Do you recall the halcyon days of your youth? The days spent in school, anxiously awaiting the bell, going to find your friends in the lunchroom, the same table every time? Surely you also remember the tasty lunches served to you in that room. Scrumptious salads with fresh vegetables, lovingly crafted sandwiches, bowls of gooey mac and cheese. No? Not sounding familiar? Your school lunch sucked?! Wow, pizza was a vegetable?! Gritty chicken nuggets! No, that can’t be right. All school lunches are delicious and nutritious! Unless… On this episode, we discuss the lengthy and opinionated history of school lunches, in all their infamy, with special guest David Cogswell (that’s me).

Our theme song is “Red Onions” by Louie Zong, off of his album Vegetable Soul: https://louiezong.bandcamp.com/album/vegetable-soul

We’re on Twitter at @girlslunch and on Instagram @girlslunchpod. Nicole is on Twitter @nicoleh262 and her website is nicolehylton.com. Julia is smarter than all of us and not on social media. Have an episode suggestion or question? You can email us at girlslunchpodcast@gmail.com and we will add it to our chaotic list of future episode subjects.

Links to sources:

• “Eggo: The Waffle that Revolutionized the Frozen Food Industry,” by Mark Haney

• Levine, Susan. School Lunch Politics: The surprising history of America's Favorite Welfare Program. Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 2008.

• Weaver-Hightower, M. B. Unpacking School Lunch: Understanding the Hidden Politics of School Food. Springer Nature Switzerland, Cham, 2022.

• Gaddis, J. E. (2019). The labor of lunch. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvr00xpk

• https://www.usda.gov/