Post Punk Kitchen Forum

My dad was homeless because he made bad decisions. He also fed me dumpstered food. What a dick. But this thread is too long for me to read, whose side do I fall on?

For me, I'd rely on proof that there is some negative effect on eating packaged food from a dumpster. If it is unsanitary or unhealthy, you'd have some proof of that which I don't think there really is any. Our foods are covered with pesticides, coated with waxes, pumped full of preservatives, sitting for a couple hours in a dumpster is probably the least of my concerns in terms of food.

Even though this discussion started without the thought of half eaten food, again, I'm not in a position where I have limited food options so I really couldn't judge unless there was some proof that really it is a bad bad idea to eat half eaten food. Sure someone could have germs which they pass to the food but germs don't live long outside of their ideal environments. Cooking can also destroy a lot of things.

i will preface my response by saying that i have absolutely no problem with someone who is a *true freegan.*

there is absolutely NO WAY that one could call freeganism "more ethical" than veganism. FREEGANS forking EAT DEAD ANIMALS.

*true freegans,* at absolute best, could be called more environmentally responsible than vegans, but that's about it.

the reason i say *true freegan* is this: every single forking person i have ever met in my life who claims to be freegan is a hypocritical crusty weirdo. if you are going to be freegan, this means that you have to be eating vegan food almost all the time.

- eating thanksgiving turkey when you go to your parents house is NOT FREEGAN.
-eating food that you did not pay for at the unlimited college dining hall is NOT FREEGAN.
- going to the diner at 2 am and not spending any money while you watch all your friends eat, and then you eat the scraps off their plates is NOT FREEGAN. (this is called mooching.)

in these hypothetical cases, other people would eat the food if you didn't. being freegan is eating vegan food a great majority of the time, and RESCUING FOOD OUT OF THE TRASH and eating that too.

just because you yourself did not pay for the thanksgiving turkey, does not mean eating that with your family is freegan. that is not freegan at all.

i am a gigantic vocabulary snob and i don't give a fork. (see: pescetarians who call themselves vegetarians.)



and this.

Ha ha, that's true! It's kind of like when "ethical omnivores" think that they are ethical because theoretically they can source all of their meat, eggs and dairy from local, humane, etc, non-factory farms. But in reality they mostly eat factory farmed meat. But still, theoretically...

Which of course could derail this thread in another direction but now that I know a lot of people in the paleo 'community', they all talk about their locally sourced, grass fed meat but then in the next sentence they talk about going to "Five Guys", "Chicken Out" or other places. So... I guess it doesn't apply towards restaurant food?

I mean its not like I'm vegan at home, eating eating steak otherwise. I guess I don't understand the logic.

Mine, because I used the most words.

Google fails me in this regard, so I will get my best scientists on it as soon as possible!

Maybe your food. Not mine. (Only because my health-conscious partner insists, otherwise I might eat more processed stuff more often. Oh well, different discussion, maybe...)

I don't know, check that first post:

Half-eaten pot pies seem to fit the bill.

It's not so much the food that I find worrying, necessarily, as it is the rest of the trash the food is sharing company with.

I don't see dumpster food as more convenient, ethical or healthy than other sources, and in fact, the possible tetanus, hepatitis or botulism seem to make it less so.

EXACTLY. i could go on and on about "ethical" omnivores and pescetarians as well.

i usually try to stay away from stereotypes, but with freegans i can't hold back. i really want to meet a *true freegan* who i can respect. but every single freegan i have ever met does not take themselves seriously. so how the f-ck are other people supposed to take them seriously?

Well again, it depends, what if the half eaten food is in a container? And in terms of packaged food, obviously it is self contained. Also, botulism is easy to recognize and you can encounter it in your own pantry and especially if you can your own food, you need to be aware of botulism. Tetanus and Hep aren't from the food but the dumpster but if your argument is against children and dumpstered food, then if the children aren't themselves in the dumpster then they are in no danger.

And in terms of pesticides and what not, I was speaking generally. I am fortunate enough to be able to be picky what goes into my food and how it is grown but not everyone has that luxury, even if they aren't dumpstering.

Putting aside the repetitive nature of whether there are "always other, better viable options," why is it unethical? Dumpster diving, as I understand it, and in the way I think it's meant in this thread, is salvaging perfectly good food that is being thrown away due to essentially arbitrary standards meant to artificially inflate demand in a consumptive culture. How is feeding your child bread that was in a sealed bag and is perfectly up to snuff aside from being one day past an unnecessarily early expiry date unethical? How is feeding your child a slightly bruised banana unethical?

To me, this has nothing to do with whether there are in fact other ways for this family to get food*, and more to do with accepting or resisting bullshiitake standards that create appalling amounts of waste in pursuit of the mighty dollar.

*To which I a)think there often aren't and b) don't give a shiitake in the context of this argument.

True that, which is why I'm all for society going all in to help guarantee healthy food and adequate shelter as a right for everyone.

There's better, more sanitary, viable options that include food that has not been half eaten.

A parent's responsibility is not limited to the children's health, but being there for their children and leading them by example. A parent's health also affects their family.

The reason the answer has been repeated...

...is because the question has been repeated.

I have no problem with day old bread or eating packaged foods past their expiration date, and even if I did, I wouldn't have a problem with someone else making the choice. In a lot of cases - that is, if we're really talking about day old bread, and not a can of peaches a year past its expiration - I'm even okay with feeding it to your children. I'm not talking about not utilizing food that others wrongfully see as ready only for the dumpster. I'm even for laws that change how businesses, and maybe even households, handle that sort of thing. I just think once someone else has made the bad choice to put it in a dumpster, you're not necessarily obligated to make the bad choice (yes, I see it as a bad choice) to dive into that dumpster for it.

We split in opinion because I don't buy the premise that there often aren't (say it with me) better, more sanitary viable options.

The risk-reward equation does not favor dumpsters over all those other sources. One can obtain food, even freely, from so many other sources without the risk of injury or disease.

Of course, you will disagree, if you don't agree that state assistance, food banks, soup kitchens, church groups, Food Not Bombs, etc., exist, or if you think that they are not better, more sanitary viable options than dumpstered food.

If elected, I promise to vote for the No Feeding Dumpstered Food to Your Kids Unless You've Got No Better Alternative Act of 20-whenever.

This thread needed a Venn Diagram.

Whatever, you can't tell me what to feed my kids, that's socialism. WHERE'S THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE?!

Also, I just re-read the title of this thread, and now I hear it in my head as said by Chandler Bing.

And what if they still can't get enough food? What if they don't have access to these sorts of things? In my city, for example, there is no Food Not Bombs. I am not aware of a soup kitchen, or a church group that just gives out food.

Holy fork, with the benefit of being at the airport and on antianxiery meds I was just going to say "could it BE more ethical?"

If by "they" you mean "freegans with children" or "parents who want to live freegan," then according to what some see as the tenets of freeganism, they can garden, forage, barter, or steal. The ethics of all these choices can be weighed individually, of course. My argument was only that people shouldn't feed their children dumpstered food.

Is there like an epidemic of homeless freegans feeding children dumpster food? I'm trying to figure out what happened in this thread and am failing.

Haha! Is it these antianxiety meds or is this like the seinfeld and monty python and just the 10 of us of threads?

I think what happened is that the main (sole?) point of contention between BFH and everyone else concerns feeding dumpstered food to children. So, in the admirable effort to continue the argument with BFH, this dumpstered food-and-children angle must be continually brought up

That's my reading of it.

Yeah, that was totally the plot of at least one ep of Just the 10 of Us.

I loves me some Footie but I think there are two issues not as pretty

1) Calling homeless people homeless because of bad decisions is at best, unkind. At worst...we bring out some -ists.
2) Suggesting that it's easy for poor parents to feed their children is also, at best, unkind, unrealistic and ignorant.

I don't care if you forking eat the damn dumpster itself.

Can we talk about my dad now?

I agree with 1 or 2. I just don't think BFH was guilty of 1. Possibly guilty of 2.

Therefore he is sentenced to community service only. And I'm going to make it something relatively easy, like he has to work 30 hours maintaining nature trails.

Is he freegan?

Your dad was not a dick but you should start a poll just in case.