in thinking that eating food from supermarket skips is actually perfectly sane

[stripeymama]

and the insanity lies with supermarkets that throw away £18 billion worth of food every year??

I have been told that I am crazy for eating (and feeding dd) food that has been found on skips. And that its dangerous and could make us ill.

Well, it hasn't yet. We happily eat fruit, vegetables, cheese, bread, cakes, and biscuits from skips. Whole bags full of organic brocolli. Asparagus, mangos, peppers, baby corn, chocolate cheesecakes, fresh orange and passion fruit smoothies. On one memorable occasion, three binliners full of assorted cans of beer!

I avoid most animal products (we are vegetarian anyway) but when we still had a dog, he often got organic mince cooked for him, or fish and chicken breasts. We once found a tray of 24 cans of pedigree chum, thrown out because one can had leaked onto the others.

So I don't think there is anything wrong with freeganism, in fact I think there is a lot right with it, so to my exSIL who thinks I am negligent and likely to poison dd.

Good on you Stripeymama ! Why the hell not !
I've just come back from New York and it is very popular over there. Personally it seems insane that all this food is wasted. I am sure it is very simplistic of me to say this but could it not be distributed to homeless shelters ? When I worked in London the Pret a Manger shop would always leave their left overs by the front door for some homeless people that were nearby.

Well speaking as a mother who has just let her 4yr old eat a cake that we'd just bought from the bakers and that he'd dropped on the road after only a quick brush with a hankie, I don't think I'm in a position to lecture about food hygeine. I wiped it a bit more thoroughly than normal because there were builders watching. >

Wow! Where are these skips? I can just see masses of women all fighting over organic museli in Sainsbury's skips now!

I desperately wnat to try this but I live in a small town and the snob in me would be moertified if anyone saw me!

can't spell/type

I'd love to do this too. The skips outside my local Marks are sitting there in a really accessible position just waiting for me! DH is appalled by the idea though, says I'd probably be spotted by someone we knew and bring eternal shame on the family... damn his conformism

I could wear a hat scarf disgiuse I suppose....or send dp he's an obsessive bargin hunter

we could drive to a different town...

DD is not mortified (mind you she's 4). In fact she thinks its rather good fun, as do the older kids of some of my friends. I still maintain that the people responsible for this kind of waste are the ones who should be ashamed.

I hope that I can bring dd up to be aware of the responsibility that we all have to reduce our footprint on the planet, and to accept that to do so will mean making certain sacrifices and doing things that others may consider strange.

I think there is another Mumsnetter by the name of daddycool who rummages in bins.

I work in a supermarket and I definitely would not do this. Yes there is a hell of a lot of waste but some of these things are thrown away not just because they are out of date or have damaged packaging, but quite often because they have been withdrawn from sale due to quality issues (some potentially very serious). Just something to bear in mind

Some people actually rummage around in bins for thrown out food?!!

OMG. And these people have a name?!!!

The things you learn on MN.

Actively rummaging in skips for food is a bit odd is it not?

That freegal website is bollocks. Make me cross.

Should be renamed freeloaders.info

Why bollocks?

When I lived in Oxford I used to volunteer at the homeless shelter in the city centre. One volunteer used to take a shopping trolley out each evening and go to Boots and about four other coffee shops to pick up all the sandwiches and pasta dishes that were going past their sell by date. They would then be given out to people at the end of the evening. You could get a cracking good haul some evenings and it was always very gratefully received!

it's bollocks because they are advocating living for free off the back of other people. If we all took that attitude where would he economy be?

I did work at the homeless shelter in Oxford too.

Ah.

Well the way I see it, its more to do with making use of what is thrown away/wasted in our society. Surely that is preferable to it sitting in landfill for however many hundreds of years?

Hitchhiking is just sitting in an otherwise empty seat in a car that is going where you are going - the driver giving the lift does so willingly. That has to be better than two cars, each with only one occupant, making the same journey across the country?

But what about taking responsibility for yourself?

I've got a spare bed in my house but would I want some freegan sleeping in it? No.

I'm all for helping others and reducing carbon footprints etc etc but this freegan malarkey sounds like a fancy name for being a tramp.IMO.