Eating food from a Dumpster is a turnoff for some - but not all

[matcom]

<snip>

Patrick Lyons stands in the middle of a Dumpster, staring at a can of meat.

"I don't know who eats this stuff," he says.

He chucks the can aside and keeps on digging. His ball cap is slung low over his face; it connects to his long, thick, brown sideburns.

He digs down and -- jackpot -- he's found what he's looking for. He holds three small potatoes and a yellow bell pepper up in the air.

He's one step closer to a complete meal.

He places his bounty in a cardboard box and keeps foraging.

"One time a lady walked up to me and offered me $5," he says. "I told her, 'I'm not homeless. This is political.' "

Lyons is a freegan. He doesn't want to contribute to consumer society, so he eats for free whenever possible. Sometimes that means digging through Dumpsters behind grocery stores.

It's not as if this 23-year-old can't afford food. He grew up near Rice University, went to Lamar High School and now works at the Menil Collection. It's just that he's got strict principles -- and he needs to feed a lot of people.

For the last four years, Lyons has been involved with Food Not Bombs. Several times a week, about a dozen people gather together in downtown to share vegetarian food with the homeless. The grub comes from all kinds of places, including trash cans. Most discarded food, after all, is perfectly fine. Lyons and his friends eat it all the time.

http://houstonpress.com/issues/2004-11-25/news/feature_print.html

[LoZoccolo]

1. This guy should go to jail right now.

If he wants to eat dumpster food, that's his business, but going around giving it to homeless people is another thing.

[gaia_gardener]

21. Why?

He's getting produce - the things least likely to be contaminated. Whole produce can be washed with soap and water and then cooked and it's fine. And produce is one thing that most people living on the edge can't afford.

Our farmers' market vendors donate their leftover produce to the food bank. By the time it gets to the organizations to distribute it, it's probably older than any produce you'll find in a dumpster and probably just as "dirty".

I'm kicking myself because I didn't pick the last of my (ripe) tomatoes and take them to the food bank. Now that we've had a freeze, they're no good. Too bad because I probably had about 10 gallons of cherries (they really decided to come back in Sept and Oct) and I'm sure homeless people would love some good, fresh tomatoes, especially ones that didn't need to be cut or otherwise fooled with.

[skygazer]

2. Well, I wouldn't eat it but he's got a point

I work at a grocery store and the amount of waste I see is simply staggering. People don't want to buy an apple with a little bruise on it so it's tossed out. Same with any other produce that's not perfect. You could mark it down but in my town, it wouldn't sell. And we're not allowed to donate it because of liability reasons.

Same with the bakery which tosses out shopping carts full of day old breads and donuts. Nothing really wrong with them except people want freshly baked stuff.

This country wastes so much food - we throw away incredible amounts of edible stuff while people go hungry. It's crazy.

[LoZoccolo]

3. Also, this is the Naderite mentality in action.

They mention the thing about how even if you get vegetarian stuff from Taco Bell, you're still supporting this non-vegetarian corporation...so instead of increasing the demand for vegetarian stuff and creating more vegetarians, so that maybe someday corporations like Taco Bell won't even be able to sell meat because no one will buy it, they just want to "keep their hands clean" and therefore eat from dumpsters.

[miss_kitty]

7. If you buy from Taco Bell

You buy from a company which supports the severe mistreatment of farm workers

http://www.ciw-online.org/tz_site-revision/home/home.html

What's that "Naderite mentality" crack anyway? Your idea of a put-down?

[LoZoccolo]

8. That's not the rationale he gives.

Plus, the Naderite mentality is serious - remember that it led to Bush* being put in office and the Iraq War. People who make things worse for everybody by trying to appear "spotless" themselves can do dangerous things.

[miss_kitty]

10. No. Bush cheating and the DNC and Gore not fighting that led

to Bush being put into office and the Iraq War. You can't say voter fraud AND Nader took that election, unless you want to rewrite history.

It was ONLY voter fraud that fucked shit up, and ONLY the Democrats not doing a full court press that ultimately led to the cheney-bush junta. The only thing Nader had to do with that was run for president, a constitutional right of his, and encourage the dems to fight for the office.

So no, I don't 'remember.'

On Edit: Comma

[LoZoccolo]

11. It was only the closeness of the election that led to it being contested.

And only Nader that took a bunch of votes that could have went to the Democrats.

So it was only Nader.

The Republicans will continue to try to grab power - that is nothing new, and we should try to stop it, but it's not within our grasp completely. Nader is more so.

[StopTheMorans]

12. SNAP!

[miss_kitty]

14. Hardly.

no sourcing to back up his claims. Just a tired old meme.

[StopTheMorans]

15. the sourcing is by now popular knowledge

everyone knows the story of the 2000 election. the over 90,000 votes that Nader got IN FLORIDA ALONE allowed the election to be close enough to steal. if nader wouldn't have been spouting his horseshit "there's no difference" and "republicrat" lies, the election would have never been close enough to steal.

[miss_kitty]

16. well we disagree

Bush stole the election. They kick dems off the roles, and Ralph gets the blame
Like I said-this point of view isn't a SNAP on me dudes. It's a snap on you, for believing more mainstream bullshit, meant to divide the Neocon's opposition. Good Work.

[StopTheMorans]

17. "meant to divide the Neocon's opposition"?

what the hell do you think Nader did BEFORE the election was stolen?

[miss_kitty]

19. yeah

whatever

:eyes:

[miss_kitty]

13. No

It's documented. the vote was fiddled, people who were most likely to vote for Gore were denied their civil rights, the dems rolled over and gave it up.

A Look at the History of Elections 2000
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0244258&mode=thread&tid=5

Why Won't News Organizations Just Say It? First They Delay the News, Then They Bury It: Gore won
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/0218206&mode=thread&tid=5

NAACP Settles with the State of Florida and the Private Company Choicepoint, But Thousands of Voters Illegally Purged From the Rolls Still Can't Vote
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/036218&mode=thread&tid=45

Was It a Coup, a Selection Or An Election? As Florida Plunges Once Again Into Electoral Chaos and Tens of Thousands of African-Americans Remain Purged From the Voter Rolls, We Go Back in Time with Two Los Angeles Indymedia Filmmakers
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/037241&mode=thread&tid=30

So by saying Ralph Nader 'stole' the election you are doing a couple of different things:

1)You are saying Bush won the election fair and square; and

2)You are repeating a false meme of someone's-I'd say it was the RNC or the right wing, just to cause this very type of schism in the opposition-remember "United we stand, divided we fall"? It's working. And THAT'S not Nader's doing.

[LoZoccolo]

18. I'm not saying that.

I know about the purge and all that. I'm saying out of the things within our grasp that didn't have to happen, Nader is most prominent. There was no reason for him to run (sounds to me like he's the schism), the idea that there was little difference between the candidates was false, he broke his promise regarding swing states...these sorts of things were the easiest for us to prevent.

[Aiptasia]

4. more power to him

When I used to work at a relief shelter, grocery stores used to bring us their freshly expired food products like bricks of cheese, milk, day old bread, etc.. Much of it was perfectly fine, just slightly past it's freshness date.

We even volunteered to pick up leftovers from local restaurants. You'd be surprised how many meals can be salvaged from just a few restaurants willing to give away their pre-prepped foods instead of tossing them out. Not just french fries, either. Think about all of the items at one buffet restaurant. What the customers don't eat, they have to throw away at the end of the day.

By law, restaurants can't re-serve food that's already been prepared, and that's a lot of wasted "blue plate" specials that could be used to feed somebody.

More power to him.

[Acryliccalico]

5. More power to him

Here in Illinois where I live they have built enclosures around almost all the restrants garbage, around all the grocery store garbage too. These have large doors that are kept locked. Just seems odd to me. Are these places so greedy they don't even want to share the garbage?:shrug:

[skygazer]

9. Liability

That's why they do it. Same reason my store is only allowed to donate food items that are packaged. We can't donate fresh produce or loose donuts or bread. Because of the fear of lawsuits.

We do donate tons of food to shelters and charities but it is all the stuff that is boxed or canned.

[gaia_gardener]

20. Some places they actually

pour bleach or other bad tasting/poisonous substances on what they put in the dumpster.

Liability is such a stupid thing. There is no liability from fresh produce. Unless it is cut, nothing can grow on it. If it is cut, cooking it will kill most things that could hurt you (and washing it with soap and water would probably kill the rest). I'll bet there's not a single case of a successful lawsuit over fresh produce (and probably not even a case of an unsuccessful one either), we've allowed fear to overrule all commonsense.

[frictionlessO]

6. oh blah! I was homeless and hungry for about 4 months when I was 22

and you'll eat just about anything anyone gives you, when you're starving. The problem is no one is watching this group for cleanliness. Let me put it this way, someone was handing out bologna on bread with cheese. Which is fine but guess what? They had mayo on them, guess what that led to, after being in the hot New Mexican sun for a mere 45 minutes??? Ill put it to ya like this, most public places with restrooms dont let the homeless use them.

The gesture can have all the good intentions of the world behind it but if you dont have the intelligence to think the thing through yourself at least find someone who can....

On a personal note I use to wait behind BKs and McDs later at night and they would always throw out tons of food. Usually an entire 5 gallon bucket. Too bad I only figured that out my last month out in the wild on the streets. After "Supersize Me" though maybe I was lucky I didnt find it sooner.