The Effects of Over-Cooking and Keeping Hot
A stylised rooftop chimney pot sends carrots, a beet, a tomato and leaves up in place of smoke, with a spatula standing on the roof. The line 'Vitamin value, goodness, taste go up in smoke' uses the virtue word 'goodness' to carry the household-cooking lesson, with no figures or source for the vitamin loss.
Propaganda techniques used in this poster
- Date
- 1939
- Period
- Second World War
- Made by
- H.M. Stationery Office; artist Lewitt-Him; printed by Thos. Forman & Sons Ltd., Nottingham
- Region
- Western and Central Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Medium
- Poster
- Issuer type
- State
- Regime
- Churchill Government
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Audience
- Domestic public
- Purpose
- Warn or inform
- Themes
- Home front, Health
- Event
- World War II
- Leader
- Winston Churchill
- Source
- Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
- Source
- U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 44, World War II Foreign Posters, retrieved October 3, 2026
- Rights
- Public domain (UK Crown copyright, 50 years from publication, expired before 1996; no URAA restoration)
H.M. Stationery Office, c. 1939-1945. U.S. National Archives, Record Group 44 (NARA ID 44267193).
Text on the object
THE EFFECTS OF OVER-COOKING AND KEEPING HOT Vitamin value, goodness, taste 'go up in smoke'—result is waste [signature:] LEWITT-HIM PRINTED FOR H.M. STATIONERY OFFICE BY THOS. FORMAN & SONS LTD., NOTTINGHAM. 51-4113
