Instead of Potatoes

One question we had to ask ourselves the other night: do we think we’re too good to eat Stovetop Stuffing? Not if it’s freegan.

Eating healthily is important to us. We have built an organic life, with much of our produce coming from a very large family garden. But with times getting tougher, and an anticipated severe restriction in our collective income, we’ve been experimenting with ways to cut our food budget without falling completely off the deep end. Which we may have done, with our recent dip back into Freeganism.

The problem with eating freegan, of course, is not so much the deviation from a vegan diet—since we’re not buying or supporting factory farmed meat or participating in encouraging animal death, our diet might fall within the ethical parameters of veganism if not the dietary. It’s more a question of chemicals. I’m not worried about the ethics or aesthetics of dumpster diving. I’m worried about the crap that I might be inviting into my body when I eat something non-organic. Or, worse, some overly processed crap that some company has stuffed into a box and called “food.”

Mr. Meadowhawk saved three boxes of Stovetop stuffing from the dumpster on New Year’s Eve. So after much grimacing and gnashing of teeth … or a few read-aloud performances of the ingredients list and a mutually agreed upon assessment that this was a dietically terribly thing to do to ourselves… we’ve decided to eat them. I mean, we could give them away. But Mr. Meadowhawk is uncomfortable with sharing the fact of our freegan foray proudly, as I might otherwise. Giving someone food without telling them it came from a dumpster is unethical. And since we don’t want to be a topic of either admiring or critical gossip on this matter at the moment, we’d prefer to eat it. It’s easier than going on food stamps.

So let’s look at what we’ll be ingesting:

Calories 160
Sodium 430mg
Ingredients: enriched wheat flour, high fructose corn syrup, dried onions, salt, partially hydrogenated soybean and/or cottonseed oil, hydrolyzed soy protein, yeast, cooked chicken and chicken broth, maltodextrin, dried celery, monosodium glutamate, dried parsley, spice (?), sugar, caramel color, turmeric, disodium guanylate, disodium inosinate with BHA, BHT, citric acid and propyl gallate as preservatives.

I’m supposed to know that MSG and preservatives and high fructose corn syrup and partially hydrogenated oils aren’t good for me. But since I don’t really know why, I guess I’d better look it up.

…

MSG: made from fermented sugar sources, a flavor enhancer that might give people migraines or might cause breathing problems in some people. Okay real food does not need “flavor enhancing” with something that looks like this and isn’t salt:

MSG

High Fructose Corn Syrup: makes you fat because your body doesn’t process it like real food.

Partially Hydrogenated Oil: Trans Fat !!! Same as above.

Caramel Coloring: supposedly toxic (no proof to that scientifically); might contain GMO corn.

But we’ve committed ourselves to eating what we’ve rescued, secretly, on an evening when no children must be fed. Is it food or isn’t it? Do we really think we’re so high and mighty that we won’t eat the same food that America eats all the time?

On the back of the box there is a recipe for “Easy Chicken Bake”. It calls for chicken, the box of stuffing, “spread”, sour cream, a can of cream of chicken soup (condensed), and a bag of frozen mixed vegetables.

Here’s what I did instead:
1 can of mock duck, drained and cut into pieces
(Received on Freecycle, but it’s from Taiwan and so we hope it isn’t full of some environmental pollutant.)
some tofu “sour cream”
(a Sarah Kramer recipe)
some firm tofu, soy milk and faux chicken broth, blended together
the box of Stovetop stuffing (freegan recovery)
4 T butter (freegan recovery)
a carrot, chopped (from the organic garden)
a stalk of celery, chopped
a hunk of turnip, chopped
some leftover swiss chard, chopped
five mushrooms, chopped
(all organic, bought at the local co-op.)

Hopefully, all the healthy stuff outbalanced the stuff that seems chemically problematic. Honestly, it was tasty, if in fact it was poison. I didn’t get a headache or otherwise feel poorly. Neither did Mr. Meadowhawk. But we aren’t happy about ingesting stuff so full of carbs and stuff that Kraft has decided people should eat.

So I wallow in this conundrum, which I’m sure most readers would find tedious and overly hippiefied, if not elitist and ridiculous. Is food that is more like “food” with quotation marks around it better left in the dumpster? We’re rescuing stuff that already counts as a hideous waste of energy (packaging, processing) and even a crime against nature. But does that mean we have to willingly take the chemicals infused into it into our own bodies to metabolize it? If we are not willing to eat it ourselves, why would we inflict it on a person less fortunate than we are? Are homeless people or food shelf visitors less deserving of good food than the rest of us?

Two more boxes to go.

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.