---
title: '300 Million Hungry People Are Watching Your Plate: Eat Less, Waste Nothing'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/300-million-hungry-people-are-watching-your-plate-1918/
description: A text-led sheet over a pen drawing of a half-finished meal asks the reader whether any food is left on the plate, then names Serbia, Poland.
section: Collection
---

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3. 300 Million Hungry People Are Watching Your Plate: Eat Less, Waste

[![300 Million Hungry People Are Watching Your Plate: Eat Less, Waste Nothing, 1918 US poster: A text-led sheet over a pen](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/300-million-hungry-people-are-watching-your-plate-1918.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/300-million-hungry-people-are-watching-your-plate-1918.jpg)

# 300 Million Hungry People Are Watching Your Plate: Eat Less, Waste Nothing

A text-led sheet over a pen drawing of a half-finished meal asks the reader whether any food is left on the plate, then names Serbia, Poland, Belgium and Armenia as places where people have starved. The tell is the pairing of a famine claim with a request for 'Simple Living, Clean Plates, No Extra Meal', with Uncle Sam as the stated voice.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/) [Card stacking](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/card-stacking/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
300 Million Hungry People
Are Watching Your Plate

When you have finished your meal—is there any food left on your plate—did you order or serve yourself more than you needed?

In Serbia, Poland, Belgium, Armenia and in other countries thousands upon thousands of people, old and young have starved to death.

Although the military victory is now ours, we must, for the safety of the world—to make our victory complete—fight the great spectre of famine that is stalking through Europe.

Uncle Sam asks for

Simple Living—
Clean Plates—
No Extra Meal.

If you have been thoughtless in your kitchen—at your table—in the restaurant—start with your next meal and do your share in this great reconstruction work.

Eat less
waste nothing

UNITED STATES FOOD ADMINISTRATION
Illinois Educational Division
CHICAGO
```

[← Töö Lipp, front page (Tallinn, 17 November 1917 \[4 November Old Style\]): "Nimekiri nr. 1" (List No. 1)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/too-lipp-nimekiri-nr-1-1917/) [A Black Mark for the Squad: A.W.O.L. →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/a-black-mark-for-the-squad-awol-1918/)

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- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
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- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
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