Freeganism and subversive shopping

Strictly speaking, being a freegan means that a person lives by a set of ideals that virtually eliminates waste by repurposing items that other people deem trash. We’re dumpster divers, trash diggers, scroungers, and urban foragers. We recognize that the staggering volume of wasted food and other commodities will sooner than later be a leading factor in the collapse of the comfortable society in which we live. Many of us have learned what is and is not edible in our natural surroundings and take full advantage of the foods that are naturally plentiful as they come ripe. Freeganism generally means shunning meat, so unlike Nicole and Bill, my perspective is largely vegetarian in nature, but I and my family do eat the occasional bit of meat (but only certain kinds – I’ll get to that later).

Freeganism also means co-opting, or creating a sustainable practice of shared resources with family, friends, neighbors, and perfect strangers. It’s learning to do with no immediate gratification and appreciating what’s serendipitously thrown into our paths. Sometimes this idea works, sometimes we just do without, and sometimes we just give in and go grocery shopping.

Freeganism defined.

I really, honestly believe that in a perfect world everything would be free and we’d never, ever, EVER experience the problems of waste, ignorance, or poverty that frequently plague people all over the world. While a lot of things are free and can be obtained for free, the reality is that we must pay for damn near everything, even information. I guess that’s both good and bad for me, because as a university instructor in West-Central Texas my rent depends on my ability to dole knowledge out to sometimes very reluctant minds.

But I do get to forcibly cram subversive ideas into these 18-22 year olds’ malleable minds, which is cool. But this isn’t a blog about how cool it is to be me; let’s get back to business.

Let me add a quick note: I will never claim that I and other freegans don’t rely on commercial enterprises to attain my food. Feeding a family of four in West Texas’s soaring, never-ending 100+ (or billion+ degrees if you actually live here) temps means that dumpster diving for foodstuffs is not always the best idea, even if or when it’s readily available. And who really wants to venture out to pluck wild pomegranates in the middle of July anyway? Gross – definitely not me.

My shopping habits, however, take advantage of what will almost certainly be thrown away because the supermarket assigns what often seem to be arbitrary expiration dates to produce, meats, and dairy products. I rarely pay full price for anything other than staple fruits. Rarely do I pay full price for vegetables, because so often pre-packaged veggies “go bad” before people buy the stuff. The people who work in the aforementioned sections either don’t give a damn about how well their department runs (and really, who can blame them?), or they are overburdened with work and never have the time to put clearance stickers on all the stuff that will “expire” the next day. This is where I come in. I have become a master at looking for the expiration dates on everything. If the item “expires” that day or the next, odds are you can get one of those underpaid workers to mark the stuff down half-price or more. And if, like me, you’re feeding a horde of hungry boys, the fact that those 99 cent mushrooms will get pretty gross after about three days in the fridge doesn’t really matter because they’ll be gone within a day anyway.

The same tactic can be taken with meat and dairy products too. Because we don’t really eat meat that originates from land-dwelling animals, I usually cruise by the fish and dig through the individually store-packaged fish fillets to see if anything’s been marked down or will be tossed the next day. If something’s marked to go out the next day, I can typically get the meat counter folks to mark the stuff down at least half-price. I’ve done the same with chicken, pork, and beef too (though not recently). I regularly get the dairy dudes to mark milk down. Rarely do I pay more than 50 cents for a gallon of milk set to expire in one or two days. The milk, however, stays good for at least five days, so my cow juice horking family doesn’t care about the numbers.

There is a trick to getting stuff marked down, though, and it might be a little surprising. You’ve got to look for the higher-end stuff like organic and free-roaming/range products. Most people can’t afford to pay 6$ for a gallon of organic milk, so it sits there until someone like me swoops in or it expires and gets tossed.

Now many people snub their noses at my shopping behavior. It’s “gross” or “cheap” or whatever other stupid assessment they manage to come up with. What those people don’t realize is that not only do we eat cheaply, but we eat VERY well for around $40 a week.

I get foodstuffs elsewhere too (as any good freegan must), but that info’s for future posts.

Buying and wisely using nearly-expired fresh and minimally processed supermarket foods will not only save your budget, but also the health of the earth and your family.