Life in the Slow Lane

Merry Christmas Greetings!

Please scroll down and turn off the music player at the bottom of the blog before viewing the video.

Posted in: Christmas on Monday, December 14, 2009 at at 3:21 PM 1 comments Links to this post

After our first experience with dumpster diving yesterday, we feel like our lives are changed forever. First of all, it was keeping David from sleeping last night. He was blown away by how much good food was in the trash and wondering why can't the food get distributed to the needy. It is a hard reality to face. To realize that the dark, underbelly of this creature that we call abundance is an incredible amount of waste - it's a painful pill to swallow.

Obviously, we aren't going to be able to correct the system. But, we can do our small little part - like forming our Dumpster Diving group. A small band of us working together can help take some of the waste and let it do what it was created to do - feed and nourish a human being. I am looking forward to our first meeting this Friday night. And after some more diving on our way across town to go to church, we have some awesome stuff to share with them! See this little beauty? This is an organic Simply Coffee iced coffee which retails for $1.99.

Pacific Foods, Simply Iced Coffee, Latte, Organic, 16.9oz

See this... this is a box which had 44 of these in 3 flavors (latte, mocha, and vanilla) which we found in a dumpster this morning. They had a sell by date of 12/11, so they went in the trash on 12/12 and we rescued them on 12/13. I'm not a coffee gal, but hubby had two of these today and attests that they are delicious!

We also got ourselves some more food:

4 poundcakes (which will make a nice snack to go with the iced coffees for our first dumpster diving meeting on Friday)

1 bag of Nestle white chocolate holiday swirl chips (Christmas cookies are in our future!)

4 tomatoes

2 cucumbers

1 onion

a dozen bagels (yeah, you must hit up a bagel shop dumpster early in the morning and get yesterdays bagels! You will be astounded at how many bags of bagels are in there!)

7 yogurts (sell by date 12/12)

5 bags of slaw mix (sell by date 12/12)

1 small poinsettia

1 large container cottage cheese. This one was messy on the outside, but completely sealed and sell by 12/27 date so we took it. My theory is something was spilled/broken near it/on it and the cottage cheese got tossed rather than cleaned. We are lucky that it is so cold so that we can take the dairy items. During the summer, those would just be too risky.

Now, if you are paying attention you will notice that one pound cake is not in it's box, and instead there are doughnuts in the box. Funny story on that one!

As we made our way across town to church, we came across a Krispy Kreme. Hubby says, "Oh, man! I want some doughnuts!" He turns in and heads to the back parking lot by the dumpster. I totally was laughing 'cause out he comes with one doughnut in his mouth and his hands full - one for all of us. He passed them out to me and the girls and said, "Man! You wouldn't believe how many bags of doughnuts are in there!" So I say, "Well, then, go get some more!"

Okay, now I have to tell you, I was imagining those nice little white bags like you fill yourself at the grocery store, that maybe hold a dozen doughnuts. Nope. Think GIANT, HUMONGO, EXTRA LARGE, clear trash bag - that is what hubby comes out with. Probably 100 doughnuts. I kid you not. 100, delicious, soft, melt in your mouth Krispy Kremes. I just tried not to think about the fact that there is really nothing healthy in any stretch of the imagination about eating a Krispy Kreme. Maybe, good for mental health?? :)

We ended up having another doughnut each after church and then wanted to drop them (and the large garbage sack full of bagels we had picked up) at the Hope Cafe. But we had never been there and the directions we were given was that it was at 6th and University. Close, but it's actually a block and a half north of University, so we didn't find it. We ended up just saving a dozen bagels and 4 doughnuts and the rest were redeposited in another dumpster.

A great day of eating and no money exchanged hands - gotta love it!

Posted in: dumpster diving, Slow Lane on Sunday, December 13, 2009 at at 8:21 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Dumpster Diving Dad

After seeing the Dive video I became convinced that this was the next course of action for us in our home. Making the change to a flexitarian diet can be difficult when you are struggling with grocery money as we are. Produce is some of the most expensive food to buy given how much we would want to eat of it. (my kids decimate fruit in record speed)

If you read up on the web, there are staggering statistics of the amount of edible food that gets trashed and hauled off to our landfills. It is estimated that 40-50% of our food ends up in the landfill. You might wonder, how come perfectly good food is being tossed?

Many and varied reasons.
Packaged food gets dented, banged up, hole in it, etc. Into the trash it goes. Perhaps it has reached it's sell by date. Sometimes a new shipment comes in and what is still on the shelf goes in the trash.

With produce, if you have a bag and there is one bad one in the bag, into the trash for the whole bag. If something is blemished, oddly shaped, discolored - it's gone. We are a picky and finicky crowd here in our abundance and we want perfect produce. (or as close to it as possible)

So after lots of reading and watching tons of You Tube videos I talked to hubby about diving for food. His initial reaction was, "Alright! I'm in! I'll do it!"

David actually got off work at a decent hour tonight so I asked if he would hit up a store on the way home. He wasn't as thrilled about it when it came right down to the actual act. But he agreed to give it a shot. He was talking to me on the phone when he arrived at an Aldi's and said he would call me back when he was done.

Well, he called back really quickly so I thought it must have been a bust. Maybe an employee had come out of the store or maybe there wasn't anything in the dumpster. (I had tried going to a store this past Monday, and the bin had been emptied that day) But to my surprise he started telling me excitedly about all the great stuff he got and how he didn't even really begin to make a dent in the amount of food in the dumpster. He just took the stuff "on top" rather than digging through the mounds of food.

"I'm going to another store! I'll call you later." he said and hung up.

He admitted to me after getting home and helping me sort through the haul that if there hadn't been anything in that first dumpster, he would have never gone again. Good thing it was full! :)

Anyway, it is unbelievable the amount of food we got, and even more sad, how much more that is destined for the landfill.

Anyway, here are some pics of our first haul. Mmmmmm, bread!

Look at those yummy mushrooms!

Egg anyone? (I know, I know - hubby is easing his way into flexitarianism!)

Either too much food or too small table...

Num, num, num!

Here is the inventory:

6 loaves 100% whole wheat bread (our fav!)

1 loaf oat bran bread

1 bag of flour, 5lb (hole in bag - thus, tossed)

2 steaks (these are for the dog)

2 heads lettuce (we took off the slighly browned outer leaves and they are fine)

2 heads cauliflower

2 bags apples, 3 lb.'s each

10 loose apples

2 lemons

7 mangoes

3 bags onions

2 bags potatoes

3 cartons Bella mushrooms

1 pkg. sweet peppers (red one was past its prime, but orange and green are fine)

3 crowns of broccoli (we think they were tossed b/c the wrapping was torn)

3 bags oranges (each had one bad orange in the bag)

2 bags tangelos (same issue as the oranges)

1 cantaloupe (not pretty - we'll see if it's good when we cut it open)

1 jello snack

4 kids drinks

1 dozen eggs (3 cracked - dog will get these)

2 pink grapefruit (also not pretty - David cut one open - beautiful and delicious!)

I wouldn't even know how to put a price tag on all that! Anyone got any guesses what the dollar value is on what we just pulled out of the trash?

Just this week I set up a MeetUp group called DSM Dumpster Divers to get others in the area who are interested in diving for food to coordinate our efforts. Since you never know what you are going to find, we can set up a regular meetup where we can each dive our local stores, then come together and share within the group. This way we can best assure a varied diet for all our divers. The excess can then be taken to the Iowa Food Bank which is a member of Feeding America. They serve as a storehouse to distribute to the various organizations around the state that get food to the needy.

Well, for any of you that aren't sitting there cringing and going "Ick!" here are a few tips for delving into the world of dumpster diving.

Smaller stores are more likely to have easily accessed dumpsters. The larger stores often lock them up with gates or have huge trash compactors to destroy the food.
Check your local laws. Some states have made it illegal to dumpster dive. Most states it is still legal as long as it isn't locked up.
Don't make a mess! Keep it clean so the store doesn't have a reason to lock it up.
Do some drive by's when you are out and see what stores have easily accessed dumpsters.
It doesn't hurt to ask. Some people have reported that asking managers for food destined for the trash nets them all they could want without having to dive at all. Often they will ask for the food to give to their farm animals. (so there is no concern on the stores part of liability issues, but truly, what isn't fit for human consumption, can be fed to the chickens, goats, or pigs)
Last but not least, if you are lucky enough to live near a Trader Joe's, these are a highly coveted dive spot yielding a wide variety of great food.

Okay, I'm done for now. I'm gonna go get me an orange or two!