throwing away food is really stupid

Sometimes when I find food in the dumpster I get really irritated. That usually happens after I get really excited.

Tonight I came upon an entire case of unblemished cauliflower – eleven heads of gleaming white goodness still in the box – thrown away in the trash at a store that shall go nameless. I was on my bike, so I could only carry eight heads in my basket. This was my first stop and already I was full… I had to pass up the potatoes, squash, cabbage, onions, garlic, mushrooms and tomatoes. I couldn’t find any good reason why the cauliflower was thrown away. A rare, but not unheard of find.

The cauliflower will make a great soup and also provide a reason to dust off the pressure canner in order to preserve most of the goodness for later eating.

The next stop was the bagel/donut chain that has the awesome policy of bagging their coffee grounds with their end-of-the-day food. Finding a good bag can take a bit of digging, but I found a great stash of bagels. I was in a hurry and didn’t notice the salt bagels until I got home. Salt bagels are the grossest thing ever made. This is weird coming from me since my favorite bagel is the Everything, which has a lot of salt on it.

I packed two grocery bags full of bagels, put one in my backpack and strapped one to the top of the cauliflower in my bike basket.

Nestled among the salt bagels were a few garlic, a few cranberry, a few Everything, a few whole grain…a sampling of all the greats. This is a taste of the daily waste in my city, enough to feed myself and several others for a week. With a couple more bikes with baskets, a small group could find enough food in a few hours to feed themselves for a month and not spend a cent on fuel.

This brings to mind another round of Waste Stream Week, or maybe we could go for Waste Stream Month. How about I get a few other bloggers to do this with me this time? Who wants in?