Comments on: Bargain Babe goes dumpster diving

By: Bargain Babe» From waste to wallet: the value of food

Bargain Babe» From waste to wallet: the value of food — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 15:45:07 +0000

[...] Americans throw away about 25% of the food we prepare. That amounts to about 96 BILLION pounds of food tossed into a dumpster (video). The food service industry (restaurants) estimate that 4-10% of the foods they prepare are wasted [...]

By: Bargain Babe » More dumpster diving videos

Bargain Babe » More dumpster diving videos — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:38:21 +0000

[...] man continues. The producers of I Love Trash sent me a link to their 1:15:45 film after watching me going dumpster diving. Their video gets good about 2 minutes and 30 seconds [...]

By: Jacki

Jacki — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 19:25:14 +0000

This was just weird.

By: Ron

Ron — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:33:13 +0000

What you are advocating is highly dangerous. Let me explain. I operated grocery stores for over 60 years. What was safe to eat, but damaged or close to its ‘do not sell’ date was marked down and sold in the store or was donated to charity. What we threw in the dumpster was often contaminated or unsafe to eat. Contaminated with what? Spills of household chemicals like bleach, soap, cleaning supplies, dirt, insects, and poisons. Unsafe to eat included foods that contained salmonella, botulism, or listeria. Salmonella and listeria can make you very sick or if you’re young or elderly kill you. Botulism will kill you even in small amounts. Yes, sometimes an employee will put something good in the dumpster and not all food there has these bacteria, but, can you tell the difference? Foods that have been recalled often go into the dumpster. When they are recalled, there is a serious safety reason. There are hundreds of recalls a year that you don’t hear about. If you wouldn’t buy it because it was recalled, why would you eat it for free? Do you have a death wish? What you are advocating is much like playing Russian Roulette. Sure, when pulling the trigger, most people will get off. Then again sometimes you are just out of luck. Is it worth it to take a chance on the safety of your loved ones or yourself?

By: Amy

Amy — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 02:18:12 +0000

Why don’t more people start groups like FoodNet (http://members.cox.net/foodnet/index.htm) and then people who really need food could pick it up for free and not have to dive in dumpsters. I use to help with this group and we would pick up unused food from various restaurants, cafeterias, and grocery stores and take it immediately to a refrigerator or freezer (if needed). I was able to take some of the food for my family and we never got sick. I wish there were more groups like this one.

By: Linda

Linda — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:27:54 +0000

Consider this: A friend of my mom and step dad does this all the time, and sells the food to friends cheap. One day I went over my mom’s just in time when he’d sold them a bunch of bottles of carrot juice…..but unbeknownst to them (and the guy who sold it to them) this carrot juice had just been RECALLED for having something wrong with it!! It had just been on the news and she didn’t know and was about to try some! HELLO………there may be a SAFETY reason why a food is thrown away!

By: Bad Credit Saint

Bad Credit Saint — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:51:46 +0000

Err…thats pretty disgusting man… There is something inherently wrong about eating something that someone has deemed not edible and thrown out…not to mention dangerous too.

This is taking the whole cheap thing too far.

By: Mac Corchado

Mac Corchado — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:31:21 +0000

Great post, I bet a lot of work and research went into this article.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:37:32 +0000

Saw a woman on WE’s Secret Lives of Women who does this. Inspired to do it myself, but my husband would kill me if I did. Such a shame that we have people going hungry in our country and food just being wasted by the ton!

By: Dee

Dee — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:17:16 +0000

Wow – what an eye opener. I think Allison and I would be great friends. It’s hard to believe all that nutritious food is being thrown out. Half of it looked like it should still be on the shelves!

By: JUNIE

JUNIE — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:42:49 +0000

BargainBabe,
Great story about the food industry.

By: JUNIE

JUNIE — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:40:43 +0000

I volunteered in a grammar school lunch time science room and was shocked by the perfectly prepared lunches that were thrown out. Yes, we did pick through them… Felt bad for the moms working so hard to make a delicous lunch for their kids…

By: Ellen Sefert

Ellen Sefert — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 01:26:30 +0000

We raised 5 pigs and dumpster “dived” all the time to supplement their feed. It was INCREDIBLE the perfectly good produce that was thrown out. It’s not the most pleasant experience, but if it’s a dumpster behind a grocery store, it’s a pretty safe bet there won’t be anything dangerous (like needles). Needless to say, we always wore gloves.

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:43:23 +0000

This does not thrill me. Who knows what germs could be lurking or how long the food has been there? To each his own.

By: DEBBIE

DEBBIE — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:35:28 +0000

I use to work for McDonalds and if a burger sat for more than 5 minutes they had to throw it in the dumpster. They were not even allowed to giv it to any homeless people. They said they could be sued if they got sick… What a waste !! We threw 20-30 away at times