Posted on 12/01/2006 12:13:59 PM PST by Froufrou
Cynthia Powell and Stephen Vajda are unabashed Dumpster divers who get much of their weekly food from garbage cans.
The two educated Berkeley, Calif., professionals - who are not hungry or otherwise in need - say they are motivated by a growing conservation movement with a mantra that wasting resources, especially food, is shameful.
Powell and Vajda estimate they can save up to $100 a week by dining on day-old bread, vegetables and sometimes chocolate from commercial garbage cans.
The two estimated they know at least a half dozen like-minded people in Berkeley who regularly dine out - way out.
"I'm not hungry," said Powell. "I do it because it's good food, it's free and it's conservation."
Powell said she's been getting in Berkeley Dumpsters at grocery stores and bakeries ever since she moved to town about four years ago. She draws the line at eating meat or dairy products.
"I like to eat it because it's perfectly good food thrown away," said Powell. "It's a big waste. There are really amazing, perfectly good things like strawberries, onions, sweet potatoes, bananas, cantaloupes, watermelon and always good day-old breads."
Brian Mathews, a senior program manager at StopWaste.org, a voter-mandated special district that promotes "environmentally sound solid waste management and resource conservation" said businesses in Berkeley threw away 8.8 million pounds of food in 2000, the latest year for which numbers are available.
Mathews was shocked to hear that people committed to stopping waste would go as far as fishing food out of Dumpsters.
"This is totally new to me," said Mathews, who has a background in food science. "We advocate for reuse as a highest priority if the food is edible to reuse it through food banks or donations. I applaud their motivation for doing this, but I would caution them that they could be putting themselves in a situation where they could get contaminated or spoiled food. I think it's a little risky, Dumpster diving for dinner."
Vajda, on the other hand, said the risk of getting bad food is overblown.
"Some of the fear that's around presumably spoiled food, it's a little bit ridiculous. It's gotten out of hand," said Vajda, who sometimes retrieves eggs to eat. "There is so much food thrown away and there are so many starving people in the world, it's shameful to let it go to waste when it's just as easy for me to eat it. It's really disgusting when you have an apple (from a grocery store) with a blemish on it and people won't buy it."
Grocery stores, he said, "are the best sources and the worst offenders." Vajda said he does make a point of cooking most everything he pulls out of a Dumpster. And he has some friends who eat entirely out of Dumpsters.
"I wouldn't recommend that," said Vajda. "It's not an ideal diet."
Both Vajda and Powell said they never have been chased by the police, but they have been admonished by store owners.
Berkeley police spokesman Ed Galvan said the department has never arrested anyone for Dumpster diving.
"The biggest problem we have with people Dumpster diving is they make a mess," said Galvan. "But it's not a big issue."
They should have switched to Capital One!
What's in their wallet?
Another reason to confirm what idiots do from Berkley.
Meadow Muffin
I am going to call it, that very soon at Berzerkeley someone will have a college level course on the fine art of dumpster diving.
These people have truly gone insane.
You know, we do waste lots of food. Not that I'd eat from the dumpster
What kind of "professionals" are these morons? Professional homeless?
I first thought this was a parody but now that I know they're from Berkeley, I know it HAS to be true. I think they've hit the bottom of the dumpster with their head too many times.
Are these the same people who buy new shopping carts for the homeless?
Note my user name for my opinion on liberals/leftists.
Stay out of my dumpsters!!!
And what about the homeless? Now that the gainfully employed are eating from the dumpsters, what are the homeless to do? Talk about greed!
My workplace used to donate the leftovers from our meetings to a homeless shelter....then the lawyers got involved. Seems that if a homeless person got food poisoning or something from our food, we'd be liable....so, into the dumpster it goes.
I tried to get the department heads to order less food, but was ignored.
Life in the office...
I understand that the maggots are a fine source of protein.----- freaking idiots!
Last Christmas, my hubby was attempting to find some Christmas decorations which were stolen from a yard, and he thought he'd look in some dumpsters in that area. While he was looking in the dumpsters, a guy approached him, and struck up a conversation of how many times he'd found valuable stuff in the dumpsters. The guy pointed to his boots; said he found them in the trash.
My husband nodded in agreement, didn't say a word. When he got home, he sheepishly admitted to me that he was mistaken for a "dumpster diver". ha!
That is true.
When I go out to eat, I do my part to reduce waste and keep costs down.
If I go to, for example, a Cracker Barrell restaurant, I will tell the waitress not to bring biscuits with my meal.
I don't mind biscuits but I can usually get full from the regular meal.
No sense in wasting food. Everyone should practice this when they go out to eat.
Liberalism truly is a mental disorder.
I saw a story about this on the news, but I think it was in NYC. All the little grocery stores but their expired foods in trash bags on the sidewalks, and bunches of young lefties root through the trash for edibles. I wonder how many stock boys take a whizz in the garbage bags before they carry them outside?
they SAVE $100 a week? I don't even SPEND $100 a week on groceries - and that indcludes other than food items.
that's a lot of money spent on food!
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