Interesting. I've read an article about this somewhere before, but I don't think I'd ever could bring myself to go freegan.

And what with all this hate? I think it's very admirable at how Veganmav can reply in a calm rational way to some of the purely malevolent posts in this thread.

thanks man.

it does get hard sometimes.

being as different as i am in a lot of ways, i have been made fun of and picked on a lot. But I get used to it, and I really appreciate the support some people give me, who think its cool how i live, even if its different from them.

Funniest comment today

I bet vegan's breath smells like ass.

I have thought of this and tried this. Most places that are "cool with it" already let their workers take it home or donate the rest to food banks. That's why we have to dumpster dive. I think the amount of wasted food is huge. At FORC I have once filled a minivan with as much soymilk as it could handle, drove it home, and it was so heavy it was literally harder to handle on turns, dropped it off, went and filled up a second time, dropped it off, went a third time, but the dumpster had been emptied.

I have seen in a dumpster over 1 thousand pounds of potatoes. 8 bags of whole oats weight 60lbs each etc.

And you hafta realize I only go to a select 5 dumpsters usualy on a night, there are probably over 100 untapped dumpsters in columbus ohio. At least almost every chain bagelshop/bakery has waste everydya. I roughly estimate it is enough to feed 10 thousand people a day in Columbus Ohio alone. that # is purely out of my @$$ but it is my best guess.

Even when we go dumpster diving, almost every single time we go we leave more than twice as much perfectly good food as we take.

There just isn't enough room in the car/refrigerator/house.
(and so we leave it for other dumpster divers who frequent the same dumpster, or we will call our dumpster diving frienids and tell them to go get it)

thanks a lot man.
i think the only reason i can stay calm is cus i've already been through this many times with other people.
its still hard though.
so i apreciate the props

I'm trying to respond to everyone.
Anyone who has questions I will respond.
But for now I am gonna go play some board games with some friends who are visitng me.

Anyway, if you have any quesitons or comments, go ahead, and i'll answer every question later

Sorry vegan but Evan and InThaCup are right. Also the freegan movement is a bunch of crazies and because you associate yourself with them it is very, very hard to take you seriously.

I just wanted to say again, <3 to veganmav - hopefully this thread enlightened some people and did not take too much out of you

y'all are missing the real beat of this post:

yuko, the japanese girl, has to fly thousands of miles to stay in a house with 7 guys and get her food out of a dumpster

as i said before, i am just freegan in the sense that i am almost vegan, but if the food is from the trash, and vegetarian, but not vegan, I will eat it.

It's not exactly freegan I guess.
I am just closer to freegan then vegan.

I guess it is also misleading.
THere are 2 definitions of freegan,
one is on that wikipedia link,
the other is just anyone who is vegan, unless the food is free/from the trash, then they will eat anything.

I am closer to that one.

I don't squat in houses etc.

Eek. I don't really think all vegans are tools. I was being facetious and breaking your balls. BBV crudeness. My best friend is a vegan for religious reasons.
I do however think the vegans that strictly eat imitation meat and dairy products are tools. My roommate spent a nice amount on vegan baloney.
I am surprised though, I figured most everyone else was doing the same, being facetious and busting your balls, BBV style. If not and the the ignorance and maliciousness is genuine, that's [censored] frightening.
I've never done what you have, but a different good friend is out in SF and lives this bohemian lifestyle and he broke it all down. I was just frustrated from a dialectic standpoint, in that you werent explaining what you were doing well. I still think that perhaps you're getting a kick out of all the ******ed responses.
There are grocery stores, trader joes for one, that have separate trash and food dumpsters. The food ones arent dirty because trash never occupied them. And food gets thrown out for all manner of ridiculous reasons. You mentioned labels falls off or getting ripped, even if a box gets dented it goes in the 'trash'.
Long story short, I can't speak for anyone else, but I have no beef and totally understand and respect what you're doing. Just giving you a hard time earlier.

(Oh yeah, where i'm from freegan doesnt have such a serious connotation. It just means, jokingly, 'yeah i'm a vegan/vegetarian, but i'll eat the hell out of some meat if it's free')

Edit: just read your last post about diferrent 'freegans'

I like this thread, even if it is crazy.

YOU CAN'T LIKE..OWN PROPERTY MANNN

I honestly gained a lot of respect for mav and how he handled this thread. It could've turned into a ******ed pissing match, but it didn't. Nice work.

Veganmav, you rock.

I have been dumpstering for years and it's great to hear about someone else's experiences. In the past, a number of the places I used to get food from agreed to have me come pick up any food they were going to throw out. Once a week or so I would go around to a bagel shop, grocery store, and bakery. I would have unlmited food for me and all my friends. There was so much food that we started up a local Food not Bombs chapter. Good times.

"I can. But that's because I'm not a penniless hippie."

Hey Casette,

Here's a question I've got. You mentioned you started a Food not Bombs chapter. I'm cool with that, I think they (mostly) do good work; I've got friends who worked with them a lot in Buffalo. So here's my question. A lot of activists operate on the creed of unselfishness. Maybe you were poor at the time, not sure. But you started the chapter AFTER you realized you had tons of extra food. Why not even before that, if you could afford to feed yourself? (note: I'm not saying it's wrong that you didn't, just curious as to why).

VM,

similar question. You're making buttloads. Still, I've got no problem with you saving money and feeding yourself for free. You may have already mentioned this, but do you take any of the extra food to food banks and food rescue programs?

Why wont you eat meat from trash?

vegan,

I think you are young and hvae a lot of ideas that perhaps will evolve in time into ones that might be a little more effective and practical. Simply put, I think your execution of ideas towards achieving your goals can be better, but while I think some of your ideas are weird and some of them are maybe not the most effective, at the most basic level I agree with much of what you say here:

"When I win 10k playing poker, I am sad that I live in such a world where lots of us make so much money playing poker, and waste it on other things like fancy cars, or neclaces, or watches, when our brothers and sisters don't have enough food to eat, just to stay alive.

I don't think that I could buy any of the stuff in this thread where people brag about their luxuries. I think that I couldn't live with myself if I bought some of those thngs. Yes it is nice to have stuff, and we shouldn't short ourselves. I still have a car, a place to stay, I play soccer, and I bought soccer shoes, I sometimes buy some small luxuries like vegan ice cream, or a good book, but as long as others are still dying because they dont even have enough food to eat, I think that we should limit our luxuries.

It's just, let's please not waste so much, let's please not spend so much, let's try to limit our luxuries, and if you aren't willing to do these things, can you at least not make fun of someone who is trying their best to do these things?
thanks."

Veganmav,

1. What do you think would happen to our country if everyone just started thinking that "housing was a right they were entitled to" and looking through trash for food? If everyone stopped paying at Pizza Hut and instead looked through the trash, would Pizza Hut still be there in a year?

2. You said that you only eat the bread from Pizza Hut. Why don't you eat the meat/dairy pizza as well? I can see the logic behind not buying meat at stores because it funds what vegetarians think is animal slaughter, but how does refusing to eat those pepperoni slices help anything?

vegan,

I have talked to some people and you have been unbanned from OOT and given probationary status so you can post there. If you create crappy polls or other sucky posts, you will be rebanned. I hope you will contribute to this OOT thread.

Thank you.

Wow. I'm guessing this isn't your specific language being quoted here, diablo, but I would summarily tell the original messenger to [censored] off if they said that crap to me.

edit: no beef, just thinking aloud.

I wasn't ever poor. I grew up in a middle class family with all my needs met. In high school I spent some time volunteering at places like The Food Bank. They definitely have their hearts in the right place, but I always thought they were not much more than a band aid solution. They didn't really get at the root of the problem of poverty. Rich people from the East side bringing food drive food and handing it out on the West side always seemed a little condescending to me. I wanted to be a part of something that got members of the community that needed this aid to be a part of the solution. Food Not Bombs seemed like a perfect opportunity for this.

When the huge influx of food starting arriving it seemed like a good time to start. As much as I am willing to eat out of the trash, I wasn't completely convinced it was a good idea to give the food away without people knowing where it came from. The cooperation from local grocery stores and bakeries eliminated this problem. And that's pretty much how it got started.

Can't speak for veganmav but generally people don't eat meat out of dumpsters because it isn't safe. Vegetables, bread, ect stays good a lot longer and will at worst make you puke. Bad meat is not a good scene.