Dumpster dining
August 27th 2006 14:39
Extract from a review (I'm afraid I can't remember from where or by whom) of Peter Singer's latest book (The ethics of what we eat):
"In a book largely concerned with the horrors of modern food production, one is surprised and pleased to find an entertaining episode on the freegans of Melbourne, a group of people who live, and live well, by scavenging every single thing they eat from the bins behind supermarkets. These bins, which are refilled for them every evening, contain large amounts of perfectly edible food, thrown out before its use-by date. Their philosophy is as much a political protest as it is an ethical choice: more radical than vegans, they refuse to buy anything that they eat, especially meat, but will eat anything from a bin, even meat, since it has already been defined as waste, thereby refusing to be the paying accomplices of a consumer society that thrives on cruelty and over-production."
Just one thought on this: the freegans refuse to be paying accomplices of consumerism. But in a sense they still benefit from consumerism. So their ethical hands aren't entirely clean.
"In a book largely concerned with the horrors of modern food production, one is surprised and pleased to find an entertaining episode on the freegans of Melbourne, a group of people who live, and live well, by scavenging every single thing they eat from the bins behind supermarkets. These bins, which are refilled for them every evening, contain large amounts of perfectly edible food, thrown out before its use-by date. Their philosophy is as much a political protest as it is an ethical choice: more radical than vegans, they refuse to buy anything that they eat, especially meat, but will eat anything from a bin, even meat, since it has already been defined as waste, thereby refusing to be the paying accomplices of a consumer society that thrives on cruelty and over-production."
Just one thought on this: the freegans refuse to be paying accomplices of consumerism. But in a sense they still benefit from consumerism. So their ethical hands aren't entirely clean.
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I left this post as a comment in the guestbook of Dave Callan (of Triple J), because he's a vego, and I was curious what he'd say. His response was:
"I'm not sure everyone would find freeganism ethical. I used to see these people when I worked in a supermarket doing nightfill in Perth over a decade ago.
Lots of them looked drunk.
Some of them had no pants.
Aparently modern ones are not homeless at all but middle class academics making a statement. But what kind of statement involves fishing through used nappies for half a barbecue chicken?"
Comment by Adrian
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Vegans ban sex with meat-eaters
July 31, 2007 - 11:43AM
A group of New Zealand vegans - people who do not eat any animal products - are shunning sex with meat eaters, claiming their bodies are made up of animal carcasses, a researcher said in a newspaper today.
"When you are vegan or vegetarian, you are very aware that when people eat a meaty diet, they are kind of a graveyard for animals," vegan Nichola Kriek told the Christchurch daily The Press.
Another said: "I would not want to be intimate with someone whose body is literally made up from the bodies of others who have died for their sustenance."
Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Human and Animal Studies at Canterbury University, identified the people she called "vegansexuals" in her research study, Cruelty-Free Consumption in New Zealand: A National Report on the Perspectives and Experiences of Vegetarians and other Ethical Consumers.
DPA
Comment by Adrian
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Page 11.
Dumpster shopping
'Freegan' the new eco-eater
A new breed of ethical eaters, who scavenge for food as a reaction against a wasteful society, has emerged.
The "freegans" say their philosophy is a way of highlighting how supermarkets dump tonnes of food every year that is still edible.
They argue capitalism and mass production exploit workers, animals and the environment.
The term "freeganism" combines free and vegan.
It is evident in both Britain and the US, where the "urban foragers" are also known as "dumpster divers".
Manchester freegans Paul and Bob said it was a lifestyle choice and have a network of bins.
They have money and could buy food if they wanted, but as a protest against supermarket waste they choose to live a freegan life.
"There's so much waste it's just unbelievable," said Bob.
"While it continues I can't see my freegan lifestyle changing."
Their best-ever bin raid yielded 75 bottles of beer and 100 frozen chickens, they told the BBC.
"We found so much food we went out and bought ourselves a big deep freeze and filled it with chickens and meat."
Each item raided from a bin is washed and the packing wiped over with disinfectant.
Waste Resources Action Programme figures claim British households throw out 6.7 million tonnes of food each year.
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