Could You Withstand a Sugar Shortage?

Ann Althouse has a post about a sugar shortage in Egypt.

Egyptians in “a panic” over a sugar shortage.

According to the NYT, which details the importance of sugar to Egyptians:

Egyptians pile sugar into mugs of tea by the spoonful — or three or five. A staple long subsidized by the government for most of the population, sugar is the chief ingredient of the national pudding, Om Ali. It can feel like the only ingredient. It is also a prime reason that nearly a fifth of Egyptians have diabetes….

“The people are going to snap,” Ahmad el-Gebaly said as he turned away customers seeking sugar he did not have at his subsidized-goods store in Bulaq, a working-class neighborhood of Cairo. “Nobody can stand [President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi] anymore,” he added of Mr. Sisi. “Sugar is like rice and oil and wheat. You can never run out of it. You can never mess with it. Who can live without sugar?”

One solution is to convince people that it’s not good to eat so much sugar, but it doesn’t sound as though Egyptians are ready to respond well to that advice.

Could you withstand a sugar shortage?