<\/span><\/h2>\nAs mentioned, I\u2019ve been dumpstering a few times. Now I regularly go to a grocery store near where I live (a Canadian chain called Longo\u2019s). They almost always have some nice, fresh produce floating at the top of their bins.<\/p>\n
I took meticulous photos of the experience to show how nice the food really was, and reveal what is being thrown out by stores. I have to admit, finding free fresh food is a load of fun. At the same time, it\u2019s very concerning to see all of these being thrown away on a regular basis. Anyways, on to pictures!<\/p>\n
As you can see, at first glance, pretty darn disgusting. But I braved the F up and started hitting the sides of each dumpster to see if it was empty, and if not, opened it up to see which gifts were available.<\/p>\n
Here are a few pictures of what I found on the inside.<\/p>\n
Some dumpsters were full of non-edible stuff, or things like bread, which I was not looking for (although I have subsequently dived successfully for bread).<\/p>\n
But I struck gold with a few:<\/p>\n
That orange stuff is orange peels from the juicer the store has on the inside.<\/p>\n
The more I dug, the more fresh food I uncovered underneath. All perfectly fresh, or with slight defects. Here are some individual examples:<\/p>\n
Organize green pepper, slightly withered but still 100% usable<\/p>\n
Grapes covered in orange peel debris (from a juicer \u2013 the store makes fresh orange juice for sale). 100% firm, completely OK to eat<\/p>\n
Red pepper, skin flaking a bit at the side, 100% fine otherwise.<\/p>\n
PERFECT tomato, NO defects whatsoever. Firm and ready to eat.<\/p>\n
There was more good food available than I could bring back with me in my bike basket, but I managed to recover quite the haul:<\/p>\n
From the bottom left, clockwise: lemons, celery stems, bananas, strawberries, papayas, apples, pears, peppers, lines, jalapeno, onions, potatoes, tomatoes mango, cucumber<\/p>\n
And a lovely dumpster bouquet<\/p>\n
Most of the food was pristine \u2013 no problems, no defects. Some had minor problems, like this pepper:<\/p>\n
Dumpster pepper, minor spots of rot<\/p>\n
But if you cut out the rot, it\u2019s good to go:<\/p>\n
90% of the pepper is still 100% edible.<\/p>\n
After trimming other such rotting spots from other produce, I washed my haul in water, and started cutting to get them ready for freezing:<\/p>\n
Delicious papaya, it had zero defects. I had two \u2013 one I ate fresh\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026and the other, I cut up for freezing. Papaya-coconut milkshakes anyone?<\/p>\n
Banana ready for freezing<\/p>\n
Peppers ready to be frozen and stir-fried, when the time is right.<\/p>\n
Mango, good for two smoothies.<\/p>\n
Apples were peeled and made into delicious apple pockets.<\/p>\n
Some more peppery goodness.<\/p>\n
The dumpster food ideology<\/p>\n
I know what you\u2019re thinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cOmg, I really want to go diving but something irrational is stopping me!\u201d<\/p>\n
YES. I understand.<\/p>\n
Ok you are probably not thinking that \u2013 but that is what\u2019s going on in your unconscious mind.<\/p>\n
You are suffering from the negative mental, emotional and psychological links between dumpsters and food. A \u201cdumpster food ideology\u201d if I may.<\/p>\n
This is a powerful ideology. It\u2019s the ideology that says that food located in a dumpster is no good to eat. Not only that, it may make you sick and kill you.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the ideology which says that there must be a good reason why the food had been thrown away.<\/p>\n
These ideas are based on your experiences as an individual dealing with rotten or decomposing foods, as well as habits reinforced by the machine of ideas from the health, medicine and food industries.<\/p>\n
First note is that large industries have very different interests than you as an individual.<\/p>\n
You are interested in eating food that is nutritious, tasty and safe. You are likely interested in rationally using food resources, and not wasting food when possible.<\/p>\n
Industries are interested in making profit in a competitive marketplace. The safety, tastiness and nutrition of the food they produce are secondary to this goal. Rationally using resources are also secondary to this goal.<\/p>\n
This make industries behave very different than individuals. Because competition is so intense, industries are required to engage in wasteful habits in order to stay above the competition.<\/p>\n
As this post has shown, this includes things like discarding ugly, but otherwise edible, fruits and vegetables to make sure that what you see in stores looks perfect.<\/p>\n
This also results in grocery stores overstocking to give the appearance of abundance, which has been shown to increase purchasing. This leads to overstocking and damage to produce being placed in bottom of piles of food.<\/p>\n
As mentioned above, sell-by\/best before dates may also force grocery stores to throw food away. Because of public perception, it would be unseemly for grocery stores to hold on to \u201cexpired\u201d food \u2013 even though, these dates are often meaningless when it comes to food safety.<\/p>\n
Finally, grocery stores will often throw away \u2018damaged\u2019 foods \u2013 produce with imperfections, packaging with dents, outdated boxing aesthetic (for example, Christmas decorations on cereal boxes).<\/p>\n
Behind the facade of perfect food lies a mountain of needless waste.<\/p>\n
It would be better to have an economic system which reconciled the human need for food with the need to rationally process the resources with have available on this planet.<\/p>\n
But that is a topic for another blog post.<\/p>\n
Although a few people dumpster diving won\u2019t really make a dent in terms of reducing food waste, I still feel it\u2019s a valuable exercise.<\/p>\n
It can help you break perceptions on what is and is not \u201cok\u201d to eat.
\nIt may be a valuable way to save money on food, and get your hands on healthy produce.
\nIt helps change perceptions required to push forward policies and changes which will force grocery stores to end wasting food. There is no one solution that will completely solve the problem.<\/p>\n
You are now armed with the tools to go out and finish a successful dive. Remember, the biggest barrier is the one in your mind. And for this reason, I suggest that everyone go diving at least once. Breakdown those mental blocks!<\/p>\n
But what do you think? Are you ready to take the plunge, or are you still too grossed out?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I first came into contact with dumpster diving when I volunteered with the organization Food not Bombs (FNB), Toronto Chapter. Their objective is to recover food that would otherwise have been thrown away, and cook up delicious vegan meals for whomever wants some. Although a lot of the food they get is donated from bakeries …<\/p>\n
The Ultimate Guide To Dumpster Diving<\/span> Read More \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"modified_by":"Elsie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ecoelsie.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}