Just imagine how things would have been different if high fructose corn syrup had been readily available back then.

Well for one thing, it would have taken a lot longer to get the draftees into fighting condition.

Sugar rationing created an additional concern for women who canned. They could receive one pound of sugar for each four quarts of fruit they canned and one pound per family member each year for use in making jams and jellies. Women had to complete an application form in order to receive the additional quantities. They had to state the number of quarts they canned in 1941, the number of quarts on hand, and the number of quarts to be canned during the application period.

So, it appears that the U&I copywriter was a little loose in his use of the term “unrationed”–the sugar was still rationed, but not under the same strict limitations that applied to sugar otherwise.

Shipping tonnage was a constant concern of war planners. Since the war was fought overseas, everything had to be shipped–men, machinery, materiel, food, etc. In addition, the U.S. provided huge amounts of aid to the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. So there wasn’t surplus shipping available to transport cane sugar to the U.S. from Hawaii or the Caribbean. Since beet sugar could be delivered without use of that scarce shipping, it made a big difference in keeping Americans sweet. Just imagine how things would have been different if high fructose corn syrup had been readily available back then.

1943? Was beet sugar not rationed? Was it rationed later? (Rather a technical point of World War II history, I know.)