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.
Happiness 