---
title: 'Sugar Means Ships: Every Spoonful, Every Sip, Means Less for a Fighter'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sugar-means-ships-1918-512563/
description: A young man and woman share a sweet drink at an ice-cream and soda counter, drawn in black and white, beside a panel of text on sugar imports and shipping.
section: Collection
---

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3. Sugar Means Ships: Every Spoonful, Every Sip, Means Less for a Fighter

[![Sugar Means Ships: Every Spoonful, Every Sip, Means Less for a Fighter, 1918 US poster: A young man and woman share a sweet](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sugar-means-ships-1918-512563.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/sugar-means-ships-1918-512563.jpg)

# Sugar Means Ships: Every Spoonful, Every Sip, Means Less for a Fighter

A young man and woman share a sweet drink at an ice-cream and soda counter, drawn in black and white, beside a panel of text on sugar imports and shipping. The panel gives a figure of 400,000,000 pounds of sugar imported for sweet drinks in one year and says the ships are now needed for troops. The tell is the linkage in the caption: each spoonful or sip is presented as taking something from a fighter.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/)

## Text on the object

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

```
Sugar means Ships

The sugar used in sweet drinks must be brought to America in ships. Last year 400,000,000 lbs of sugar were imported for sweet drinks. These ships must now be used to carry soldiers to the front
Drink less sweetened beverages
We are at war

ICE CREAM AND ICE COLD SODA

[artist's initials, lower right of picture: M. J.]

Every Spoonful — Every Sip -
Means less for a Fighter

U. S. Food Administration
```

The sign in the picture reads 'ICE CREAM AND ICE COLD SODA'. The initials at lower right of the picture read 'M. J.'.

[← Sugar Means Ships](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sugar-means-ships-1918/) [Team Work Wins! Your Work Here Makes Their Work Over There Possible →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/team-work-wins-ordnance-department-1918/)

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