---
title: We Must Conserve Food to Keep the Wolf from Our Own Door
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-must-conserve-food-to-keep-the-wolf-from-our-door-1917/
description: A woman with a child at her side aims a rifle from a log-cabin doorway at a wolf on a rock outcrop, above a dense text panel on food shortages in Europe.
section: Collection
---

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3. We Must Conserve Food to Keep the Wolf from Our Own Door

[![We Must Conserve Food to Keep the Wolf from Our Own Door, 1917 US poster: A woman with a child at her side aims a rifle](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/we-must-conserve-food-to-keep-the-wolf-from-our-door-1917.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/we-must-conserve-food-to-keep-the-wolf-from-our-door-1917.jpg)

# We Must Conserve Food to Keep the Wolf from Our Own Door

A woman with a child at her side aims a rifle from a log-cabin doorway at a wolf on a rock outcrop, above a dense text panel on food shortages in Europe. The text lists small weekly or daily reductions in wheat, meat, sugar and fats, warns that restriction orders may follow, and closes on 'the Duty of Saving Food to Your Country and Humanity'; the wolf-at-the-door image supplies the fear appeal.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

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

## Text on the object

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

```
We Must Conserve Food
To Keep the Wolf from Our Own Door

Scarcity of food is exacting greater death toll and causing more intense suffering in Europe than bullets. This frightful, unprecedented predicament of starving millions of allied families SOUNDS a solemn warning to America.

Appalling Conditions Threaten
America If We Waste Our Foods

Our supply of food is only so much—and now five or six other countries are depending on us to feed them that they may live and fight.

The authorities merely request that you eat—
ONE POUND LESS OF WHEAT FLOUR A WEEK—
which means one hundred and thirty-three million bushels of wheat more annually for emergency or two thousand million loaves of bread;
ONE OUNCE LESS OF MEAT A DAY—
which means four million four hundred thousand meat animals each year for excess demands;
ONE OUNCE LESS OF SUGAR A DAY—
which means one million one hundred and eighty-five thousand tons of sugar a year, making it plentiful and cheap;
ONE-THIRD OF AN OUNCE LESS OF FATS A DAY—
which means three hundred and ninety-five thousand tons more fats each year from which to make glycerine, used for manufacturing explosives.
Complying with this request from today on will materially help to win the war and

Prevent the Government from
Issuing Food Restriction Orders

Do not buy more food than you actually need—then the dealer will not have to "stock up"—and the wholesaler will have enough to go around.

Less Eating Will Save Many a Pain and Doctor Bill
A Little Saved Today Will Mean Square Meals Next Year

You Owe the Duty of Saving Food to Your Country and Humanity

Space for This Message Cheerfully Contributed to the
Cause of Humanity by
[blank]

[illustrator's signature and a small copyright line below the picture, partly illegible]
```

Body text is small but now legible. The artist signature and the small copyright line under the picture are partly illegible and not transcribed.

[← We Fire a Shell with Every Liberty Bond We Sell. Get Yours To-day!](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-fire-a-shell-with-every-liberty-bond-we-sell-1917/) [We Will Help Win the War! Will You? →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/we-will-help-win-the-war-will-you-1917/)

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- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
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- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [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.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)