The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools (Volume 70)

There’s a problem with school lunch in America. Big Food companies have largely replaced the nation’s school cooks by supplying cafeterias with cheap, precooked hamburger patties and chicken nuggets chock-full of industrial fillers. Yet it’s no secret that meals cooked from scratch with nutritious, locally sourced ingredients are better for children, workers, and the environment. So why not empower “lunch ladies” to do more than just unbox and reheat factory-made food? And why not organize together to make healthy, ethically sourced, free school lunches a reality for all children?
 
The Labor of Lunch aims to spark a progressive movement that will transform food in American schools, and with it the lives of thousands of low-paid cafeteria workers and the millions of children they feed. By providing a feminist history of the US National School Lunch Program, Jennifer E. Gaddis recasts the humble school lunch as an important and often overlooked form of public care. Through vivid narration and moral heft, The Labor of Lunch offers a stirring call to action and a blueprint for school lunch reforms capable of delivering a healthier, more equitable, caring, and sustainable future.
 

• Domestic Workers of the World Unite!: A Global Movement for Dignity and Human Rights
• A Foodie's Guide to Capitalism
• Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont
• Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement (Justice, Power, and Politics)
• Unsavory Truth: How Food Companies Skew the Science of What We Eat
• Octavia's Brood: Science Fiction Stories from Social Justice Movements
• Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health (Volume 18) (New Directions in Native American Studies Series)
• Red State Revolt: The Teachers' Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics (Jacobin)
• Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
• Kid Food: The Challenge of Feeding Children in a Highly Processed World