Dumpster Diving (Tips and such)

[Cephius]

I really don't understand trying to justify taking food out of dumpsters. You are defending getting up at what I presume is an ungodly hour to go pick around garbage for food that may or may not still be good. In what world does this make sense? If you are so poor that you can't afford food there are soup kitchens, food banks and food stamp programs to take advantage of. If you can afford food but choose to spend grocery money on other things and go dumpster diving anyway you probably have some kind of issue.

And finally, if you're so outraged that we are so wasteful with food then start petitioning or organizing efforts to donate unused food to food banks. I really can't imagine any situation where dumpster diving for food is justifiable unless you are a poor illegal immigrant or a criminal on the run!

[Tweek]

all I can think of when reading this thread is Charlie and Frank.


We're crab people now!

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[zoobernut]

They did a whole special show about this on food network. They had all their celebrity chefs make a gourmet meal out of dumpster food (or food that was on its way to the dumpster) to showcase how big of a problem it is. I agree fishing food out of the dumpster is disgusting but most of the food in the dumpster shouldn't be there in the first place. Food waste is legendary in the USA.

[The Stig]

They did a whole special show about this on food network. They had all their celebrity chefs make a gourmet meal out of dumpster food (or food that was on its way to the dumpster) to showcase how big of a problem it is. I agree fishing food out of the dumpster is disgusting but most of the food in the dumpster shouldn't be there in the first place. Food waste is legendary in the USA.

Ah yeah I remember watching something similar! All these professional (celeb?) chefs were basically going around town asking for stuff being thrown away and making a meal out of it and commenting how all the food is actually still good.

On that note, I recall watching a program about the extreme amount of waste airlines pump out in regards to food.

[zoobernut]

I think the key would be some sort of last chance type store equivalent for food. Has anyone seen the last chance stores at the dump? The dump where I grew up had a last chance store where the workers would pick perfectly good things out of the trash before it went to the landfill and they would sell it cheap in the last chance store. Obviously if it was food it would have to get caught before it went into the trash but was on its way there.

[Raldo]

Ah yeah I remember watching something similar! All these professional (celeb?) chefs were basically going around town asking for stuff being thrown away and making a meal out of it and commenting how all the food is actually still good.

To be fair, they didn't actually get the food out of a dumpster. They asked for the food before it was ever thrown away. That usually makes a big difference as far as peoples' receptivity to eating said food.

They just got like... offal that doesn't sell well (like cow marrow bones), irregular-shaped vegetables that supermarkets refuse to carry (ever seen a two-pronged carrot, or a potato that juts out in weird directions on a supermarket shelf?), corn from stalks that had fallen over (not really sure why that was an issue, but I do remember that specifically), and other such food that's perfectly edible but either doesn't sell well enough to waste space on supermarket shelves, or has some kind of weird rules preventing its sale.

It would be nice if normal people (or homeless shelters or something) had easier access to this kind of stuff, or at the very least a clean "dumpster" that people have free access to. Sadly in the US, I'm sure it wouldn't take long for someone to sue the whole thing into the ground for some supposed harm that was caused by the stuff.

[Jer]

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember hearing the reason for the amount of food going into dumpsters and not being donated to soup kitchens, etc was liability. Nobody wants to deal with a lawsuit saying the food they donated instead of tossing it caused illnesses/deaths. A lot easier for them to just trash it and if somebody gets sick from eating out of their dumpster, it's just 'hey now, we threw that shit away'.

[Nephlite]

I might be wrong, but I seem to remember hearing the reason for the amount of food going into dumpsters and not being donated to soup kitchens, etc was liability. Nobody wants to deal with a lawsuit saying the food they donated instead of tossing it caused illnesses/deaths. A lot easier for them to just trash it and if somebody gets sick from eating out of their dumpster, it's just 'hey now, we threw that shit away'.

Yeah there's just too many rules and regulations out there that govern food production in the states. I think that's a good majority of the problem there is the regulations are so tight that our waste production rate just climbs the stricter it gets. I remember a Starbucks I used to frequent a lot threw out cases and cases and cases of parfaits, smart water (really), fruit salads and those stupid protein packages of cheese and veggies along with boxes of frozen sandwiches because the sell by date was expired. We packed all that shit up and started handing it out to homeless people. I asked the manager about the frozen stuff and he said the shelf life for room temp or chilled items is the same as the shelf life for frozen stuff. Even though the frozen stuff stays good for months, they still toss it just because of a recommended sell by date.

[miokomioko]

Corporate policy is the main reason. All the people at all the franchise locations are just following the rules because they want to keep their job.

[Sup3rB4d]

Yeah I thought this thread was cool when we were talking about dinged up furniture, dusty TVs, and unopened packages of doritos that expire in 3 days. I'm going to go ahead and draw the line somewhere before picking the mold off of fruit though.

Wait are you saying dinged up walmart furniture is beneath you, but moldy fruit in a germ/bug infested dumpter isn't?

Sealed and packaged fruits with a little mold on one piece are still completely fine to eat, just like if you have bread at home and it has a tiny bit of mold you can tear it off and eat the bread just fine, it's not going to kill you. Fruits with skin like oranges, lemons and melons too unless they are broken open obviously.

We did this at Wal-mart when I worked there all the time, if a furniture had a nick or something on it, it was thrown out back and written off as a loss..then some people would usually come back later at night and take it home instead of letting it get trashed (Though it was Wal-mart quality so it might have been better to just see it off)

[Pringles]

I'm not sure why people think its okay to just cut off the mold on bread and think that it's okay to eat. http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/08/17/...-off-the-mold/

[Sup3rB4d]

Welp, enjoy your cancer OP.

[notorious bum]

Nadine Shaw of the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned against eating any moldy food, even if the mold wasn’t visible.

Yup, these guys don't have any reason to mislead you on throwing out food.

Not that I've ever really been one to practice cutting off mold. I'm a bitch when it comes to things like that lol

[Psion]

having worked at a starbucks cafe and other food industries, i can assure you that companies put very conservative expiration dates on their food. The pastries we had at the cafe? We'd throw them out after 2-3 days, but they were actually safe to eat without a loss of quality for about double that, and safe to eat (just slightly stale) for a few days more, provided they were stored properly, such as in a fridge.

It's a liability thing, as others have pointed out. Stores put conservative dates on throwing food out to ensure there's no chance of the food tasting less than perfect. The food itself is still perfectly fine.

Personally i think dumpster diving is a good thing, since it means less junk clogging our landfills and less waste. If people want to take the (very low chance unless your diving into a hospitals garbage or something) risk of illness or injury, that's for them to decide.

[Cheerios]

If you are so poor that you can't afford food there are soup kitchens, food banks and food stamp programs to take advantage of.

If this thread was about food stamps, you'd have a whole new group of people that are equally up in arms.

[Outlaw]

lol Just noticed this thread. While I would never get food. (I don't care if it's still in the package no telling what it's touched.) This however:

Yeah I wouldn't do food that's unpackaged. Too many variables with rotting stuff and whatnot. But furniture and electronics, you can just ride through a rich part of the area (Arlington, Virginia) and see piles and piles of shit just laying on the front lawns of some of the mansions out there and just grab a room full of stuff. My coffee table set was sitting infront of an embassy three years ago. Nice dark brown wood made of maple or something really heavy with a "Free" sign stuck to it. Now I got a nice coffee table and two end tables that probably cost a few hundred bucks.

I would totally do this. Fucking rich people. If they want to throw out expensive furniture, electronics fine. I would take it and fix it up and make it look new and put it on internet to sell. I bet you could make a lot of money that way.

[djzombie]

We heard Panera bread was a good place to go, as they throw out all their bread at the end of each day but mother fuckers have a sealed compactor

when i worked at panera as an overnight baker we actually donated what we had left over every day to some organization, not sure what, just know we bagged it all up and left it for them to come pick up. im sure its different everywhere tho

[Shenrien]

OP must not know that when mold is disturbed it releases spores which infect other areas of said food.. and You're not going to get rid of those by just brushing it on your shoulder or running it under some luke-warm water lol.

[Thiefami]

I wish I could remember the name of that documentary on Netflix about dumpster diving for food. I think people automatically imagine digging a blt out of the dumpster with one half bread, the other half used maxipad. But in the documentary they only go for sealed, packaged food from Wholefoods, and other big name grocery stores. The guy was also a food scientist and he made a pretty compelling case on food waste, and sealed dumpster food consumption. The food he couldn't give away to a food bank, he'd take home. Apparently DDiving is getting pretty popular to the point of grocery stores now lock their dumpsters so they can throw away perfectly good food without anyone consuming it lol.

[Fereydoon]

and I could go months off of my fat reserves

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