Podcast Summary: Hanna Garth, "Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement"

New Books Network – Public Policy Channel
Host: Stephen Pimpair
Guest: Hanna Garth
Date: January 23, 2026

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode features anthropologist Hanna Garth discussing her book, Food Justice Undone: Lessons for Building a Better Movement. The conversation critically examines the food justice movement in South Central Los Angeles, questioning the assumptions and practices of mostly white, well-intentioned outsiders who seek to bring “justice” to communities they misunderstand. Garth shares her fieldwork and personal background, reflects on the disconnect between interventionists and local knowledge, and explores how true food justice requires deeper structural and abolitionist thinking.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Hanna Garth’s Background and Path to the Project

• Personal & Professional Influences (02:03)
  • Garth grew up surrounded by farm culture in rural Wisconsin, with deep family traditions in food growing and preparation.
  • Professionally, she is an anthropologist studying everyday food practices and their intersection with broader systems and inequalities.

“I was kind of steeped in a family culture of caring about food and growing food and caring about where our food comes from.”
— Hanna Garth (04:29)

2. Research Methods and Fieldwork Experience

• Emergence of the Project (06:13)
  • Initially intended to study Cuba’s food system but turned to Los Angeles after visa issues.
  • Conducted research predominantly through participant observation and interviews—often while volunteering, attending meetings, and carpooling with food justice organizations.
  • Study timeframe spanned from 2008 to 2020.

“I have a maybe an affliction where I naturally start studying things even if I want them to just be for pleasure.”
— Hanna Garth (08:19)

3. The Outsider-Led Food Justice Movement

• Who is Doing the Work? (10:51)
  • Most active organizers in South Central were white, upper or middle-class individuals from outside the community rather than grassroots local residents.
  • Garth questioned why these outsiders were so committed and what their underlying assumptions were.

“Where are the grassroots people? Where are the people from the community that are getting into food justice?”
— Hanna Garth (11:02)

4. False Assumptions and Misguided Interventions

• Common Stereotypes (12:36)
  • Activists operate on media-driven and academic narratives, such as the characterization of South Central as a "food desert" lacking grocery stores and healthy food.
  • This leads to interventions based on correcting presumed deficits: teaching cooking or “healthifying” local diets.

“They would often make what I think is also a logical leap ... that people must be eating fast food ... if people are eating a lot of fast food, we should teach them how to cook and we should teach them how to eat.”
— Hanna Garth (13:07)

• Reality in South Central (14:21)
  • Contrary to assumptions, South Central has abundant food options, including supermarkets, street vendors, and markets.
  • Residents often cook at home and possess culinary expertise surpassing that of interventionists.

“South Central is actually ... there's a lot of grocery stores ... People all over South Central are cooking wide varieties of food and eating well. And they know how to cook, probably across the board ... better than the food justice interventionists.”
— Hanna Garth (14:21, 15:00)

5. An Illustrative Anecdote—The Awkward Food Demo

• Cooking Demonstration Example (15:20–19:13)
  • A typical intervention involved outsiders hosting cooking demos on “healthy” alternatives to stereotyped local foods.
  • Attendees, often experienced home cooks, found these events patronizing and poorly organized (e.g., unfamiliar ingredients, missing protein, and cultural disconnect).
  • The efforts were seen as disrespectful and a waste of time.

“Not only did they not learn anything because they know how to cook chicken and ... have experience with kale ... But they also didn’t get the protein, which was the main thing that drew them to the workshop.”
— Hanna Garth (18:55)

6. Structural Problems and Racism in Food Justice

• Understanding the Failures (20:09)
  • Garth examines how lack of structural analysis and discomfort around topics like race, poverty, and historical inequities undermine genuine justice work.
  • Nonprofit structures exacerbate the issue, pushing workers towards measurable interventions and funding cycles (the “nonprofit industrial complex”).
  • The United States’ reliance on underfunded nonprofits, instead of public entitlements, compounds the problem.

“There’s a lack of capacity and a lack of capability to understand the relationship between structures and everyday life... Even people with ... master’s degrees.”
— Hanna Garth (21:15)

“These jobs ... are hard and they get a lot of work out of each person. A lot of people just didn’t have the energy ... to do anything additional on top of all of the tasks that they had to do.”
— Hanna Garth (23:55)

7. Abolitionist Perspectives and Building Better Movements

• Abolition in Food Justice (25:55)
  • Garth describes finding grassroots organizations deeply embedded in their communities, using food justice as a path toward broader liberation.
  • These activists invoke abolitionist frameworks: not simply reforming but reimagining or rebuilding systems (food, education, policing) that were never designed for marginalized groups.
  • The focus shifts from incremental change within the status quo to envisioning entirely new, just systems—no matter how far off.

“Their work was about bigger, longer-term struggles for what many people called liberation ... Abolitionist practice was about envisioning a just system—even if it seems impossible.”
— Hanna Garth (26:43)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On outsider misunderstanding:
  “If they imagined people were eating fried chicken and collard greens ... they would say, well, let’s make that a culturally appropriate, healthy meal and let’s teach them how to bake chicken and make a kale salad ... [But] everyone in the room was like, what the heck is nutritional yeast?”
  — Hanna Garth (16:39, 17:38)

• On structural failings:
  “People not understanding how long-term structural problems create this problem ... not individual failings.”
  — Hanna Garth (20:27)

• On abolitionist vision:
  “It was about not settling for what can function in the status quo, but instead saying, no, like, this is what we deserve and this is what we’re going to keep working toward, even if it takes our whole lifetime.”
  — Hanna Garth (28:20)

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [02:03] — Hanna Garth’s personal and professional background
• [06:13] — How the project started and research methods
• [10:51] — Outsider orientation and initial observations of the field
• [12:36] — Misguided assumptions about local food culture
• [15:20] — Cooking demo anecdote: disconnect and patronization
• [20:09] — Structural causes, nonprofit limitations, and systemic racism
• [25:55] — Abolitionist thinking and vision for food justice

Conclusion

This episode provides a candid, ground-level perspective on the pitfalls of outsider-driven food justice movements and the necessity for structurally informed, community-centered, and abolitionist approaches. Garth’s critique not only unmasks the flaws in well-meaning intervention but also lifts up the radical imagination and resilience of grassroots efforts in re-envisioning food justice.