Posted on 09/14/2007 3:02:23 PM PDT by presidio9
For lunch in her modest apartment, Madeline Nelson tossed a salad made with shaved carrots and lettuce she dug out of a Whole Foods dumpster.
She flavored the dressing with miso powder she found in a trash bag on a curb in Chinatown. She baked bread made with yeast plucked from the garbage of a Middle Eastern grocery.
Nelson, 51, is a former corporate executive who can afford to dine at upscale restaurants. But she prefers turning garbage into gourmet meals without spending a cent.
On this afternoon, she thawed a slab of pate that she found three days before its expiration date in a trash bin outside a health food store. She made buttery chicken soup from another health food store’s hot buffet leftovers, which she salvaged before they were tossed into the garbage.
Nelson once earned a six-figure income as director of communications at Barnes and Noble. Tired of representing a multimillion-dollar company, she quit in 2005 and became a “freegan” — the word combining “vegan” and “free.” It is a growing subculture of people who have reduced their spending habits and live off consumer waste.
Although many of its pioneers are vegans, people who neither eat nor use any animal-based products, the concept has caught on with Nelson and other meat-eaters who do not want to depend on businesses that they think waste resources, harm the environment or allow unfair labor practices.
“We’re doing something that is really socially unacceptable,” Nelson said. “Not everyone is going to do it, but we hope it leads people to push their own limits and quit spending.”
Nelson used to spend more than $100,000 a year for her food, clothes, books, transportation and a mortgage on a two-bedroom co-op in Greenwich Village. Now, she lives off savings,
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
I read this in the Houston Chronicle today ...
What a bunch of losers.
H
Great a nation of scavengers!
Dumpster diving Diva dines delectably........
My dictionary doesn’t have “freegans”. I think the word they’re looking for is “bums”.
look up geophagy.....
Doctors declare dumpster diving diva dead. Details deferred.
It’s nothing new. I know a lot of women that self medicated on anti depresants, left their husbands, kids, lost the house, all their money and live off of dumpsters.
LOL!........DOA...............
Good. That means there is an opening for director of communications at Barnes and Noble.
I don’t have a problem with it. I wouldn’t do it myself, but this really is no different than buying the meats, dairy, or breads that are marked down close to expiration dates.
>> Great a nation of scavengers!
Ironically - if the entire country were like these folks, the cheap bastards wouldn’t have anyone to mooch off of.
They think of themselves as social heroes while simultaneously piggybacking on the wealth and prosperity of those they think are “wasteful”.
H
These are the same people that are touted as having “no health insurance”.....and that they intend to MANDATE others pay for their insurance......
Let's not let alliteration go to our heads...
What’s wrong with not being wasteful?
Did you erad the article? They eat out of the trash.
I don’t judge anyone who makes a non-criminal living without dipping into my pockets.
What ticks me off is watching people in my line at the supermarket paying with their WIC cards and strolling off into a nicer car than I can afford. THAT bothers me.
People want to dumpster-diver for fun and profit, knock yourselves out.
It used to be that people who scavanged through other people’s trash were called bums. Now they’re “freegans”? How about “weirdos”?
whoops, read*
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