Super Eco

Photo credit: SXC

Dumpster diving. Alley surfing. Shopping at D-Mart. Or ... eating found food. The ultimate in eating responsibly, both socially and environmentally. Not a vegan, but a Freegan.

You're curious, I can tell. So was I. Eating food out of the trash? Turns out there is a ton of perfectly good food that's simply thrown out, sentenced to entombment in landfills. You eat food in your fridge that's past the sell-by date, right? So what's the difference between that loaf of bread or carton of milk a day past its date and the one that was just deposited in the dumpster outside Safeway? Besides the fact that it's in a dumpster. Oh, and did I mention it's free?

if you can get over the whole dumpster = garbage thing (and I'm not sure I can...yet), there's a huge argument for the Freegan way of life. One: it's free. Two: did I mention free? We can all get behind that. Three: it's sustainable. There's a veritable unending flow of potential freegan fodder. As a society we're not going to be turning our supermarket leftovers into compost any time soon, so meanwhile have at it. Four: it's environmentally responsible. Taking from the stream of what's already produced yet is going to be simply wasted is awesome, and it decreases the size of your personal environmental footprint. I'm all for that.

Want some tips on starting your own Freegan buffet line? Gloves. Full-body armor. A mask to hide your identity from the neighbors. And have a look at Freegan Marko Manriquez's humorous video blog, The Freegan Kitchen.