Back to the Dumpsters! I’m feelin’ Marty McFLY

Disclaimer: For liability’s sake what you are about to read is entirely fiction. Every word of it. The pictures were photoshopped and are replete with falsehood.

So, my food stamp benefits got slashed at the start of this month and I think it’s mainly because my benefits case worker has an unhealthy fondness of jacking with the computer system that calculates my food stamp eligibility. Coming down from $200 a month, my benefits went to $16 for two days, $18 for a couple of hours, and now they're sitting at $109 a month. However, I may have a juicy update soon as my friend Erin Lee has been working her heart out to get us back to the full $200, we have grown so merrily accustomed to.

Anyway, the food-cramped roller coaster ride of last week has got me thinking, “there’s no way in hell that I’m going to compromise my savings or my standard of living.” I guess you could say that the die-hard econ major/uncompromising wretch is coming alive in me, ‘cause today, with the help of Erin Lee and her boyfriend Travis, I put ponder into practice. We went dumpster diving in the back of a place that for anonymity’s sake I will not reveal (but let’s just say it rhymes with Raider Rose) to supplement our lackluster transfer payments from the government.

It was FUN!!! In 11 minutes flat we pilfered enough grainy sustenance to not have to worry about the bottom plank of the food pyramid for the next month or two. The thing is, today was so fricking glorious. There were like 10 bags of bread and pies that were dated to go bad within the next few days, double bagged and loaded into shopping carts behind the grocery establishment. It was as if “Raider Rose” understood that the food was still good for the taking and wanted to make it as easy as possible for the tramp, hoodlum, vagabond, or fervent AmeriCorps volunteer to plunder.

Erin Lee examines part of the loot retrieved after a night of successful dumpstering. Bagels, pies, whole grain bread, muffins, naan, plum tomatoes in dented cans, and even quality hand soap were among the items claimed that evening.

So grocer-that-will-not-be named, hats off to you, you marvelous oasis in a litigious desert. You are a wondrous outlier in a country that is so overburdened by laws, that enough food to feed the entire state of California gets thrown out every day. Today was the best ever because we took a fraction out of the California-sized foodwaste problem.

In rapid closing, I hate and love laws. Because of laws black markets exist and people go to jail for non-intrusive behavior like dealing drugs. (I mean why people can stomach paying their tax dollars to support inmates who’d simply peddled a substance that people can say no to on their own volition, is beyond me.) And because of laws, inmates cannot manufacture the goods that we need to support the backbone of a sustainable economy, which is really unfortunate because they could be a labor input at no cost. Yes, and because of laws corporations can give any amount of money they deem necessary to buy our citizens’ politicians. Laws kind of suck. But because of laws, those black markets exist for the unscrupulous to meander in; adventures are born and fun is to be had. If laws didn’t exist, we couldn’t break them, and then where would all the fun be?

Eat food. Break laws. Dance a little.

Make dumpster diving “safe”

Get some hydrogen peroxide. It is used to clean bacteria off of food, but it is better than an anti-bacterial because instead of drying onto the food like a bleach solution or a soap solution, the hydrogen peroxide will kill the bacteria and then dissolve.

Plug up your sink. Add water and hydrogen peroxide. Put 6-8 Tbs. of hydrogen peroxide per gallon of water. Completely submerge your produce in the water/hydrogen peroxide solution.

Be selective with your dumpstered items. Use common sense. Don’t eat any items that have holes in the bags. Don’t eat anything that looks questionable. Don’t ever trust meat. Be ridiculously careful with items that are not in safe containers. Don’t eat any items in bags that have contaminated items or questionable items.

Your freezer is your friend. The good thing about acquiring food that “goes bad” the next day is that if you put it in your freezer, it will stop your food from ever reaching the next day. This way you can save the items you’ve just pilfered.

Don’t share your dumpstered food with friends unless they're cool with it. Not everybody is enamored with eating out of the dumpster. You should never pawn off dumpstered food as normal food. It’s a total food waste faux paux, so don’t do it. Plus it’s irresponsible.