that one of those things that only twisted weirdos do, like putting salt on watermelon?
My family put sugar on grapefruit. Perhaps it is a Southern thing.
Who you callin’ a weirdo? 
I always sprinkle sugar on my grapefruit. Of course, the last time I did that was the last time I ate a half-grapefruit, which means I would have been around 8 years old. But yeah, as ninja’ed, it may be a Southern thing.
In from South Carolina. I’ve ate a lot of grapefruit. Never heard of it. (Maybe the gf were more bitter in the 1940s–I like the Ruby Reds.)
I’m sure modern grapefruit are sweeter than they were 40 years ago.
Really? Cuz that’s literally the only way I’ve seen anyone eat grapefruit.
Granted, the grapefruit was not Ruby Red - it was one of those mouth-puckering yellowish things - and the eater was older than God’s grandpa.
I peel and eat them like an orange.
Certainly possible. Or he was being hyperbolic - which people do - and there wasn’t enough for that and for something else. Though you’d know better than I, since you’ve seen the clipping. For those interested Chronicling America has archived newspapers from the era - various states have their own websites, too.
One thing I’ve learned from looking at them is some of us have very idealized view of the generation or era. While I cannot truly glean how popular each opinion is, it is not nearly as “we’re all in this together” as (some) people view it as having been today. There is a good bit of dissent. Not at being in the war - but at the sacrifices made. From the rations tightening (as they did in the US in the latter part of the war as areas were liberated and needed to fed) to wage ceilings to poor quality housing to having to ration things the US had plenty of so they could be exported. And most definite fury at the idea of integrated housing or a black person being supervisor to a white one. Heck, besides that, quite a lot of people did not like factories built in their towns and the working class element that moved in to work there - using their salons and grocery stores and so forth.
Likewise, there was certainly a sizable black market in the US. I don’t want to overstate it, but it was not uncommon - especially buying and selling above price ceilings.
I don’t think that is a red state vs. blue state issue. Look back at WW2 and se how all Americans viewed Germans and Italians vs Japan. I suspect we’ll see something similar in how all Americans view Russia’s invasion of Ukraine vs China’s invasion of Taiwan.
In WWII having enough to supply the war was only one of the reasons for rationing. It also allowed people to feel that they were contributing to the war effort, and labeled those that questioned the need as “unpatriotic”. In today’s instant info gratification society implementing any rationing system would be difficult, and trying to ration several items at the same time next to impossible. Underground supplies would spring up ten times faster than they did during WWII, politicians would grab all they can(but be found out much faster than they were back then) causing an even greater backlash.
Given that corn is a feed crop and produces ethanol, I wonder if HFCS would be rationed and sugar not as much.
I think an in-depth look into how Americans handled rationing during Covid (poorly in most cases) would give us a good indication in how Karen & Chad would handle the scenario posed by the OP.
But that hardly a universal opinion, despite the propaganda. If everyone was always so willing, they wouldn’t have had to make nearly as many films and ads telling people (over and over and over again) they shouldn’t be paying above-ceiling prices for goods they couldn’t get otherwise and that the were helping the Axis by doing so. I should note, here, that I am specifically talking about the US and can’t comment as much about other places. And, of course, there’s a whole of “I’m just one person, what difference can it make” and “everyone else is doing it” - which aren’t really particularly false, in some cases.
That is an interesting idea. I hadn’t really thought about the ethanol at all. What percentage of ethanol can ordinary cars handle? Military vehicles. My understanding (and I have to qualify this one is from fiction produced in the period, not study) is that gas was a lower grade during the war. So is there a higher ethanol content than cars can use short term, but isn’t good for them long-term or does it just not work that way, mechanically speaking?
Western, too then. We grew grapefruit and put sugar on halves eaten at breakfast. Not heaps, just a sprinkling to dull the bitter edge a bit. We also occasionally had them broiled for a weekend breakfast.
Edit: The trees had been planted sometime in the 40s and the fruit yellow. Perhaps as surmised, sweeter varieties have been developed since then.
My thinking was that the ethanol would be used by the military for E85 vehicles.