Dumpster diving dilemmas

Photo courtesy of mollygood.com

What stops me from dumpster diving? I’m not afraid of produce that might have a bruise or juice that is a day beyond its expiry date. I think removing perfectly good food from the waste stream is a noble idea. I’m strapped for cash and not above sifting through grocery store garbage bins. So what is it? I’m a coward. The thought of confrontation with a store owner or a dumpster-protecting-rent-a-cop (seriously?) makes me willing to drop ludicrous amounts on apples from Safeway.

In an effort to figure out which places I might sift through a dumpster without being chased off, I have scoured internet sites such as http://www.wayfaring.com/maps/show/3726 only to find tips for jumping fences and dire warnings about security. Not exactly my cup of tea! Posing the notion of dumpster diving to Sam (“Hey honey, want to go wade through some trash cans for dinner tonight?”) results in The Look followed by silence. I asked Ann Anagnost if she would bail us out of jail if we got arrested while dumpster diving in the name of education. I told her I was joking…

Meanwhile, the vegan banana bread David Giles, a representative of Food Not Bombs (FNB), has brought in was delicious if mildly burnt. You’d never know it was from a dumpster upon tasting it. David’s figures and statistics were astonishing. I didn’t realize how much food gets thrown away by families. I am certainly going to make more of a conscious effort to watch what I’m throwing away and adjust the amount I purchase if I can. Sam and I do a pretty good job of consuming any leftovers we have around the house so I think we’re already a little ahead of the crowd.

I also think about the many times I go into Safeway at Roosevelt and 75^th to see homeless men hunched over at the counter, eating pints of cheap ice cream or tearing lettuce leaves out of a bag and eating them plain. Why on earth should they be forced to purchase food when the grocery store is probably throwing away tons of perfectly edible produce?

In the coming weeks, I hope to convince Sam to play look out while I hoist myself into the dumpster outside QFC on Roosevelt and root around.