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'Freegan' activists reject consumer waste by digging through trash for food
Newsday.com ^ | 11/24/05 | Desmond Butler

Posted on 11/24/2005 1:05:59 PM PST by VictoryGal

NEW YORK -- Dinner shared by a group of friends at a well-appointed Greenwich Village apartment featured eggplant Parmesan with a salad of mixed greens and avocado dressing. The guests already had snacked on hors d'oeuvres of smoked mozzarella and crackers.

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bonapetit; carrionfeeders; darwinwashere; dumpsterdiving; food; scavengers; thanksgiving; waste; youfinishedwiththat
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On the one hand, liberals rooting around garbage seems typical. On the other hand, it is the kind of thrify experience most of our spend-happy Congressmen should go through...
1 posted on 11/24/2005 1:06:01 PM PST by VictoryGal
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To: VictoryGal

I'll agree that there is too much going to waste in our society. We eat our leftovers down to the bitter end.


2 posted on 11/24/2005 1:13:02 PM PST by TheSpottedOwl ("President Bush, start building that wall"!)
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To: VictoryGal

Good Lord, these people are stupid.

What really disgusts me is that people like this get to, basically, cancel out my vote.


3 posted on 11/24/2005 1:15:15 PM PST by furquhart (Gingrich '08)
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To: VictoryGal

Alllllllllrighty then! ICK......ICK *chuckle*


4 posted on 11/24/2005 1:15:44 PM PST by LaineyDee (Don't mess with Texas wimmen!)
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To: furquhart

Not after they eat the wrong thing.


5 posted on 11/24/2005 1:16:04 PM PST by Our man in washington
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To: VictoryGal

This has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with the cost of living in Manhattan. Basically, they want to live in the big city so badly that they are willing to eat out of dumpsters if they have to.


6 posted on 11/24/2005 1:20:45 PM PST by thoughtomator (What'ya mean you formatted the cat!?)
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To: VictoryGal
I do believe this is the third story Newsday has run on "Freegans" in the past two years. Somebody on their staff must really be pushing this. Either that or they plump up a holiday edition with repeat "news".
7 posted on 11/24/2005 1:23:07 PM PST by NYCynic
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To: VictoryGal

They ought to hit a dumpster on a military base!


8 posted on 11/24/2005 1:29:01 PM PST by fat city ("The nation that controls magnetism controls the world.")
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To: NYCynic
Your memory is very good. I just did a database search. Newsday did a story in Sept. 2004. Different author but same subject and same main character, Adam Weissman.

"One mans trash . . . , Freegans say they dine well - and make an important political statement by eating food thrown away by stores and restaurants"; [ALL EDITIONS] NICOLE BERGOT. Nicole Bergot is a freelance writer.. Newsday. (Combined editions). Long Island, N.Y.: Sep 29, 2004. pg. B.02

"Leaning over a black garbage bag on a recent cool night, Adam Weissman uses his bare hands to scoop steaming brown rice and veggies into a plastic container. Alongside him, two friends pull muffins, pasta and sweet potatoes, still warm from a hot buffet, from the pile of trash bags outside Lifethyme, a natural foods market in Greenwich Village..."

9 posted on 11/24/2005 1:30:19 PM PST by saquin
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To: VictoryGal

If they come down with food poisoning, sue the stores!


10 posted on 11/24/2005 1:31:54 PM PST by Alouette (Gaza: Too small to be a country, too large to be an insane asylum (thanx: Pettigru).)
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To: VictoryGal
Freegans attempt to bring respect to dumpster-divers the world over.
11 posted on 11/24/2005 1:32:01 PM PST by ARealMothersSonForever (Proud to be named as a member of the Radical Right Wing. Vast Right Wing got old.)
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To: VictoryGal

Bums used to root around in the trash at a house I lived at. One had the b*lls to actually walk into the kitchen...

I laced a cheeseburger with habanero pepper and left it out. Stopped the problem.


12 posted on 11/24/2005 1:32:24 PM PST by msf92497 (Uh Oh)
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To: VictoryGal

In years past the trash from NYC restaurants was shipped on freight cars to N.J. to be used as feed in the pig farms. It was typical for the hog ranchers to have full place settings with china from some of Manhattan's finest hotels.

(gratuitous NYC history factoid)


13 posted on 11/24/2005 1:38:59 PM PST by durasell
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To: durasell
In years past the trash from NYC restaurants was shipped on freight cars to N.J. to be used as feed in the pig farms.

This was also common when I was stationed in Germany our mess hall garbage was shipped to German hog farms.There is nothing worse than the smell of a German hog farm it was almost enough to put me off of schnitzel......almost.

14 posted on 11/24/2005 1:58:47 PM PST by edchambers (Neocon foot-soldier of the Haliburton death squad)
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To: VictoryGal

This story is not going to cause me to enjoy my turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, carrots and rutabagas, and pumpkin pie with whipped cream ANY LESS.


15 posted on 11/24/2005 2:00:33 PM PST by spinestein (All journalists today are paid advocates for someone's agenda.)
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To: edchambers

That's that's pretty interesting. Shows that it was common practice not unique to NYC.

For the record, guys who collected plates and silverware (yes, they exist) would flock to garage sales and thrift shops in certain parts of N.J. looking for 1930s or earlier items that hog farmers had fished out of the slop over decades. I remember being in one of those thrift stores and seeing an original ashtray from the Stork Club...should have bought it, the thing was only $3.50.


16 posted on 11/24/2005 2:01:52 PM PST by durasell
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To: msf92497

Bums used to root around in the trash at a house I lived at. One had the b*lls to actually walk into the kitchen...

I laced a cheeseburger with habanero pepper and left it out. Stopped the problem.

...

I witnessed a free loader scam last week. As I exited the highway onto a business street a woman was standing by the light holding a card board sign "homeless, blah blah blah". She almost got my sympathy along with a couple of dollars until I noticed upon getting a closer look at her, she had that gaunt gumming her jaws methhead face. And the kicker was, she parked her pick up truck right across the road from where she stood! I also immediately figured out she had picked one of the closest off ramps near a subdivision of half million dollar homes. I came real close to telling her to go to church. They say many of these type of panhandlers can make two hundred dollars on a good day.


17 posted on 11/24/2005 2:48:39 PM PST by SunnySide (Ephes2:8 ByGraceYou'veBeenSavedThruFaithAGiftOfGodSoNoOneCanBoast)
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To: SunnySide

How did you know it was her pickup?


18 posted on 11/24/2005 2:51:16 PM PST by durasell
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To: edchambers
Mmmm, Jager Schnitzel!
19 posted on 11/24/2005 2:56:12 PM PST by Grizzled Bear ("Does not play well with others.")
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To: durasell

"How did you know it was her pickup?"

...

Gut instinct. The location, the spot the truck was parked in was the shoulder of road where even a broken down vehicle wouldn't be left at. I suspect a squad car soon came by later and removed her and her truck. It was all too obvious and funny. I noticed all the vehicles ahead of me didn't give her a dollar either. If she were truly homeless and hungry she would've been on the north side of town where all the real homeless get their free food and shelter.


20 posted on 11/24/2005 2:57:55 PM PST by SunnySide (Ephes2:8 ByGraceYou'veBeenSavedThruFaithAGiftOfGodSoNoOneCanBoast)
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