Seedlings on the fire escape in Brooklyn

As I tend these babies, I think about the plants I’ll tuck into the contested, endangered part of the Campus Road community garden in Flatbush, BrooklynРthe part that’s slated for bulldozing and paving as early as July or as late as next spring (or never. Never!). I think about the seedlings I’ll give away to other gardeners and hope the homes I find for them will be good ones.

Meanwhile, two days ago, in a Whole Foods dumpster I found bundles of broccoli rabe, each representing a dozen mature plants grown 3,000 miles away. A day later, in the maw of a bulldozer parked on the Brooklyn College campus, I found a load of ‚Äúornamental‚Äù kale plants, pulled up by the roots to be replaced with something more seasonally decorative‚Äîeach plant sporting broccoli rabe-like flower heads at their peak of juicy ripeness. My partner and I ate some, lightly saut?©ed in (dumpstered) olive oil, the best homage we could think of for these feisty, pretty plants treated with such disregard.

So, knowing that retailers and other institutions are creating such waste, more than dumpster divers can possibly rescue, why bother gardening? Isn’t the input of labor out of proportion with the greater good of removing everyothing we can from the dumpster/landfill/incinerator fate? Why even disturb the ground?

The much-touted benefit is the deliciousness and much higher vitamin content of just-picked produce. But that is just the first of many benefits. Here are more.

- You come to understand at a visceral level just what those mountains of discarded food and “ornamentals” represent in terms of time, human labor and resources of the earth.
- You develop skills that will help you and your loved ones to thrive completely independent of the globalized food system.
- You get to grow what you want—not the uniform varieties ubiquitous in supermarkets—and, if you’re growing “heirlooms”, save seeds and never have to buy them again.
- You learn which of our domestic plants is suited to the environment, doesn’t attract too many “pests”, lives healthily fed by compost, and what might be too much of a luxury in a sustainable world
- You also learn what “ornamentals” are valuable to humans, insects, birds and other creatures as sources of food and shelter.
- As you get to recognize more plants, your inner forager will kick in, recognizing plants that have escaped cultivation (“weeds”), spread their seeds and that thrive in “disturbed” areas like gardens, parks and lawns—an abundance of dandelion and purslane, chickweed and wild arugula, burdock and amaranth. If the global food system collapsed, dumpsters dried up and there wasn’t time to plant, you’d know what you could eat.
- Finally, you’ll learn first hand why permaculture and wild foraging are so important to our future—much easier on us, easier on the earth, and more sustainable arrangement for every creature that lives.

Sometimes I think I am a bad freegan, but then sometimes I look at myself from the perspective of the ultra-clean-freak overconsumer, and I realize that I own almost none of the regular all-american cleaning products that you see in almost any household.

I threw out my shampoo and conditioner bottles today. They were a year and 8 months old. I know this because I remember when they were given to me. I didn’t buy them. My mother forced me to take them when I went to the hospital to give birth. She said I would need things to wash myself with, which was not true. The hospital provided almost everything.

I used them sparingly over the course of a year, and when they ran out, they just sat there for 8 months. I have not bought any more.

There may be problems with my hair that I am unaware of. And perhaps I don’t get treated by some people as well as I would if I were to fix those problems with shampoo. But for me, the thought of spreading chemical waste all over my body repulses me.

But this isn’t all I don’t have.

I don’t have any chemical cleaners. I don’t have air fresheners, none of the stuff that you would see in a regular bathroom. Vinegar, baking soda and H2O2 is all I need.

I have had that in my life without the bleach, chemical hair and face washes, and whatever else people go crazy buying.

It makes me wonder, really wonder, why, if I can go so long without hurting, without feeling any sense of struggle or inconvienience, why do people feel so strongly that they need these things to live a good life? It’s bad for so many more reasons than it is good.

It also said that the “executive pay has been a delicate issue for the Obama administration and Congress, particularly since it was revealed that A.I.G., the recipient of at least $180 billion in taxpayer money, was handing out $165 million in bonuses. The episode left officials struggling with just how to balance public anger with compensation rules that would not put the industry at a competitive disadvantage”

Public anger? More like Public Bludgeon. lol

A competitive disadvantage? Hey official representatives, just whose side are you on? Aren’t we haveing this whole conversation because we know that the bankers are scammers? Isn’t that the very hope for change that Obama rode in to the white house on? What are we all acting surprised about here?

“The banking industry had been lobbying the Obama administration to exclude traders and other highflying salespeople from the top 25, fearing it would lose top talent to competitors not constrained by the rules of a taxpayer bailout.”

Talent?

I would like to ask you, the people reading this right now. How much ($$$) is banking talent worth to you? Have you thought about that in terms of it being a service you’re willing to pay for?

I mean to say, do you think that some little banking starlet deserves a 165 million dollar bonus over let’s say, some talented artist? Really. Would you rather give one hundred dollars to the hippy on the street juggling balls with his pet travel companion, or give some “talented” banker an almost unaccountable amount of YOUR money that¬† YOU worked for just because he was smart enough to figure out how to scam you?? Come ON?? Even if you don’t LIKE the hippy! I think we know what the answer really is.

I don’t want to go on here about how evil the banks are. The point is that we are freegans here, and we’re talking about dropping out of that economy, right? What can we do about those banks? First of all… don’t do any business with them!

My bank, Bank of America, increased my monthly fee arbitrarily and then fined me when I unknowingly over drafted! They are making billions off of these scams.

There comes a time, people, when you have to realize that the nuts and bolts of daily living are infused with a deep political reality. Who you do business with greatly effects the course of world history, and lives across the world right now.

So please all reading this post, switch to a nice community based credit union!  For starters.

Here is a link to the article I’m quoting.

And here is a link that I googled to help find a credit union in your area. I have no idea if it’s anything good! lol. I just googled it! Please, if you use it, comment back to this post and tell us if it was good or bad!

~MaDTruthSeekeR

http://freejunkfood.blogspot.com/2009/04/so-much-food.html#comment-form†

On the Big O today, this woman, who was previously earning a 6-figure salary, gave up that life and started picking up food from dumpster. She even organised trash trips for people of the same interest. Such trips are not fancy trips with fancy drink but trips where you get closer to a possum or rodent, skill-wise speaking. What striked me the most, was that our society wastes so much. American, being 5% of the world population, consume 30% of the world’s resources. Madeline and her troop could find buckets of food, loaves of bread, fresh fruits, muffins, cereal, salad and canned food from just a handful of dumpsters, mostly all from grocery stores.

Have you not picked an apple and seen a small dent on it and not purchased it eventually? I have. These perfectly fine fruit are thrown away, they are not even given to the poor or homeless (due to some restrictions). And how much food have I wasted? If I remember correctly, $30 BILLION of food is wasted annually in the US. Now wouldn’t it timely if the CEOs of failed companies started embracing freegan lifestyle?

Consumerism, I think, is a more serious problem than drug or alcohol addiction.

That’s about how we feel about it too.

So welcome to everyone who saw us on Oprah. You’ll find many useful articles both on and off our site linked to through the menu on the left. If you’re looking to go diving, take a look at our dumpster directory. If you dive already and know of some choice spots you’d like to share, help us and fellow freegans by adding to the directory.

And if you’re in New York, check out the calendar and come to one of our events.

11 yo Jack Davis in FL pushes and succeeds in getting a bill passed protecting food store owners from being liable for people who get sick eating food that is donated in good faith. Hey… if this kid can do all that, what about us at freegan.info?? Perhaps it’s time to start thinking of ways that we can change how food is distributed institutionally? Just a thought. It’s cute though. This kid is cute. lol The link is above.

What’s interesting about this case is their argument that¬†Ralph Reese, the employee they fired, was attempting to steal the sandwich. As you can read on our site, items thrown in the trash are considered a part of the commons. The issue has been decided upon by the Supreme Court. Persons have no reasonable expectation their trash won’t be looked through or taken before the garbage collectors ¬†haul it to the landfill. And the sandwich had already been thrown away. It became fair game as soon as that decision was made.

Whole Foods is basically making the argument that maintaining their authoritarian corporate culture and increasing the ranks of the unemployed  is more important to them than either reducing the devastating effects of food waste or feeding the hungry.