SCHOOL FOOD POLITICS
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Labor of Lunch
  • Media
  • Research
Picture
The Labor of Lunch tells a feminist history of school food and offers a stirring call to action.
This book is a work of action-oriented scholarship, written 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. Dr. Gaddis uses ethnographic, archival, and participatory research methods to help readers understand the power and potential of public school-lunch programs and the complex political, economic, and environmental systems that shape them. 

The Labor of Lunch 
(University of California Press, 2019) received the National Women’s Studies Association's 2020 Whaley Prize for the best book on the topic of women and labor from an intersectional perspective and the 2020 Food Issues and Matters award from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. It has been widely used in university courses, along with interactive instructor resources provided on this site. The book is available from the University of California Press  (30% off with code 19V3712), Amazon, and your local bookstore. ​

What people are saying about The Labor of Lunch....

The book is more than just an ethnography of school lunches; it is a reminder that we need to revisit our food systems and consider how this policy area is still very much classed, gendered, and racialized... This book reignites the importance of food activism and recognizes historical roots while seeking and creating theories of change.

— ​Contemporary Sociology

​
Jennifer Gaddis’s swift prose and sharp mind keep you turning the pages through generations of women’s movement activism, lunch shaming, chicken nuggets, and a corps sacrificing their own welfare so that ‘their kids’ might eat well. The result is a brilliant history and incisive analysis of the cheap care that hides behind the modern school lunch.

— ​Raj Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
In this pathbreaking book, Gaddis shows that labor—and specifically by lunch ladies—is the missing ingredient in the recipe for success in the National School Lunch Program. A must-read for anyone who cares about children, food, education, labor, or well-being.

— Juliet Schor, Professor of Sociology, Boston College, author of The Overworked American



Picture
Image courtesy of Wisconsin Book Festival.

Multimedia Resources and Reading Group Guides

The Labor of Lunch is a comprehensive and readable work of activist scholarship examining school feeding in the US. This work is suitable for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students and scholars of school food policy, institutional feeding and history of food systems, as well as those interested in food movements, and care-labor. — Food, Culture & Society

Interested in including The Labor of Lunch in your teaching materials?  Click here to access a classroom curriculum guide with chapter-by-chapter reading questions and classroom activities suitable for high school and college students. 

​Considering starting a reading group for The Labor of Lunch? Click here to access a community reading guide complete with action steps for organizing together to advance real food and real jobs in American public schools.

Looking to book a speaking engagement (virtual or in person) with your classroom or community group? Contact Dr. Gaddis at jgaddis@wisc.edu.

Video Shorts

Caring for Students
Getting Your Hours
Go behind the scenes of The Labor of Lunch with these video shorts featuring interviews from the book.

​The 2-4 minute videos are included in discussion questions and classroom activities as part of 
The Labor of Lunch: Classroom Curriculum Guide. ​ ​
What a Union Does
​Scratch Cooking
Central Kitchens

 Interviews and Media for The Labor of Lunch

Print Reviews and Author Q&As
  • "Review: The Labor of Lunch," Kimberly Johnson, Food Anthropology, January 18, 2021. Read here.
  • "Lunch Ladies and the Fight for School Food Justice: A Superhero Origin Story," Christine Tran, Boom California, April 19, 2020. Read here.
  • "Q&A: Jennifer Gaddis. Making a Better School Lunch from Scratch," Gena Kittner, Wisconsin State Journal, January 12, 2020. Read here.
  • "'The Labor of Lunch' What's Really Wrong with America's School Lunch Program," Karen Johnson, Scary Mommy, November 25, 2019. Read here.
  • "Q&A: Jennifer E. Gaddis on School Food, Feminism, and Worker Rights," Leah Douglas, FERN's Ag Insider, November 24, 2019. Read here.
  • "Weekend Reading: Labor of Lunch," Marion Nestle, Food Politics, November 22, 2019. Read here.
  • "Review: The Labor of Lunch," Chris McNutt, Human Restoration Project, November 17, 2019. Read here.
  • Labor of Lunch was also reviewed in academic journals, including Social Forces, Contemporary Sociology, and Food, Culture, and Society.

Radio and Podcast Interviews
  • "School Food Politics: A Conversation with Jennifer Gaddis," Faron Levesque,  Edge Effects, August 27, 2020. Listen here.
  • "The Labor of Lunch: Jennifer Gaddis," Real Food Reads Book Club, May 21, 2020. Listen here.
  • "The Labor of Lunch," New Books in Sociology, March 6, 2020. Listen here.
  • "The Politics of School Lunch and the Value of Care," This is Hell!, WNUR, January 29, 2020. Listen here.
  • "The Labor of Lunch," Radio Bilingue, January 6, 2020. Listen here (En Español).
  • "Why We Need Real Food and Living Wage Jobs in Public Schools," Your Call with Rose Aguilar, KALW, January 6, 2020. Listen here.
  • "The Labor of Lunch in America," The Morning Show, Wisconsin Public Radio, December 27, 2019. Listen here.
  • "What's Up with School Lunch? with Jennifer Gaddis," Human Restoration Project, November 29, 2019. Listen here.
  • "Lunch in American Public Schools with Jennifer Gaddis," A Public Affair, WORT 89.9 FM, November 25, 2019. Listen here.
  • "The Labor of (School) Lunch," Eating Matters, Heritage Radio, September 22, 2019. Listen here.
  • "Labor of Lunch Discussed on America's Workforce Radio," America's Workforce Radio, September 17, 2019. 
  • "The Labor of Lunch," What Doesn't Kill You, Heritage Radio, September 11, 2019. Listen here.
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Bio
  • Labor of Lunch
  • Media
  • Research