One Person's Trash is Another One's Dinner

One of my favorite parts of food production is the harvest. At Dancing Rabbit, I harvest food from my garden, but when I travel, my harvest comes from the waste and surplus of the consumerist culture that my country supports. Urban foraging, or dumpster diving is not only a great way to acquire free food, but it is also a positive act of helping the environment. By reclaiming food from a dumpster, I am reducing the amount of waste going into landfills.

Many people are unaware of the abundance of good food that is thrown away every day in this country. I am not talking about half-eaten sandwiches, cold French fries, and stale pizza crust. I am referring to the thousands of pounds of produce, fresh baked goods, and other products that come with "sell by date" labels. Most bakeries make fresh baked goods daily and toss anything that hasn't sold by the end of the day. A similar thing happens at grocery stores. If a new shipment of produce comes in, the food on the shelves finds itself in the hands of Waste Management.

Dumpsters are not the disgusting, smelly places that most people imagine. Just the other day I jumped into a dumpster and found myself standing on a pillow of hundreds of hamburger buns. Resting on top of this white, fluffy bread were bags of broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, carrots, and apples. Most of these vegetables never even had the opportunity of touching the actual dumpster because they were wrapped in their wasteful jackets of Styrofoam and plastic wrap. For those of you who try to eat mostly organic food, health food stores are typically no less guilty of their waste. In the past, I have pulled bags and boxes of delicious organic produce out of the waste stream.

There are multiple strategies when it comes to reclaiming food from a dumpster. Some people just grab for the things in reach while others make it a full body experience. My personal favorite is to jump right in and shuffle through the bags and boxes. It often feels like a scavenger hunt or a game because you don't know what bag will contain the treasure, and if you don't pay attention you may miss out on something special. Part of the adventure of harvesting from a dumpster is that you never know what you will find. One day you might find fifty pounds of tropical fruit and the next day you may come across fifteen day-old pies.

After "harvesting" this food, the preparation process is exactly the same as food harvested from the garden. You bring the food home and wash it. Then you figure out what amazingly yummy dishes you can make out of your bounty.

March Hare Winter 2009 Issue 58

Donor Thank You		Food Forests & More
Root Barrel Experiment		Dumpster Diving
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