Freeganism is creative living outside the capitalism. It's a combinations of the word free and vegan, both living freely, free from the oppression of a wage-led economy and free in that you're not paying for things, not participating in a money economy. So this is one store, one night, it's not an unusual night, it's not an unusual store, it's not like they're particularly bad, or worst offenders. This is just food that gets wasted every single day in basically every single store. There is a lot of reasons for it, cosmetic reasons, store stocking reasons, but basically what it comes down to is they just don't care enough not to waste. We're going to take this, we're going to feed ourselves, we're going to feed people around us.
At the end of each school year when I was in high school I would go through all my notebooks just like a mound of paper and like two feet high and I would be like, okey, which of these sheets of paper can still be printed on one side, which of these sheets of paper are still like totally blank, I can use both sides. It didn't make sense to allow, you know all these materials to go to waste or to not be used to their maximum potential. One whole cucumber, there is, there is not a blemish on this cucumber. I've never personally seen bleach thrown on food but I've heard from other freegans that this has happened at the grocery store that they go to. Some of the stuff that I've seen is like slashing fruit, slashing packaging, on containers, plastic packaging. There's been instances with grocery store owners or security guards and stuff to come out : A, you can't do this here, which isn't true, I mean it's not illegal, they may not want me to do it there, but that's a different thing. Freeganism does not equal dumpster diving, there is freegans who don't dumpster dive, people who garden, people who wild forge, people can grow their food, and there is lots of dumpster divers who aren't freegan. So I just want to make it clear that because these two often get made into synonyms in the media and that is not the case. We're not just opting out of participating in the economy on the purchasing level but for many of us we're opting out in the, you know, standard working 9 to 5 job level and so there is economic need even if it is by choice.
All the produce [???] go through every single one of the items, every single day. Whatever is not really good for selling they just throw in the garbage. And that's what we do with the produce so [they?] have to do that every single morning... That's the first thing to do in the morning before they even [just?] take care of any delivery.
You got people who come here just for one single item but they shop some other places cos [because] they know the quality and the price... so it's around and big competition around and everybody try to offer the best service they can to the customers. This is one of the reason that, you know, we... we do keep customers coming back... and the freshness and the service that we offer to them.
In my opinion we do feel that we do have an abundance and all... so that people figure, ok it's damaged so you know what the hell just get rid of it and get something new...
They will throw away a whole meal just because some part was messed up, just throw it away, "I'm not gonna eat that"
What do they say? One man's trash, another man's gold, you know? Yeah! I... I... You know, if it's still good and somebody's hungry... Our waste could feed the nation, you know?
I don't think about what they're doing with the food that doesn't get sold (unintelligible) We buy food, we see it all the time it's always fresh and it's always here. I thought actually once about it (unintelligible) I would think it would go to better use.
If you do all your shopping from local farmers at the farmers' market, that's an expensive choice to make. It's not the fault of the farmers, it's the fault of subsidies (subsidiaries) of the large agrobusiness. It's not okay that only privileged people, that only middle-class and upper-class people can afford to go local and go green.
People eat with (their) eyes first. That's the first thing they see when they come their plate, is how attractive a plate looks. Same thing with people, you know, attractiveness, different qualities stimulate different things in your mind. (They?) eventually just want platter of food strewn across the table. At the end of the party I can't reuse any of that food, you see, we have to throw it out an each time we do, you know, it gives me pause. You know, I think, I mean, damn, that's a shitload of waste. Growing up both my parents were, you know, were, you know, upper lower-class, I guess, maybe lower middle-class, I don't know what that weird grey area is. But, so yeah, that carries on as a chef. Um, I don't like when things get wasted, I don't like when a customer specially sees just some small defect with their food or vegetable, without understanding that, you know, these are the imperfections of making, you know, sometimes they're not all the same size. I was walking by Trader Joe's one day, when I saw people reclaiming the food that they were throwing out to the dumpsters and I heard people walking by commenting on how disgusting and gross it was. And when I saw... when I see (what) they were pointing out it was perfectly fine fruit, everything was healthy, everything looked great. It was just the context of where that fruit was. Um... had I not seen it come out of a dumpster, I wouldn't have thought anything of eating it whatsoever, so it was just (how it was presented?)
