Around 35 MILLION TONS of food waste was generated in the US in 2010, and 97% ended up in landfills or incinerators. This is a statistic taken from the EPA. A whole LOT of that food could have ended up in the mouths of hungry people.
When I moved from Texas to California about 4 years ago, I found a really awesome girl to stay with through a website called couchsurfing.com. If you’re a traveler and have not heard of couchsurfing, look into it! She exposed me to dumpster diving for the first time and took me to Trader Joes in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I couldn’t believe the AMAZING FOOD they just throw away like garbage!! They throw away a dozen eggs if one is cracked! WHAT?! We must have gotten 12 dozen eggs! There were cheeses, sprouted grain bread, papayas (better with age), peppers……
washing up veggies
Now I live in Branson, Missouri where there are only a few grocery stores and they all have trash compactors. I still find a way to get free produce though! Once or twice a month we (Carlos and I) drive our butts up to Springfield to shop at the farmers market. We also stop by a health food grocer to purchase the items that we couldn’t get at the farmers market, and we pick up their “compost” for our community garden! They take their aging produce and donate it to local farms to be turned into compost, but much of it is still perfectly edible! So I take it home, wash the good stuff, then take all the rest to the garden.
headed for the compost pile
There have been times when I have gone dumpster diving and brought home a BUSHEL of organic apples! We made apple juice, apple sauce, baked apples, and added them to salads. We once picked up compost and brought home 10 mangos, 8 bunches of asparagus, and 40 oranges! Other times we only get a little edible goodness.. but it’s totally worth it! To divert healthy, organic food waste from landfills is incredibly rewarding!
cabbage, celery, sweet potatoes, apple, orange, banana
How YOU can get FREE FOOD!
- check local dumpsters
- talk to store managers to see if they would be interested in starting a composting, or better yet a FOOD BANK program
- talk to local farms at the end of the market to see if they offer donations
Many stores are scared of liability issues due to donating food waste, but there are some stores that have already started doing it and they are blazing the trail for more! The “good samaritan law” should protect grocery stores from any liability after they have donated the food. To see whether a vegetable is actually bad or not is just common sense.
There is a really cool movie about dumpster diving on netflix that I highly recommend! It’s called DIVE!
This post was featured on Food Renegade’s Fight Back Friday
Re-Grow Roots 
January 18, 2013 at 10:36 am
I saw that documentary and it was so mind-boggling. Thanks for your wonderful blog. I will be learning a lot.
January 18, 2013 at 10:43 am
It is truly disgraceful how much food is wasted on a daily basis all over this country! I have seen it firsthand time and time again… but the good news is that many people want to help! Many businesses are opening their hearts and donating that food to hungry people, or at least letting it be used as compost! It never hurts to ask a local grocery store what they do with their expired and damaged food. They may be open to change!
January 19, 2013 at 1:29 am
I think you need chickens to help you turn some of the compost into eggs!
January 19, 2013 at 9:09 am
It would be perfect and so fun to have some chickens!! If only I had the space… I live in an apartment where I have a beautiful veggie garden growing, but this building has a no-pet policy! 😦 No chickens allowed… We also have a wonderful community garden at our friend Jo Anna’s house that definitely has enough space for chickens, however, we don’t get over there often enough to care for hen friends. It’s on my big dreamy list of goals for 2013 though! Chickens, chickens!!
September 18, 2013 at 12:25 am
I drop a comment each time I especially enjoy a article on a website or I have something to add to the discussion. Usually it’s triggered by the sincerness displayed in the article I browsed. And after this post Food Waste!!! Dumpster dive… | Re-Grow Roots. I was actually excited enough to post a commenta response 😉 I do have a few questions for you if you tend not to mind. Could it be just me or do some of the comments look as if they are written by brain dead visitors? 😛 And, if you are posting at additional places, I would like to keep up with you. Would you list the complete urls of your communal pages like your linkedin profile, Facebook page or twitter feed?
September 18, 2013 at 10:23 am
I have to say that my blog visitors are definitely not brain dead. Not sure what you are talking about.. Thank you for stopping by for a read. You can find me on facebook as Dez Dino and on twitter as ReGrowRoots.
May 27, 2015 at 11:09 am
Hello, after reading this awesome post i am too happy to share my knowledge here with mates.
September 15, 2015 at 8:40 am
Hire legions of powerful Heroes and lead an army
of mythical creatures, big and small.