Frog Gravy: The Incarceration Experience
This video is called Shopping at the Third Hand Store, aka Dumpster Diving. I love these guys. Shopping carts, cell phones, watermelons. Too cute for words.
We have been eating out of dumpsters for a little more than a year now. We have never gone hungry and we have never been sick. In fact, we now eat way better than we ever did when we had money, and our immunity to illness seems to have been bolstered from dumpstering for food.
A while back I received the following comment from Poland on one of my YouTube dumpster videos:
That’s possible only in America!
In Polish dumpsters we have only stinky dump, and i mean it, just dump.
What you have here it’s not dumpster as i know it, just place when people leave useful stuff.
I think i’ll just move to America and live from Dumpster diving, it would higher…
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So Far From Heaven 
This is happening in the most powerful nation on the planet ? Good for them to have a sense of humor. That’s all they got left.
talesfromthelou: This is happening. Jules
Ethics is dead at the moment in America. We are a cheating, lying, stalking, addicted nation…addicted to our face in the mirror.
livvy1234: We’re flawed creatures, human beings. The US is pretty much everyone else on the planet under different circumstances, seems to me. No better, no worse, no more ethical, no less. Just human beings stumbling through what comes on the plate. Gracias, Jules
Funny video, good survival strategy, bad lifestyle *choice* from my perspective, that of a proud consumer and supporter of free market capitalism..
Sorry, no offense, but I can’t resist repeating a comment I read on an article about dumpster diving a year or two ago: you are what you eat.. 😉
galudwig: More likely you are what you throw out that could have been used, consumed, repaired. As a free-market capitalists you know deep inside what you are, and whether it’s what you eat, or what you deliberately waste out of nonchalance, apathy, or cynical greed projected outward. So do I. Gracias, Jules
Well, dumpsters behind department stores are only full of perfectly edible discarded food because this food was produced in the first place in a competitive market, and because it does not adhere (anymore) to the strict standards that consumers want. Nothing to do with nonchalance, apathy or cynical greed. Only about what people demand (and what they are allowed to pay for by the government).
I do agree they could probably do more useful things with what they throw out (like sell it at a big discount), but in many cases you’d probably find that it’s the law, and not greed, that stands in the way of that happening..
galudwig: I apologize for reading too much into your earlier self-description, “I am a free-market-capitalist [woopteedoo, thinks I] and people who eat food from dumpsters are garbage because they are what they eat.” I suppose I try to read carefully whenever someone uses the phrase, “I am,” because it says so much about the background ideals the person projects onto himself, the value-system, the philosophy adopted and aspired to.
But it is easy in that sort of over-reading, to misjudge.
However, having said that and apologized if I was incorrect, I’ll also point out you obviously know little concerning the specifics you’re attempting to discuss. You’re projecting your perception of how things ‘must be’ because that’s the way you’d do it. Which has nothing at all with what’s in the dumpsters and garbage containers, stacked outside them, hauled to the landfills. Reality has a way of doing that a lot.
I’m obliged for your visit. Old Jules
No worries, this is the internet 🙂 my ‘you are what you eat’ comment was meant as a joke but I knew it was bound to offend yet I said it anyway so I’m the one who should be apologising, though I am and remain committed to pursuing a path of liberty, declaring the great merits of free markets everywhere I go online..
That said, it is true, I do know very little about the specifics of dumpster diving, other than knowing that it exists and is done, not just out of necessity (which I support) but also as a lifestyle choice (which I don’t support). But far be it from me to cast judgement on your way of life, we are all — or at least should be — free to pursue whatever it is which makes up happy, acting in a way we deem to render us more satisfied with our conditions than before. So I apologise if I sounded like a crazy ideologue looking for a verbal swashbuckling. I guess I am an ideologue but respect everyone’s motivations. It’s just that we probably have extremely different ideas about what capitalism is and how it affects society and the people in it. Anyway, enough of my rambling, cheers to you and we’ll probably talk again in a future post of yours 🙂
I find nothing sad about this. I think the sad thing is the terrible waste in this country. I’m glad someone is getting free food and other items and getting it the hard way. There’s nothing easy about this.
We are all consumers and we all participate on some level in the capitalism this country seems founded on. I’d rather see someone dumpster dive the detritus of life than have it continue on to the landfill. And filling the land it is.
Teresa Evangeline: Glad you came by. I thought you’d quit blogging. Yep, there’s a lot of waste worldwide. The bell-shaped curve has to have a topside and I expect the US and Western Europe occupy that spot at the moment. Gracias, Jules
I thought maybe I had, too, but I came back and now I can’t seem to shut up!
Teresa Evangeline: Glad you’re back, assuming you’re glad you are back. Gracias, Jules
I must say, I hesitated to “like” this post. It causes me a great deal of sadness to know this is a reality for some people. Even worse for me to know that there are children for whom this reality is NOT their choice. As tough as I am, this is one of those topics that make me sob uncontrollably. So I will just say, thanks for helping me to be grateful this morning that I can sit here in the comfort of my home with a cup of coffee and choose to have biscotti for breakfast. Check out Empty Bowls or North Texas Food Bank for ways to fill a hungry belly. Links are on honiebriggs.com. ~~Honie~~
Honie Briggs: For me there’s something uplifting in seeing people finding ways to get around tough gigs. Kids definitely have a tougher job of work cut out for them in that regard, whether it’s from poverty, abusive parents, disabilities, whatever. A lot of them never recover, and a lot of them become a lot better people for having grown up in those challenges and faced them. Fact is, we’re not much able to project whether they’d be better off having been robbed of those challenges. We think we can, but I’m a lot less certain about it than I might be.
In any case, society will either pay the price or reap the rewards after they’re adults, whichever way their lives go. Might as well be grateful for that, along with everything else. Gracias, Jules
This is a topic I can get petty hot about. As someone who went from owning a 2800 sq ft home to being homeless in a matter of about 6 years. Long story, won’t get into details here. But it was free trade that caused the business I worked for to close their doors.
I “thought” I was a charitable person, adopted a family at Xmas, gave to charity yada yada yada and I passed judgment on people I knew nothing about. I have heard my own voice echoing in my ears as I replayed my judgments back on myself.
The thing about prejudice and judging others is that it comes from lack of education and fear. If people accept that they are only a pay cheque or two away from homelessness themselves and under the right “wrong” circumstances they could lose it all they might feel obliged to help those in need. If they can convince themselves that a person is homeless or living in poverty because of an addiction, mental disability, laziness, apathy, whatever, they can tell themselves it could never happen to me.
As for the stuff in dumpsters, businesses in Canada do have a choice and I know of some locally who handle it in such a way as to give the needy some respect.
A grocery store puts all their past date items on a trolly and wheels it out to the dumpster at the same time every day. I personally have never gone to get food (I have always worked and had money even if I was homeless so never went to the food bank, soup kitchens etc because I felt I didn’t need it) but I was heard it is bagged up and the trolly is left outside for an hour and then what’s left is thrown in the dumpster. That way the store doesn’t have the mess of people digging in the dumpster and the people keep their self respect by not havingg to go in the dumpster.
A restaurant/deli premakes their sandwiches at lunch time and found that poor people would come and ask for the left over sandwiches after the lunch rush was over. The owner decided to make extra sandwiches every day and put them in one corner of the cooler. He told a couple of the homeless people where they were and to help themselves and spread the word. He now feeds about a dozen sandwiches a day to the needy.
Some store destroy everything they throw away for fear someone might take it out of the dumpster and use it. I have talked to businesses and they say if someone gets it out of the dumpster they won’t come in the store to buy it. Do you really think someone with money would be climbing in dumpsters?
I have furnished my place almost solely from free stuff off of Craig’s list, dumpsters, or by picking up stuff people put out for the garbage collector. I haul scrap metal for a living, most of it goes to the scrap yard but when I can I prefer to sell it for reuse.
People have to wake up, waste and greed is destroying this world as is the “me first” attitude. What is that saying? A guy doesn’t go to the defense of all these different groups and then in the end they come after him and there’s no one left to defend him? Shoot I can’t remember.
Sorry for going on and on. Good post
Lady With A Truck: I appreciate the long post. I don’t know what I could say to add anything to it or disagree with it. Gracias, Jules
Old Jules, One hundred percent agree with you. Overcoming challenges (related to …whatever, etc.) has made me the person I am today. Will the world notice when I am gone? Probably not. But I do intend for someone in the world to know that I am here, willing and able to do my part to make the world a better place before I go. LOVE your insights. Also on a side note, I am glad you put the user ID next to your responses. I almost thought for a minute that your reply to galudwig was for me. Imagine my surprise. All the Best~~Honie~~
Hi again Honie Briggs. I’m obliged you’re here. This comment replying gets confusing from this end, too Gracias, Jules
Jules, I’m sure grocers and the like would be inclined to give their old stuff to shelters and the like, understanding that it’s still perfectly good to consume, and most welcome, but sadly, the reality is they would be exposing themselves to liability if someone got sick, or claimed to have gotten sick, from something best if sold before yesterday, or would soon be harrangued to stop providing expired product and show some respect with fresh. Too many people waiting for a winnable lawsuit.
pharphelonus: In some instances I’m sure you’re right. Gracias, Jules
Health and safety laws here mean the dumpsters are behind 8ft razor wire topped fences with a lock. Sad: I know I wouldn’t have to buy ‘reduced for quick sale’ cheap hamburger (which is so full of fat, cartilage, and water it makes me nauseated to smell it cooking) if I could get ‘past the sell by date’ expensive cuts out of the skip. If I was in the US, I’d be in there, too.
heretherebespiders: I can see how all that would slow a person down. Gracias, Jules
To Lady witha truck: I likes your post so much I put it in my blog.
http://talesfromthelou.wordpress.com/
talesformthelou: It was a good ‘un. Gracias, J
Why is everybody getting so hot under the collar? The last generation has NO idea how to live past today. They have to get the latest and the best not realizing what a waste of money that is. They can’t wait until the next best, newest thing. Pul-eeze.
I’ve seen documentaries about people (not the poor) supplementing their grocery budget by scavenging and eating stuff like day-old bread and lots of good vegetables. This is a wasteful world we live in today. Recycling, reusing are just buzz words. Not enough people understand what they really stand for. Even OPRAH had a show about it. If that turns you off, too bad.
All I can say is, for every penny saved….figure it out already!
Let’s Cut the Crap: It’s worth noting most of the US population has never seen anything they’ve eaten when it still had the hair on it. Never planted a seed, nurtured it, harvested the produce then cooked and eaten it. Have never started a fire and wouldn’t know how to build a cookfire. Have never realized they need a tool, visualized what it needed to look like to perform the function, and manufactured it. Have never turned soil, cut down a tree, created one item of their own attire, done anything at all remotely related to direct survival.
I suspect this is unprecedented in human history as something pervasive in the population. It’s no wonder they’re alienated from everything identifiable as human history and tradition. Gracias, Jules
I’m with you Jules. We all know who we are deep inside. I suspect people are wasteful because they haven’t been taught to be frugal. Growing up we got new shoes, socks and underwear, almost everything else was a hand-me-down from another family or our “better” relatives. We mended and repaired. We had a huge vegetable garden that fed 3 families. Some of my siblings continued the lifestyle, others rejected it in favor of brand new and shiny. I can differentiate between want and need.
Happiness lives within.
elroyjones: I expect if a person doesn’t find it within he/she’s not likely to find it anywhere else. Gracias, Jules
I don’t know about eating from ’em, but I’ve sure got my share of other stuff, good stuff, from dumpsters. It’s odd what people will toss out, especially college kids.
Nice site you’ve got here Old Jules.
Twelve Chickens eh? Us too.
Brian
Hi Brian: I appreciate your visit. You treat those hens right and they’ll be 24 before you know it if you have a good rooster. Gracias, Jules
Thanks for posting this one Old Jules.
This is a good and important reminder of how much food is being produced and thrown away everyday in the western hemisphere. Without anybody tasting it and hardly anyone laying their eyes on it. It seems so arrogant and ignorant when so many people go hungry.
Dumpster Dinner is a phenomena known in most big cities around the world. Everywhere you find let’s say a 7-11 you’ll find fresh sandwiches and salad in the dumpster. But there are many other dumpsters to dig into. I saw a program about two guys, I think it was in England, they collected dumpster food and made a Dumpster Dinner Party for their friends.
I’ve seen shops in Copenhagen putting a box with the good stuff next to the dumpster, instead of inside the dumpster. I think that was very kind and thoughtful. Especially because the dumpsters are hard to get into for elderly people (those who manage to escape the nursing home ;o) ).
Rules and regulations forces shops to through out items that are fully edible. Regular private households are a complete different story: look into most peoples garbage can and you’ll find good food thrown away. If you’ve cooked to much and you’re out of freezer and fridge space: wrap it up nicely with at least a plastic fork and give it to someone. There is always a hungry soul wandering the streets at night.
Anette Hermann: Yeah, plenty of all that around us. Gracias, Jules