Taking frugal living to a whole new level!

I have been sick, which means lying in bed, catching up on months of unwatched soapies in between bouts of fever gripped shivering sessions.  One of these lucid, post-panado, relatively shiver-free sessions coincided with a re-run of Oprah.

The topic of the day was “Freeganism”.

Freeganism is “an anti-consumerist lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources“, according to wikipedia.

The show went on to introduce a few members of this lifestyle and gave the viewers a peep into their homes and lives.  One of the activities I witnessed was the weekly trip the Freegans make to re-supply their pantry, rather aptly called - a trash tour.  A trash tour basically involves going to a supermarket trash dump, rummaging through the rubbish and finding food that is unspoiled and edible (sometimes past the expiry date). I know, it completely grossed me out too!

Initially I was rather shocked at the people that practiced this lifestyle. Some of them were practicing optometrists, engineers, lawyers and investment bankers.  I asked myself the same question I am sure you are asking yourself - for the love of God, WHY?!??!

I was up for one more surprise! As I continued watching the show, the group had finished their trash tour and laid out all the foods that had been salvaged.  The sheer amount of edible food that had been thrown away was staggering!  Fruits, coffee, cereal, vegetables, you name it, it was in the pile of ‘trash’.  The fruits and vegetables seem to have suffered the trashcan fate only due to slight bruising, the cereal and coffee due to an expiry date (can these really expire??).  Nuts, diapers, juices! The only thing that made me raise my eyebrows was the milk that was past the expiry date.

Surely all these foods were not good for you, I mean come on, they came from a dumpster!  But they seem to have no negative impact whatsoever on the Freegans.  The food went into their fridges, their dishes and their bellies and none of them died of food poisoning.  To be fair, the Freegans themselves admitted that there is an art to picking the food from the dumpster, you don’t just grab whatever you want and shove it into your mouth (ok, ew.), you need to pick the best and sanitize them first.

By the end of the show, I had gone from being repulsed to being introspective.  While the idea of picking food from a trashcan really grossed me out, the fact that these people were able to maintain a healthy living lifestyle from the food that was thrown away as trash made me wonder just how many hungry poor mouths we could really feed in this world.

So, the question of the day is, could you do your bit for the world by becoming a Freegan?  I know I can’t - I have an allergy towards trashcans.