Thursday, November 24, 2005
’Freegan’ activists reject consumer waste
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| Yum! Garbage is a taste sensation, say freaks. |
Not bad considering the diners find their food by digging through garbage. They call themselves “freegans,” a play on the words “vegan“— vegetarians who avoid all animal products, including dairy — and “free.” In an ideological rejection of consumer waste, they only eat food that’s been discarded. And in New York City, at least, they never go hungry.
“We find more food than we could ever possibly eat,” said Adam Weissman. Just 24 hours before the dinner party, he found a hefty stash outside a gourmet supermarket in Manhattan: bags of salad nearing the sell-by date, dozens of sandwiches, boxes of Ritz crackers, some nice looking squash and loaves of still-crisp baguettes.
Although not all freegans are vegan, they all eat for free. Weissman said that with few exceptions he has not eaten store-bought food, either at home, in a restaurant or as guest of a friend, in more than 10 years.
Weissman and others say they have mixed feelings about Thanksgiving, which Weissman called “basically a celebration of excess.”
Madeline Nelson, the host of the freegan dinner party who says she recently left a job in corporate communications at a Fortune 500 company, says she’s concerned about holiday over-consumption.
“We are heading into wasting season,” said Nelson, who’s serving a semi-freegan Thanksgiving dinner to her family, including her 83-year-old father...
Weissman runs a Web site for the freegan community, offering practical tips, like which city’s trash bins yield the best treats in places from Vancouver to Cincinnati.
For instance, the Giant Gourmet Farmers’ Market in Hackensack, N.J., is a “gold mine,” according to the site. But get there early to avoid sifting through discarded fish...
“People have this image of looking into a Dumpster and seeing slimy garbage, but that’s just not the case,” he said. “At the same time, food poisoning is no joke, so you have to be careful.”
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[Source: Associated Press, Desmond Butler, November 24, 2005]
Just when you thought the vegan, PETA, Michael Moore crowd couldn't get any weirder!
- MTMT
posted by Mentok @ 11:29 p.m.,
