Happy Freegan New Year!

I have no doubt that this post will offend or cause discomfort for some people. But, since I have few readers at this point, let’s just say: all three of you will survive. 🙂

This morning I awoke to find that Mr. Meadowhawk had been out being a night-time renegade—dumpster-diving at a couple of the local grocery stores. Really!

He says that around 3am he had a vision that if he was going to do it, the middle of the night on New Year’s Eve would be a perfect time, since the stores would be closed New Year’s Day and would probably be tossing a lot of stuff. So off he went, gloves and flashlight in hand.

Now we are not young people anymore, and there is an element of shame involved in this. What if someone saw us? What if someone calls the cops? It’s not exactly something we want our neighbors to know about. We’ve already got dodgy reputations for not mowing our lawn the way they do or getting around to painting our house properly.

But I have spent some time amongst anarchists and Earth First!ers, and I have been a member of Food Not Bombs, so I am no stranger to dumpster diving for a cause. One winter action, we served more than twenty people on a dumpster-dived menu for two weeks.

Now I’m old and mostly boring, but Mr. Meadowhawk and I have been discussing all our options for both a) keeping up with our $500 house payments and b) eating well during our coming financial/employment crisis. Yes, we’ll take extra jobs if we have to, but our goal is to keep our eyes on the prizes we’ve long sought, rather than sacrificing long hours a day just to reach a certain lifestyle.

Our household has been mostly vegan for about eight years (vegetarian since time immemorial). I say “mostly” because when Grandma Meadowhawk brings over an occasional dozen eggs from their chickens or baked goods that are not vegan, we are not the sort to refuse.

So we’ve been talking about the concept of Freeganism. Mr. Meadowhawk has not been shy about plucking perfectly good lamps or mildly dysfunctional but easily repaired electronics from the next door neighbor’s rented dumpster. I’m a fully participatory member of Freecycle. We believe that anytime you can save something useful from the landfill, you’re doing a good deed for the earth. (A small good deed, but better than nothing.) As vegans, we’re discussing the ethics of eating meat, dairy or even non-organic food that would otherwise go to waste.

For me, the ethics of eating landfill bound meat or dairy is not a problem. It’s more that I don’t want to damage my health in any way by eating stuff that’s full of hormones or pesticides or other food adulterants. Not to mention lactose intolerance and a knowledge that eating meat won’t agree with my tummy.

Now admittedly, we are rather dilettantish freegans. We’re not completely off the grid like true freegans, and we’re not to the point where we’re willing to abandon our house and go squat in some abandoned building, or otherwise uproot ourselves from where we are. Besides I’ve always looked kind of silly when I tried to dress like my inner punk.

But yeah, last night, while I slept, Mr. Meadowhawk took the plunge (literally!) and brought home a pretty big haul of meat (including a center-cut pork roast), a whole crapload of bagels and yogurt, salsa, some frozen asparagus, boxed stuffing, and an unopened box of lefse. (That last was my favorite. I love lefse!) Some of it is close to its sell-by date, so must be eaten soon. But since our temps are well below freezing now, everything is frozen solid. (Not sure how yogurt or salsa recovers from being frozen, but we’ll see.)

Does this belong in the landfill? No way!

So now we’re discussing at length what to do with our haul. Are we really going to eat all that meat? (I’ve decided I’m probably willing to eat some of the poultry, but I won’t eat pork or beef.) If we decide not to eat all of it, then we’ll probably give it to people we know who won’t be offended by the dumpster-diving aspect, or to people who will feed it to their dog-sled dogs. Another option is to take it to the woods and leave it for the wolves, if it comes to that.

I think our main concern is what to tell the children. They’re at an age where not only will this probably be profoundly embarrassing, but also distasteful. So we’ve decided not to lie (Mr. Meadowhawk being a staunch Kantian), but to simply say we got it for free. We might even say it came from lower-case-f freecycle. Because it was free and we’re recycling!

So… yes. My partner is the sort of man who can be found dumpster-diving in the middle of the night. And I am the sort of woman who welcomes him home with a big hug and a kiss, full of congratulations and praising him to the heavens for scoring a box of frozen lefse.

Tags: Dumpster-diving, ethics, free food, freegan