How much thought do you give to activities like getting groceries, making meals, and washing dishes? These forms of household foodwork, while so necessary on an ongoing basis for households to survive and for society to function, nonetheless tend to go relatively unnoticed and undervalued, both in the home and well beyond it. They can seem unremarkable, taken-for-granted, almost invisible—at least until one has to do them. And because this work isn’t measured or counted, it doesn’t count in national accounting systems of economic value, like the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)—which, in turn, can make this work even less noticeable in homes and communities.[1]
Household foodwork: An essential service, essentially devalued