Freeganism

Look at all of that delicious food. All those bright colorful vegetables...all those bell peppers that cost a dollar or more in the grocery store. We got them for free. From a dumpster.

Ah yes, Freeganism, perhaps the most controversial of all the alternative food lifestyles. I'll tell you about my experience with it, and you can judge it as you like.

For about 2 months, I was a part of a regular dumpster diving group. There were about 10 of us, and we went every Thursday night at midnight. We quickly learned which stores to go to (some have indoor dumpsters, trash compactors, or locked dumpsters, so they're no good), and what our local laws about dumpster diving were. We developed regular routes, split into two groups,  and returned at about 2:00am to divide up our spoils (get it?!).

I usually wore crappy clothes and dishwasher gloves and we brought headlamps. One or two people would climb into the actual dumpster and hand things out to the others to examine and pack into the car.

Dumpsters are not as gross as you would think they are. Don't get me wrong- some were horrible. But mostly, the trash is contained in separate bags, so the dumpster itself is clean. Produce is usually in a bag with other produce, not other kinds of trash, so it's pretty clean.

There were often gallons and half gallons of milk that weren't even expired, still cold from the store coolers. They would have dents in the handles or cartons. There were bell peppers that were oddly shaped or colored, but otherwise fine. We'd take cartons of berries and pick out the moldy ones, cut bruises out of apples, soft spots out of cucumbers. We washed everything in vinegar and hot water before we ate it. No one in the group ever got sick.

Basically, that's how dumpster diving is. It can be messy, it requires some work, but as long as you use your judgement, it's a pretty good way to cut down your grocery bill.