SECRET FREEGAN: Rescuing Food to Feed Homeless

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HOW TO GET FREE FOOD

I've gathered over $52,000 worth of food and other stuff during the last 20 months. I've discovered that most grocery stores throw out $600 worth or more of fresh food every day. They will not donate the food to the hungry because of "liability concerns" and tax issues. I've cut my family's monthly grocery bill by $300 and given the rest to feed the homeless and needy. I love following your heart, kindness, and empowering others. I call myself a Secret Freegan. My hope is that our country will learn to distribute their leftover food to the homeless so everyone is nurtured. I'm doing a little by gathering and distributing about 400 lbs. of food weekly. Thanks for visiting my blog!

Dumpster Diving Video 

Freegan feeds the needy

Reporter Liz Lastra of Cronkite Newswatch follows Ginger Freebird, the "Secret Freegan" on a day of gathering free food for the needy in Phoenix, Arizona. Secret Freegan.com

Dinner in a dumpster.

Cronkite News reporter Liz Lastra finds out how some people are using discarded items to save money.

Runtime: 110
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Rescuing Food to Donate to Homeless Shelters 

One bin, $2,000 worth of food

"Secret Freegan" goes on daily hunts for fresh food to donate to homeless shelters. Here's some of her finds on Thanksgiving Day: 150 bananas, over 300 bread loaves, 100 salads, and more...
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Rescued Food ready for Homeless Shelter 

$2,000 worth of food brought home, sorted, displayed under Xmas tree/Hanukkah bush, just before taking to homeless shelter Thanksgiving 2008.

Food Rescued for Homeless Shelters

$800 per day is dumped by every average American grocery store. On this Thanksgiving Day of 2008, $2,000 worth of cold, fresh food was found in one dumpster alone, and arranged under Xmas tree for photo capture before distributing to homeless shelters. Approximately 50 bananas, 2 pineapples, 50 salads, 50 sandwiches, 150 loaves of bread, and 10 desserts were gathered. $45,000 worth of good food has been donated to Phoenix shelters and needy families since March of 2008. The homeless people themselves do not have the transportation to get to the suburbs where the food is, or a large vehicle to take it all back to the shelters for distribution, so that's where I come in. Only about 5% of American grocery stores have unlocked bins. By gathering food from these 5% quietly and neatly, never leaving a mess such as the trash you don't want laid outside the bin, hopefully these stores will not lock their bins. When the managers were asked if they would like my charitable organization to pick up their extra food and take to domestic violence shelters, they stated they were already donating it, they needed no more help, or cited liability concerns. The Good Samaritan Food Act of 1986 protects all people and corporations from criminal or civil liability if someone claims to get sick from donated excess food. Also, I am encouraging lawmakers to pass laws that would give the stores more of a tax advantage by donating their food then dumping it. Right now the accountants seem to think it's an advantage for them to destroy rather than donate their fresh food. P.S. Please don't try leaning over a bin--it can easily bruise or crack a rib! And watch for broken glass and wood with nails poking out!

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Hundreds of loaves, salads, entrees 1 bin 1 day--this shows half of it!

Every Day inside an American Bin 

How I've Donated over $40,000 Worth of Good Food to the Homeless 

Teen Shelter's Grocery Bill Slashed from $500 to $50/Week

Every week a teen runaway shelter picks up 200 lbs. of food from me. They have even donated a second fridge for my garage so I can store more food for them safely.

Every day I check certain bins for fresh bags and boxes of food. It is like someone has emptied an enormous refrigerator and freezer, put the items in clean bags and boxes, and placed them outside for a few minutes for me to find. Here's a photo of a bin full of over 100 loaves of today's bread.
The bins are picked up by dump trucks every single day. There is no old food. I have never seen one insect in 8 months.
The average store throws out $500-$800 worth of fresh food every day: 100 loaves bread, 10 cakes and pies, 100 donuts, 50 bagels, 100 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables: lettuce, celery, radishes, peaches, nectarines, grapes, artichokes, asparagus, oranges, lemons, peppers, tomatoes, kiwis, mushrooms, parsley, onions,and potatoes, etc.

Every Day Inside Bins Across America 

Massive Food Waste

Cantaloupes, organic bananas, fruit platters, tomatoes, potatoes, dozens of donuts, mangoes,eggplants, plantains

PODCAST: MY AUDIO INTERVIEW ABOUT FOOD RESCUE IS HERE! 

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE PODCAST INTERVIEW
Phone interview on November 3, 2008 with "Secret Freegan" and Tiffany of Naturemoms.com Blog

How a Homeless Teen Got Rollerblades 

Now he can cruise to work instead of live on drugs

1. Teen is living on street
2. Teen is approached by shelter outreach workers with delicious food
3. Teen then wants to go to shelter
4. Teen gets help and finds a job
5. Budget of shelter is freed up from buying food
6. Shelter buys him new roller blades to get to work

Teen Shelter Van Filled with Food

126 Bags of Chips the Runaway Teens Loved!

Picnic for 40

$72 Million Worth of Good Food Dumped

That's approximately how much is wasted yearly in my city alone--even though the stores give to food banks. They toss out packages of vegetables & fruits when even one item is showing signs of age, or they're all good, they just have newer produce and no shelf room. They will not give it to me outright because of "liability" issues though the Federal Good Samaritan Food Act protects them.
So I discreetly drive by the bins and load boxes of food into my car at times few people are around.

Food Safety 

Be careful!

The safest foods to rescue are fresh fruits and vegetables. You can see if they're fresh or not. Since they come from the ground,they need to be washed no matter where you buy/find them. I suggest washing them with a solution of 1 tsp. blue-capped type bleach of a big bowl of water, OR add 1 tsp.baking soda OR 1 Tbsp. white vinegar OR a commercial vegetable washing liquid found in a health food store.

Frozen or refrigerated meals must be very cold. Don't take them if they're warm. (Winter is good for binning.) Any cooked meats taken must be refrigerated as soon as possible, and heated to 165 degrees core temperature before eating.

Bin contents--100 Bread & Bakery Items

Organic Eating

I love eating organic food! I have found that much of the produce thrown out by stores is organic, because they may have a few spots on them, or spoil quicker than those grown with pesticides. I haven't had to buy any organic greens for months (the main staple of my diet) as I find chard, spinach, collards, lettuce, spices, etc. every week, not to mention lots of organic bananas for smoothies. Found 2 boxes with 25 bunches of asparagus yesterday.

Rescued Food 

Organic bananas, tomatoes, potatoes, turnips, cantaloupes, donuts, lilies, wheat grass, avocados, limes, pears, nectarines, smoothie made from fresh fruits

Saved Strawberries

Boxes ready to be sorted

What do you think of helping the hungry with rescued food? 

and I wonder, Have you ever looked in a bin yourself?

Thank you for sharing comments and experiences about urban harvesting.

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  • Reply
    Alaina Alaina Jun 5, 2009 @ 11:14 am
    Hi,
    I'm a New Yorker seeking to join an organization that does this (or start a grassroots movement of my own). Is there anyone who can lead me in the right direction? I don't know where to start. Please email me at acuglietto@gmail.com

    Thanks!
  • Reply
    Quirina Quirina May 10, 2009 @ 6:59 am
    Kudos, you are doing a great job!
    You might be interested to know that similar projects started in Germany in the mid-90's. In Berlin, a non-profit organization was founded that collects leftovers from stores, restaurants, canteens and other sources. But in contrast to you, they do not collect it secretly from the garbage, but have those companies as official partners/donors. It works well, has become big and spread to many cities in Germany. The original organization is called 'Berliner Tafel' (Tafel being a word for a dining table). If you might like to visit their website: http://www.berliner-tafel.de/en/index2.php
  • Reply
    Janet Janet Mar 31, 2009 @ 10:36 pm
    I've been doing what you're doing (although not as much volume) since last year. What you're doing is a blessing to so many people. I find so much food it's insane what grocery stores throw away. My food finds have helped me and many people in my neighborhood who are hurting. It's a shame what stores throw away. It really is. But you can't save the world. But I'm doing my part one bin at a time to help others.
  • Reply
    Demaw Demaw Mar 17, 2009 @ 4:36 am
    I am very impressed by your service to your community. This lens gave me food for thought. 5*
  • Reply
    mysterygirl mysterygirl Feb 26, 2009 @ 10:36 pm
    I just rescued my first batch of goodies yesterday with my partner in crime (as going behind some of the stores is a little creepy and its nice to have a driver and a diver for quick gettaway;). just took two boxes but they were just sitting there with labels dated to expire that same day! left some of it for other people who might need it, some people we know who are fellow freegans. everything totaled about 150 dollars including some very nice expensive fontina cheese that was just divine.

    Looking forward to donating to charity since there is such an abundance! Hooray for food liberation!
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Rescued Roses

A Typical Day at the Bin 

Here's a small portion of what I typically find in a day. I'm very thankful for all of it, and usually can feed about 25 other people with it. I sort and box it neater before taking to a shelter. I make sure it's a shelter that doesn't require packaged, dated food as a few do. I don't drive around and let the food go bad. I immediately take it home, process it by sorting, bagging, putting in fridge or I take it immediately to a shelter. Food safety is important!

More Rescued Food 

Green Living Links 

Places with Good Tips for Going Green

Wasted Food
Details about food waste in the US at Jonathan Bloom's blog and gallery.
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Helpful UK blog about going green, helping the world

From the Bin 

Bagels, bread, potatoes, tortillas, bananas, apples, nectarines, plums, mangoes, lettuce

Sweet Strawberries 

40 packages saved

Recycle at Earth911.org 

Please do NOT leave your electronics and furniture in and beside bins, America!
Take to a charity thrift store or find out where to recycle at earth911.org.

Here's what I get in a day. 

Abundance

Trash Pickers Help Green Crusade 

Freegan by Necessity not Choice

Trash Pickers Save the World

March 25, 2008 McClatchy Newspapers
Buenos Aires, Argentina--
"As the world scrambles to save dwindling resources and halt global warming, a long-scorned population is becoming the latest hope in the environmental battle.

The unsung heroes are impoverished trash pickers who fill the streets of cities around the developing world, searching garbage for cardboard, plastic bags and other treasure that can be sold and recycled.

They rescue hundreds of thousands of tons of material from streets and trash dumps that get reprocessed into all kinds of products. That not only cuts back on the resources used by industries but also lightens the load on dumps that are quickly reaching capacity.

Despite their contributions, trash pickers have long suffered harassment from local governments and derision from neighbors, who often consider them vagrants or even criminals. Such attitudes, however, are changing, trash pickers said, and they're increasingly being seen as foot soldiers in the global-warming battle."

Lovely Lillies

An Afternoon's Pickings

Another afternoon of Fresh Produce

Free Lunch

Sweets to Eat

"Buy My Tell-All E-Book to Learn All My Secrets! $22
What tools to use,Stay unnoticed,Donate...More"

Overflowing with fresh veggies and fruit 

Food activism in progress

I gather the produce, sort, and refrigerate for one day if I can't get it to the shelter the same day.

Bins Bursting with $500 worth of produce 

Like a multi-fruit tree

I pick up the boxes and lay them in my car, careful to leave things as neat as I found them. Have my car lined with plastic sheeting so I don't drip on the seats too much. Got a whole car full, shared with shelter and some needy families.

30 Pounds of Grapes and Strawberries 

Sweet and delicious

Organic Produce 

New Orbitz! 

powered by Orbitz

Plants and Flowers 

Rescued and Restored

Lots dumped after Mother's Day

Ice Cream Galore unceremoniously dumped in bin 

Discarded, then Discovered while still frozen

Another treat for the teens

Hundreds of Health Bars

Go Green!

Wise Words from Scavenger and Writer Lars Eighner 

Life's Lessons Found Deep in Thrown Away Stuff

On Dumpster Diving

Lars Eighner

From http://www1.broward.edu/~nplakcy/docs/dumpster_diving.htm

A freelance writer living in Austin, Lars Eighner (b. 1948) was born in Corpus Christi, Texas and attended the University of Texas from 1966 to 1969. He was an attendant ward worker at the Austin State Hospital from 1980 to 1987 and worked off and on for a drug crisis program and as a freelance writer.
Lars Eighner and his dog Wilma
Eighner lived on the streets for several years, and his homeless experiences are recalled in Travels with Lizbeth (1993), which became a best seller and from which "Dumpster Diving" is excerpted. "Dumpster Diving" was first anthologized in The Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses in 1992.

I find from the experience of scavenging two rather deep lessons. The first is to take what you can use and let the rest go by. I have come to think that there is no value in the abstract. A thing I cannot use or make useful, perhaps by trading, has no value however rare or fine it may be. I mean useful in a broad sense--some art I would find useful and some otherwise.

I was shocked to realize that some things are not worth acquiring, but now I think it is so. Some material things are white elephants that eat up the possessor's substance. The second lesson is the transience of material being. This has not quite converted me to a dualist, but it has made some headway in that direction. I do not suppose that ideas are immortal, but certainly mental things are longer lived than other material things.

Once I was the sort of person who invests objects with sentimental value. Now I no longer have those objects, but I have the sentiments yet.

Many times in our travels I have lost everything but the clothes I was wearing and Lizbeth. The things I find in Dumpsters, the love letters and rag dolls of so many lives, remind me of this lesson. Now I hardly pick up a thing without envisioning the time I will cast it aside. This I think is a healthy state of mind. Almost everything I have now has already been cast out at least once, proving that what I own is valueless to someone.

Anyway, I find my desire to grab for the gaudy bauble has been largely sated. I think this is an attitude I share with the very wealthy--we both know there is plenty more where what we have came from. Between us are the rat-race millions who nightly scavenge the cable channels looking for they know not what.

I am sorry for them.

More about Lars Eighner

A Freegan Dumpster Diving Blog 

A guy in Denmark shares his Freegan Secrets

Thoughts from another good-hearted "freegan" from http://www.emoware.org/dumpster-diving/
The blog has video links and lots of details about European Dumpster diving.

The author says:

The term "freegan" does imply choice, but her knowledge of freegans seems limited to the unsurprisingly narrowminded media attention they've recieved. this is probably where the second asumption comes from, that freegans are unambitious, lazy, and don't contribute to society. presuming so reduces everyone down to nothing but consumers. many freegans do have jobs, and many also contribute to society in ways that can't be measured by economics, and in ways that benefit the whole of humanity, not just the top 5%. what they definitely don't do is hurt the bottom 80%. dumpster divers are not "bums/freeloaders/losers", they're not living off others in a way that deprives anyone of anything (apart from maybe each other, if they get too greedy). they simply live off the waste, the stuff that someone else has decided they don't wont and rather than passing it on to someone in need (as 'food not bombs' does) has attempted to selfishly destroy it. dumpster divers cause no harm, we just take advantage (something all good capitalists should understand). we reduce waste that would otherwise go to landfill and help feed a few hungry mouths.

Food Given to Charity

The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Act 

Benefits for Donating Extra Food

The Good Samaritan Food Donation Act was signed into existence in 1996. It encourages donation of food and grocery products to non-profit organizations for distribution to needy individuals.

Here's how this law makes it easier for you to donate:

* It protects you from civil and criminal liability should the product donated in good faith later cause harm to the needy recipient.

* It standardizes donor liability exposure. You and your legal counsel no longer have to investigate liability laws in 50 states.

* It sets a liability floor of "gross negligence" or intentional misconduct for persons who donate, defined as "voluntary and conscious conduct by a person with knowledge (at the time of conduct) that the conduct is likely to be harmful to the health or well-being of another person."

* Congress recognized that the provision of food being close to the date of recommended retail sale is, in and of itself, not grounds for finding gross negligence.

Here is the full text of the federal law which protects grocery stores and all who donate food to the needy. I have highlighted important areas toward the end:
Text of Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act

PUBLIC LAW 104-210

An Act

To encourage the donation of food and grocery products to nonprofit organizations for distribution to needy individuals by giving the Model Good Samaritan Food Donation Act the full force and effect of law.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

conduct was likely to be harmful to the health or well-being

of another person.'';

(D) by striking subsection (c) and inserting the following:

(c) Liability for Damages From Donated Food and Grocery Products.--

(1) Liability of person or gleaner.--A person or gleaner

shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability arising

from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of apparently

wholesome food or an apparently fit grocery product that

the person or gleaner donates in good faith to a

non-profit organization for ultimate distribution to needy

individuals.

(2) Liability of non-profit organization.--A non-profit

organization shall not be subject to civil or criminal

liability arising from the nature, age, packaging, or

condition of apparently wholesome food or an apparently

fit grocery product that the non-profit organization

received as a donation in good faith from a person or

gleaner for ultimate distribution to needy individuals.

Good Samaritan Food Act: The Main Text 

NO LIABILITY for donating APPARENTLY FIT FOOD

SEC. 402. MODEL GOOD SAMARITAN FOOD DONATION ACT.

(a) SHORT TITLE. -This section may be cited as the "Good Samaritan Food Donation Act".

(b) DEFINITIONS. -As used in this section:
(1) APPARENTLY FIT GROCERY PRODUCT.-The term "apparently fit grocery product" means a grocery product that meets a quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State, and local laws and regulations even though the product may not be readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus, or other conditions.
(2) APPARENTLY WHOLESOME FOOD. -The term "apparently wholesome food" means food that meets all quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State, and local laws and regulations even though the food may not be readily marketable due to appearance, age, freshness, grade, size, surplus, or other conditions.
(3) DONATE.-The term "donate" means to give without requiring anything of monetary value from the recipient, except that the term shall include giving by a nonprofit organization to another nonprofit organization, notwithstanding that the donor organization has charged a nominal fee to the donee organization, if the ultimate recipient or user is not required anything of monetary value.
(4) FOOD.-The term "food" means any raw, cooked, processed, or prepared edible substance, ice, beverage, or ingredient used or intended for use in whole or in part for human consumption.
(5) GLEANER. -The term "gleaner" means a person who harvests for free distribution to the needy, or for donation to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to the needy, an agricultural crop that has been donated by the owner.
(6) GROCERY PRODUCT. -The term "grocery product" means a nonfood grocery product, including a disposable paper or plastic product, household cleaning product, laundry detergent, cleaning product, or miscellaneous household item.
(7) GROSS NEGLIGENCE.-The term "gross negligence" means voluntary and conscious conduct by a person with knowledge (at the time of the conduct) that the conduct is likely to be harmful to the health or well-being of another person.
(8) INTENTIONAL MISCONDUCT.-The term "intentional misconduct" means conduct by a person with knowledge (at the time of the conduct) that the conduct is harmful to the health or well-being of another person.
(9) NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION.-The term "nonprofit organization" means an incorporated or unincorporated entity that --
(A) is operating for religious, charitable, or educational purposes; and
(B) does not provide net earnings to, or operate in any other manner that inures to the benefit of, any officer, employee, or shareholder of the entity.
(10) PERSON.-The term "person" means an individual, corporation, partnership, organization, association, or governmental entity, including a retail grocer, wholesaler, hotel, motel, manufacturer, restaurant, caterer, farmer, and nonprofit food distributor or hospital. In the case of a corporation, partnership, organization, association, or governmental entity, the term includes an officer, director, partner, deacon, trustee, council member, or other elected or appointed individual responsible for the governance of the entity.

(c)LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES FROM DONATED FOOD AND GROCERY PRODUCTS. - A person or gleaner shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability arising from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of apparently wholesome food or an apparently fit grocery product that the person or gleaner donates in good faith to a nonprofit organization for ultimate distribution to needy individuals, except that this paragraph shall not apply to an injury to or death of an ultimate user or recipient of the food or grocery product that results from an act or omission of the donor constituting gross negligence or intentional misconduct.

(d) COLLECTION OR GLEANING OF DONATIONS.-A person who allows the collection or gleaning of donations on property owned or occupied by the person by gleaners, or paid or unpaid representatives of a nonprofit organization, for ultimate distribution to needy individuals shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability that arises due to the injury of death of the gleaner or representative, except that this paragraph shall not apply to an injury or death that results from an act or omission of the person constituting gross negligence or intentional misconduct.

(e) PARTIAL COMPLIANCE.-If some or all of the donated food and grocery products do not meet all quality and labeling standards imposed by Federal, State, and local laws and regulations, the person or gleaner who donates the food and grocery products shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability in accordance with this section if the nonprofit organization that receives the donated food or grocery products-
(1) is informed by the donor of the distressed or defective condition of the donated food or grocery products;
(2) agrees to recondition the donated food or grocery products to comply with all the quality and labeling standards prior to distribution; and
(3) is knowledgeable of the standards to properly recondition the donated food or grocery product.
(f) CONSTRUCTION.-This section shall not be construed to create any liability.

SEC. 403. EFFECT OF SECTION. 402

The model Good Samaritan Food Donation Act (provided in section 402) is intended only to serve as a model law for enactment by the States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the territories and possessions of the United States. The enactment of section 402 shall have no force or effect in law.

Goodies 

30 minute gourmet gathering

Flowers, bread, bagels, pies, pastries, cinnamon rolls, asparagus, apples, potatoes, bananas, juice drinks

New StickyNote

Boxes of Food 

Breadbox, Knives, Security Sign Dumped

Pizzas, Spareribs, & Trimmings for Teens

Grapes & Strawberries for the Homeless

Genetically Engineered Food Causes Problems like Death

Mass death of Sheep from grazing GE cotton field

At least 1,820 sheep were reported dead after grazing on post-harvest Bt cotton crops; the symptoms and post-mortem findings strongly suggest they died from severe toxicity.

From: http://www.psrast.org/intro1.htm

Genetically Engineered Food 

Alarming Facts About GE Food from http://www.psrast.org/intro1.htm

Alarming facts about
genetically engineered foods

* Animals have become seriously ill or died from Genetically Engineered (GE) foods
* Hazardous genes from GE foods that you eat can become inserted into your own genes
* An unexpected poison killed 37 persons eating a food supplement produced by GE bacteria. This disaster was not coincidental:
* Top researchers confirm that genetic engineering is inherently unsafe and unpredictable. It may therefore generate unexpected harmful substances in GE food
* Numerous studies have demonstrated that GE causes "non-target effects" in addition to the specific "desired effect". These effects are little understood, completely unpredictable and may be hazardous to the individual and the environment. This underscores the fundamental unsafety of genetic engineering.
* The present procedure for assesing the safety of GE foods is not designed to detect unexpected substances
* Therefore, harmful substances may appear in GE food approved as food
* Still, GE foods are sold in most food stores in the US and in many other countries
* In the US and Canada, they are not even labeled

What is genetic engineering?

Warning for disinformation at the internet. Corporations systematically misuse the internet for confusing people about issues and organizations that threaten their interests.
More
Synonyms

Genetically Engineered (GE) = Genetically Modified (GM) = Genetically Altered.

More

What foods are genetically engineered?

Many common foods are, including: Corn, Soy, Wheat, Canola, Tomato , Potato , Rice , Cantaloupe , Sugar beet - (all kinds of sugar) , Radicchio , Flax (linseed) , Papaya , Squash , Oilseed rape, Alfalfa.

All of these, and products made of them, including common infant feeds, may contain unexpected harmful substances.

And remember, in the US, the GE foods are not labeled.

In order to make it easy for you to rapidly get a good idea about the issue, we have created an introduction in steps with increasing amounts of detail at each step.
Step one
Our main conclusions at a glance

Commercial application of genetic engineering for production of foods cannot be scientifically justified and carries with it unpredictable and potentially serious consequences.

The reasons are as follows:
# The knowledge about the genes and how they work is too incomplete to make it possible to predict and understand all consequences of genetic engineering.
# The knowledge about the health safety of GE foods is seriously incomplete.
# The knowledge about the environmental safety of GE organisms is seriously incomplete.
# It has been scientifically established that unexpected effects can occur from genetic engineering that are hazardous to health and the surroundings.
# Science has established that there is no need for GE organisms for feeding the world or solving nutritional deficiency problems.
# Food biotechnology perpetuates environmentally unsustainable industrial agriculture. It is based on chemicals of various kinds that are demonstratedly harmful to health and to the environment.

Why GE foods should be banned immediately

Considering that GE organisms are unsafe to eat and that they expose the environment to unpredictable and irreversible risks, they should be banned. It is not justified to take any risk at all in using them as there is no need for them to feed the world and because they perpetuate unsustainable agriculture that is harmful to health and to the environment.

On the following pages you will find more details explaining our position.

Published by

Physicians and Scientists for Responsible Application of
Science and Technology (PSRAST)

This website was created in december 1996
Last update: May 15, 2008

Secret Freegan for Charity 

Gather Fresh Food to Donate

Incredible photos of the massive waste grocery stores create, and what one woman has done about it. Photos found on Twitter Profile link to http://squidoo.com/secretfreegan at top right of Twitter page. Very informative podcast included. She gathers today's fresh food in the bins behind grocery stores and donates it to homeless shelters. Rescuing the food saves it from landfills and feeds the hungry. Her goal: get the stores to donate the food to save them waste management money and give them tax credits, with no liability thanks to Good Samaritan Food Act.

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What do you predict? 

Food Waste in America

Your turn to spout off!

My prediction:

SecretFreegan, at 12am on December 29, 2008 predicts:

People across America will arise in a grassroots movement to rescue the $600 of good, fresh food each typical grocery story destroys.

Reader predictions:

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Great Blog about Eating for $1 a Day 

1-dollar-a-day.blogspot.com
A couple is going to eat on $1 a day for a month like most of the world does. Follow how they do it here!

How to Create a Successful Blog 

Tech Tricks

Backlinks, YouTube, marketing strategies for online success I found helpful!

Another Good Freegan Blog 

http://www.emoware.org/dumpster-diving/dumpster-diving-guide.asp

Secret Freegan featured in U.S. News & World Report 

Thanks, Dear Prudence for mentioning my savory freegan food photos!

http://www.usnews.com/blogs/fresh-greens/2009/03/12/freeganism-youre-doing-it-wrong.html

A European Freegan Blog 

Freegan Blog

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Rescued cakes and flower bouquets heading for the shelter!

Rescued fruits and vegetables ready to sort for shelter!

Tons of rescued food under Hannukah bush ready for homeless shelter!

Boxes of rescued food for Phoenix homeless shelter

More Rescued Food Ready to Sort

Wild Green Links! 

America's Hungry
What to do about hunger in America
Food Insecurity
The latest green news

by SecretFreegan

Hi,
When I first saw Oprah's segment on "freegan" living in February 2008, I thought, "How disgusting! Yuck! I would never dig through dirty garbage... (more)

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