Freeganism.

[Despanan]

In reality? Yes!
And it's because of federal law.

...it's because of federal law that grocery stores waste for the sake of wasting? You type some really wierd shit from time to time dude.

Anyway, you seriously don't see a difference between food getting ready to rot and an old book Jillian? Comeon man, I know you're not stupid, so what the hell?

And let's separate freeganism from dumpstering.

Sure, Dumpstering is done by people who are desperate and hungry, freegans are rich kids who want to play pretend that they're desperate and hungry.

[Despanan]

Oh my god, I just checked out those links.

These are Freegans? Seriously?

Spoiled. Rich. Kids.

This isn't green. This isn't activism. This isn't taking down the corporate machine. This is like rich trophy wives talking with their girlfriends about the time they went slumming.

Look at that chunky girl in the first video. Designer jeans and riding around in a fucking mini-van? Whispering excitedly in hushed voices about their finds (they're just tickled pink to be a part of this subculture!), and tips not to do it while intoxicated?

They obviously have access to computers and digital recording equipment. I mean DAMN "first the dishes then the revolution?" What revolution precisely are they talking about? Against shady non-specific "corporations" for the crime of acting all "corporationy".

It's stuff like this that disgusts me about some of my fellows on the left. These people aren't so much interested in making the world a better place as they are in their own little "lifestyles". They don't want to bring about any social changes besides those that get them laid easier and ensure a steady supply of weed. Their "activism" rarely goes beyond growing their hair long, wearing ripped-up jeans and ironic t-shirts and attending "protests" that are little more than an excuse to get high, listen to some acoustic guitar music, and troll for booty. Fucking. Bourgeoisie. Hypocrites.

[Man In Room 5]

You guys both have a point. Freeganism is going to become whatever people make it. It's going to have hardcore members and spoiled posuers just like anything else. Altho, all things considered, I'm going to LMAO the 1st time one of the spoiled kids meets up with a hardcore needy person behind a dumpster and gets mugged.

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Most food work a couple of days after the expiration date, and most stores, especially the megastores, throws their food away a little less than a week before it expires, because selling it in such a small margin of time is not practical.
And let's separate freeganism from dumpstering.
As for freeganism, what's so wrong about dumpstering the food that would otherwise be thrown away and growing the rest?

So you'd have to eat this dumpster-found food immediately, lest it start to mold and rot, if it hasn't already.

Er... why the hell don't you just spend this time doing something productive, rather than, as Des has noted, acting like a bum and dubbing it activism?

Do you consider people in war-torn areas "freegans" because they pick through the garbage? Of course not. They do it out of necessity, not because some hipster douchebag said it was a means of resistance. I'm willing to bet that they'd hate you more for acting that way when you don't need to, rather than for the waste that you make living according to even the most rudimentary of this society's social mores.

God help me, but I actually agree with Des.

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

And as for dumpstering, what's so wrong about salvaging the books Barnes & Nobles would rather throw away than donate?

Last I checked, the worst you can get from a book are silverfish and a nasty smell. They don't carry botchulism spores.

[JCC]

What does it matter that they're not poor? I'm not in Colombia, my rights aren't being disregarded, I'm not being particularly exploited, why not give money to Coca-Cola? I'm not on the Niger Delta, I'm not affected by death squads, why shouldn't I be vocally supportive of Shell? This isn't about rich and poor, it's about not letting people make you pay for something you need, marginalise the availability of something necessary, waste what others die from a lack of, profit from unethical action. So what if there's a few scene kids who are joining in? It happens in every movement.

Freeganism is only relatively unproductive when people are too skeptical to partake themselves.

[Kambili]

Originally Posted by Despanan

See, that's the thing about dumpster-food, it doesn't exactly last very long does it? If you pull food out of dumpsters, where it was thrown because it is getting close to spoiling, and thus, no longer fit to sell and keep in line with health codes, how exactly do you plan to get it to Africa in any condition to eat?

Easy. Use the food to save money on your own shopping bill, and donate your savings to a worthy cause. If the person in question is too selfish for this, they can at least donate a portion.

Personally, I find it a pity that so many people here seem to consider anyone not living in a third world who wants to save money a spoiled brat, but there ARE ways of passing the benefits on to those in need if you just give it some thought.

[JCC]

Apathy talks about you being pretty great a lot, but damn. If you guys ever split up, I've got a double bed and warm chocolate soya milk.

[Kambili]

Originally Posted by JCC

Apathy talks about you being pretty great a lot, but damn. If you guys ever split up, I've got a double bed and warm chocolate soya milk.

Haha. Thanks, but he's just saying that to make you all jealous-like. I'm a grouchy bitch most of the time; it's just easier to come over all philanthropic online.

[Beneath the Shadows]

It seems to me that being a freegan to feed yourself (unless you really are dirt poor) merely adds to the problem of food waste. If you decide to dumpster dive for food to save money even though you can already afford everything you need, then the food you normally would have bought is now, at least in part, getting wasted. The more people go freegan, the more food gets wasted.

Now, if you're dumpster diving for food to give to charities, but still buying your own food, then fine. I'd see that as a good thing, as you're not contributing to the waste and you are also helping those in need.

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Despanan

If you pull food out of dumpsters, where it was thrown because it is getting close to spoiling, and thus, no longer fit to sell and keep in line with health codes, how exactly do you plan to get it to Africa in any condition to eat?

Who says it has to go to Africa? What, you think there aren't people who can benefit from that food a bit closer to home?

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by JCC

This isn't about rich and poor, it's about not letting people make you pay for something you need, marginalise the availability of something necessary, waste what others die from a lack of, profit from unethical action.

(my emphasis)

So you think that food should be free? An interesting concept. Let's expand it a bit, past the smelly, dumpster-laden domain of Freeganism.

Do you know what happens when food is free? Farmers don't get paid. If farmers don't get paid, they can't afford to, you guessed it, farm. If they don't farm, we all starve. Well, not all of us. The inordinately wealthy will be able to monopolize what little stores of food there are left. For a time, at least.

Why do you think farmers are paid to let a certain portion of their land lie fallow? Why do you think that during the economic depression in the 1930s the American government paid farmers to destroy portions of their crop? It was, and is, done to ensure that the market isn't glutted, that food prices don't fall to a dangerously low level, and that farmers can continue to farm.

Is that a product of a mercantile or capitalist economy? Absolutely. Is it right to let people starve when there's plenty of food to go around? In the short term, no. But what happens if we started giving out free food to some, and making others pay for it? People will be hooting and screaming about unequal treatment: "Why should I, a hard-working, economically viable citizen, pay for food when some lice-ridden degenerate gets it for free?!"

If we were to hand out food to everyone, the end result would be food for NO ONE. Your ridiculous dumpster-diving campaign won't change that. The alternative is that we work for our food. Sometimes that isn't possible, but that's just the way it is.

Originally Posted by JCC

Freeganism is only relatively unproductive when people are too skeptical to partake themselves.

On a separate note, has is ever occurred to you that maybe people who can afford food shouldn't dumpster-dive, that they should leave dumpster food to the actually poor and starving? They need it more. Stop taking food from their mouths. Or dumpsters, as it were.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

The more people go freegan, the more food gets wasted.

Only initially. Any reduction in consumption is followed by a reduction in production. That's how boycotts work.

[JCC]

Originally Posted by PinstripesAndPithHelmets

So you think that food should be free? An interesting concept. Let's expand it a bit, past the smelly, dumpster-laden domain of Freeganism.

Do you know what happens when food is free? Farmers don't get paid. If farmers don't get paid, they can't afford to, you guessed it, farm. If they don't farm, we all starve. Well, not all of us. The inordinately wealthy will be able to monopolize what little stores of food there are left. For a time, at least.

Why do you think farmers are paid to let a certain portion of their land lie fallow? Why do you think that during the economic depression in the 1930s the American government paid farmers to destroy portions of their crop? It was, and is, done to ensure that the market isn't glutted, that food prices don't fall, and that farmers can continue to farm.

Is that a product of a mercantile or capitalist economy? Absolutely. Is it right to let people starve when there's plenty of food to go around? In the short term, no. But what happens if we started giving out free food to some, and making others pay for it? People will be hooting and screaming about unequal treatment: "Why should I, a hard-working, economically viable citizen, pay for food when some lice-ridden degenerate gets it for free?!"

If we were to hand out food to everyone, the end result would be food for NO ONE. Your ridiculous dumpster-diving campaign won't change that. The alternative is that we work for our food. Sometimes that isn't possible, but that's just the way it is.

This whole passage is invalidated because my statement, as with most of the things that I say, is in the context of Anarchism. I think food should be free because I think everything should be free, and organizations like Food Not Bombs are a prime example of my idealistic Robin Hood food allocation.

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by JCC

This whole passage is invalidated because my statement, as with most of the things that I say, is in the context of Anarchism. I think food should be free because I think everything should be free, and organizations like Food Not Bombs are a prime example of my idealistic Robin Hood food allocation.

So your entire statement is predicated on a workable system of anarchist government being in place? Why the fuck did you even bother saying it, then? If I were to follow suit, I could base my opinions on the geopolitical vacillations of the kingdom of Narnia, and both of our statements would have the same weight: zero.

If you're not going to think about things as they are, then don't bother thinking about them at all.

[Godslayer Jillian]

I agree with that, however with how things are, freeganism works.
Do you have any idea how many people one single Food Not Bombs event feeds?
Why would you be against that?

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

I agree with that, however with how things are, freeganism works.
Do you have any idea how many people one single Food Not Bombs event feeds?
Why would you be against that?

I didn't say that I'm against charity. I said, rather, that I'm against large-scale handouts. JCC said that he didn't like the idea of people having to pay for things that they need. I pointed out why such things, in a system like ours, must happen. JCC then said that his entire idea is based on a fictional form of government. He's got his head in the clouds, and I'm definitely against that.


Now, I'm not saying that our system doesn't enable a certain amount of corruption, because it clearly does. What I'm saying is that such an idealistic mindset, without being tempered by realpolitik, is incredibly dangerous.

The real irony of charity organizations is that if they were to ever expand their handouts to a significant portion of the population, not only would they be providing free sustenance to those that don't need it (ie Freegans), they
would also be kicking society's legs out from under it. In so doing they would accidentally visit unimaginable suffering on the very population that they're trying to help.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Who says it has to go to Africa? What, you think there aren't people who can benefit from that food a bit closer to home?

There's really not that much starvation going on in America, at least not comparatively, and we already have plenty of programs and charities set up for this stuff. The food is still pretty close to rotting, and if it's not eaten in the next couple of days it probably will. I highly doubt there's a soup kitchen which runs on freeganism, as I doubt it would meet acceptable public health standards. (In fact most soup kitchens probably can get old food donated to them.)

I also doubt that these kids are donating to charity, but if they are, good for them. Still I can't help but think that the time they spend digging through trash for food, would be better spent earning money to go to that charity. They're most likely college educated, so they could easily be making $40,000+ a year. Just 5% of that would probably be better than 25-50 bucks of half-rotted food.

As I've said, Freegans seem to be little more than spoiled rich kids who like to play at poverty. If there is an effort to feed the hungry which runs off dumpster food, fine by me. However these freegans that JCC linked are not the hungry. They do not need to take this food. It is well within their buying power. They are also not taking money from those "Corporations, they're taking it from their neighborhood grocery stores. Mr. Archer down the street is going to feel the bite well before Evil McCorporateguy.

For that matter what about Jimmy McHobo who hits the dumpster because he actually needs it, only to find it's been raided by rich kids?

Besides, who can take someone seriously as a revolutionary when they're making appearances in Cosmo Girl?

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

I agree with that, however with how things are, freeganism works.
Do you have any idea how many people one single Food Not Bombs event feeds?
Why would you be against that?

Does food not bombs run off of dumpster-dived food? Because like I said, that stuff would probably go bad before it got to the people it was supposed to help.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Do you know for a fact that that food is "pretty close to rotting" or do you just try to repeat it ad nauseum against empiricism just to convince yourself not to go into the trash and realize just how much shit we throw away because we'd rather dispose of it than share it?

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by Despanan

Does food not bombs run off of dumpster-dived food? Because like I said, that stuff would probably go bad before it got to the people it was supposed to help.

But that redhead hipster assured us that dairy products stay good for at least a week after they've been tossed! Dumpster cream cheese for ALL!

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Only initially. Any reduction in consumption is followed by a reduction in production. That's how boycotts work.

Except, unless a huge number of freegans appear, that reduction will be quite small. For the most part, the only people who will be affected will be the freegans themselves, and any other unfortunate souls who have no choice but to dumpster dive. In that respect, it seems that they're doing more bad than good.

[PinstripesAndPithHelmets]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Except, unless a huge number of freegans appear, that reduction will be quite small. For the most part, the only people who will be affected will be the freegans themselves, and any other unfortunate souls who have no choice but to dumpster dive. In that respect, it seems that they're doing more bad than good.

And, as has been pointed out, the Freegan hipsters should leave that dumpster food for the people that actually are starving. When you frame their actions like that, those douchebags really seem more concerned with pumping their own egos than actually helping people.

[Godslayer Jillian]

Originally Posted by Beneath the Shadows

Except, unless a huge number of freegans appear, that reduction will be quite small. For the most part, the only people who will be affected will be the freegans themselves, and any other unfortunate souls who have no choice but to dumpster dive. In that respect, it seems that they're doing more bad than good.

I see it backwards. If someone stops buying food, and that food which was made with the expectation that he'd buy it gets wasted because of that, isn't he dumpstering the food that the store was expecting him to buy? So the amount of food that's thrown away is same bulk +1 (because he's not buying) -1 (because he's dumpstering that much)
If anything, that would solve the problem they postulated by showing how someone who would otherwise buy products suddenly recurs to dumpster-diving, then he wouldn't affect negatively the amount of food that can be salvaged.

[Despanan]

Originally Posted by Godslayer Jillian

Do you know for a fact that that food is "pretty close to rotting"

As the stores have to throw it out rather than sell it due to government-mandated health standards, yeah, you could say I'm sure.

See that's the thing. These non-specific "Corporations" which are the target of non-specific "activism" probably like money. So I doubt they're in the business of throwing out their product just for the sake of being wasteful.

Now how about you answer some of my questions that you and JJC seem to have ducked:

->Where precisely is this "Freegan food distribution network" you speak of? How are they funded? How do these Freegans get their food to needy people before it goes bad?

-> which "Food Companies" do you disagree with and which "practices" are you protesting? How does sifting through the garbage specifically have a measurable effect on them?

->What about Jimmy McHobo who hits the dumpster because he actually needs it, only to find it's been raided by rich kids? (not so much of a problem now maybe, but it definitely will be if this fad becomes more widespread.)

[Beneath the Shadows]

Originally Posted by Despanan

There's really not that much starvation going on in America, at least not comparatively, and we already have plenty of programs and charities set up for this stuff. The food is still pretty close to rotting, and if it's not eaten in the next couple of days it probably will. I highly doubt there's a soup kitchen which runs on freeganism, as I doubt it would meet acceptable public health standards. (In fact most soup kitchens probably can get old food donated to them.)

The fact remains that there are still impoverished areas on this hemisphere. Mexico is quite poor, and less than 100 miles from where I live. And even here in the United States there are towns with depressed (beyond what is now the norm) economies without the funds or resources to have a soup kitchen.

Additionally, there's more than just soup kitchens providing food to the homeless/poor in the U.S. As rare as they seem, there are groups of caring people out there that get homeless/poor to gather in places like little-used parking lots and hand out hot just-cooked meals. Some even cook the food right there.

Just because America doesn't have as many hungry people as some other parts of the world does not mean that we should care less about our own hungry than another country's hungry.