---
title: 'A Clear Plate Means a Clear Conscience: Don''t Take More Than You Can Eat'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/clear-plate-clear-conscience-uk-1939/
description: A used plate with knife and fork lies on a checked tablecloth, under the slogan 'A clear plate means a clear conscience'.
section: Collection
---

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3. A Clear Plate Means a Clear Conscience: Don't Take More Than You Can

[![A Clear Plate Means a Clear Conscience: Don't Take More Than You Can Eat, 1939 UK poster: A used plate with knife and fork](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/clear-plate-clear-conscience-uk-1939.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/clear-plate-clear-conscience-uk-1939.jpg)

# A Clear Plate Means a Clear Conscience: Don't Take More Than You Can Eat

A used plate with knife and fork lies on a checked tablecloth, under the slogan 'A clear plate means a clear conscience'. The tell is the moral framing of a food-waste request: leftover food is tied to guilt, an appeal to conscience rather than a stated reason.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
A clear plate
means
A clear conscience

Don't take more than you can eat

[imprint:] Printed for H.M. Stationery Office by Wm. Brown & Co., Ltd., London, E.C.3. 51-273
[signature:] Fitton
```

[← Clean Rags - Dirty Rags - All Are Wanted!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/clean-rags-dirty-rags-all-are-wanted-1939/) [Clouds Can Help (Air Diagram No. 1293-2/40) →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/clouds-can-help-air-diagram-1939/)

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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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