RE:creating... Alternatives to Grocery Stores, Ethical Meat Consumption, and Sharing Surplus

There's been a shift lately in how people view consumption and their own role in the food system.

There's been a shift lately in how people view consumption and their own role in the food system. The desire to move towards “less impact on the environment” or “less reliance on systems I don’t support” is becoming more and more common. For some this looks like limiting animal products. For others, this means growing produce instead of buying from the store. But there's lots of other ways that aren't commonly considered. This is what this article is about.

Please keep in mind while reading that not every option here is available to every person. The availability of an option doesn't mean you have to engage in it either. If you cannot, or even don’t want to, that’s okay. This article is to expand, not dictate, options.

My hope is that readers read on with an open mind and keep what makes sense to them. When something doesn't resonate, I highly encourage you to consider what would resonate instead. When something does, I highly encourage you to go for it.

Reclaiming Food “Waste”

It’s no secret that capitalism produces a huge amount of waste. With food in particular, 30 - 40% of the entire US food supply goes straight into the garbage.

There’s a few initiatives combatting this problem... One of these is the subscription box Imperfect Foods (formerly Imperfect Produce). They sell wonky but edible items to keep them from being discarded for being, well, a little imperfect.

Food Not Bombs has been around forever. It's an incredible 43 year old organization that connects struggles with food insecurity to the global struggle for liberation. Part of their activism is using food that would otherwise go to waste to cook vegan meals to pass out to homeless neighbors. They have an incredible mission that's definitely worth a read on their website. There's many local chapters worldwide if you want to take part in a distribution. For in depth info on how the org started + great practical insight on how to build a grassroot organization, check out Towards Collective Liberation: Anti-Racist Organizing, Feminist Praxis, and Movement Building Strategy by Chris Crass.

Recently California tried to tackle the problem of edible food going to waste with a new law. This mandates grocery stores and food wholesalers donate unused food to local food banks. Despite initial adjustments, this law has provided food for many people. Many restaurants could benefit from this as well. Most restaurants can donate food to a 5013c organization as a tax exemption, though many managers don't know this. Perhaps we can be the people to tell them.

The most widely known method of food reclamation that often gets a bad rap is dumpster diving. There's lots of guides on how to go about it. Food is often thrown out in large quantities and is usually thrown out while still edible. If nothing else, it's a great way to see for yourself how vast the food waste problem is.

Here’s a great guide from a lovely environmental activist named Robin Greenfield. Click the link to learn all about food waste reclamation. There's even practical tips on dumpster diving and how to start a food rescue program in your neighborhood. https://www.robingreenfield.org/foodwasteguide/

Besides to rescuing food after it goes to a waste bin, there’s also ways to rescue it beforehand. Some establishments, restaurants, etc. have rules that specifically forbid giving extra food waste to people, but some don’t have these rules. Sometimes an employee will anyway (heyo). Be prepared to be told no, but a few places to ask (half an hour or so before closing time) are bagel shops, coffee shops, bakeries, or other places with bread based items or batches of food. “My cousin is having a party and i wanted to try and bring something” is usually a good answer if they ask. If you’re giving the food to a homeless person, don’t say that. I've had multiple people say no just because the food was going to a homeless person. Sometimes people suck. Avoid saying you’re donating it in general, places don’t like the idea of liability.

Along the lines of donating food... If you work at a place that regularly has food left over at the end of the day, try talking with a manager about donating it to a food bank. As mentioned previously, corporations can donate food for a tax writeoff as long as the place receiving it has a 5013c nonprofit status. Many food banks and some other food distributing organizations have this status.

Waste reclamation definitely isn't limited to food. People get rid of all sorts of things.

For example, when I lived in a city apartment all of my furniture and many of the appliances I used were secondhand. Most of these I got for free from the street within a few blocks of the apartment. Hauling some of these alone with no car was a pain, but worth it. Here's a short list of my scavenged (read: abandoned in the alley or sidewalk) items... a $400 floor lamp, a $130 cat tree, a couch, paintings, art easel, paint set, desk, 3 bookshelves, scrap wood, bricks, a pots and pans set (scrubbed and disinfected about seven times before use), a bedframe, chairs, various home decor, planter boxes, a vintage mirror, and even a charcoal grill.

This was in a heavily populated city, in a neighborhood where leaving things on the curb for others was very commonplace. But you don’t have to leave this to chance. Craigslist, Offerup, and Facebook Marketplace all have free sections where people offer all sorts of items and furniture. The items of course do depend heavily on the area. Still, checking on the 30th - 2nd each month is often a good time, since people move and often look to offload bulky items for free around that time.

One app that’s specific to food where neighbors can offer food to others is Olio. The presence is bigger in some areas and nonexistent in others, but it’s worth a shot. If it's not available where you are, consider showing it to friends and neighbors to get it started. The interface is pretty easy to use.

And now we're on to…

Foraging

One of my favorite things to do is walking around identifying edible plants. I'm a big plant nerd. Again, this differs by area but whether you are in a city or rural area there is often a surprising amount of edible plants to be found. Foraging is often better to rely on as a hearty snack rather than a meal, but there are many ways to use the plants you find as ingredients for meals as well. There's sometimes guides online where you can look up what grows native in your region or area.

***If you're identifying a plant for the first time, please do your due diligence. The safety precautions I personally take are: 1. only identifying things with color or a really distinctive leaf 2. using the PictureThis app to scan the plant three times from several angles 3. looking up at least three sources on if the plant is edible 4. looking up at least three sources on which part of the plant is the edible part 5. looking up common lookalikes for the plant. If it has any poisonous lookalikes, I stop there. 6. never eating it right then and there if it's the first time foraging it. Some people do a taste test of a little bit and then waiting a few hours before ingesting it further. Please find a method that is as safe as humanly possible.***

Once you start being able to identify a short list of plants in your area it becomes easier to know what to look for. I love finding herbs and salad greens, and edible plants like nasturtiums (my favorite). There's also been fruit: everything from loquats to passionfruit to elderberries.

A way to find fruit and nut trees on public land is a crowdsourced app called Falling Fruit. It has both user entered data and city tree logs in some places. I’ve used it countless times for free fruit.

Food Sharing

Food is best when shared! Potluck dinners are super common, but why limit them to holidays or labor intensive dishes?

There's a common practice in close knit communities where neighbors make prepared dishes for somebody who is grieving. It's easily understandable that somebody in grief would have a hard time putting together a full meal. For example, when my grandad was grieving the passing of my grandmother, his rural neighbors came together for him as they do for many grieving families. He ended up with a table of meals, casseroles, and baked dishes that lasted him a week. The caring gesture along with the meals was proof that sometimes humanity really is beautiful.

Food sharing definitely doesn’t have to be elaborate either. In high school, my friends and I had a weekly sandwich meetup conveniently called Club Club. We each brought a sandwich item (bread, cheese, meat, lettuce, napkins, etc.) and made a sandwich for everyone with the ingredients. It was wonderful. I've also heard of people doing this with soup ingredients!

Another cool soup sharing idea I've heard is where 7 friends all make 7 batches of a soup. At a get together they trade them so that everyone has a different soup for dinner in the upcoming week. Soup haters can modify as needed.

Working Jobs With Free Food

When I lived in the city, all the jobs I ever had came with free food. These jobs were at restaurants, hotel kitchens, elderly facilities, catered events, and so many more. There was always food on the clock, and often to take home as well. This got me through a brief period of homelessness and many years of scraping by. If a place offered a discount on food, I wouldn’t apply… only places with a free meal. There’s a higher percentage of jobs that offer this than one might expect. I've subsisted almost entirely off of work food and cheap groceries before. I've also had catering and hotel kitchen jobs where there was so much left over that I'd have three square meals a day from work food, plus days worth of leftovers to freeze and/or pass out to homeless neighbors.

Growing Food

While lack of space is a barrier for many folks, growing produce can be a fulfilling way to offset the booming costs of grocery bills. Things to research include regrowing kitchen scraps, herb propagation in water, hydroponic gardening, closed loop systems, compost, vertical gardening (great for using balcony or patio space), container gardening, perennials (which come back year after year instead of growing once). Sourcing secondhand and/or free materials and learning basics of gardening on youtube is a great place to start.

You don’t need a whole lot of fancy equipment. Seeds can be purchased for a dollar or two (via EBT at walmart). Vegetables can be regrown from certain vegetables from the store or a friend who gardens. Others can be grown from the seeds they have in them. Sometimes you can get seeds from a seed library if there’s one in your area. Compost can be made from kitchen scraps and sidewalk leaves, and then stretched into a nutrient dense compost tea fairly easily. Soil can be dug up from certain places (though you didn’t hear this from me) then amended with decayed organic matter (compost). Pots can be reused materials, I’ve even poured my own pots with concrete and scoured a recycling bin for plastic materials to make homemade molds.

After it rains, worms are abundant in the surface of soggy soil (in particular, under rocks, pots, and logs). These guys can be scooped up and put to work in your compost. They’re great at eating things and leaving behind nutrient dense poop that your plants will definitely love. Worm fiddling is an interesting concept to get into, though don't expect to get many. Fish and bait shops also typically have worms for super cheap.

With enough time, patience (compost takes a while), and effort, gardening can be done for next to nothing. Of course, potting soil, fertilizer, and store bought pots are convenient and readily accessible the same day, but cost money as well as a trip to the store. However - some landfills have free soil / free compost / free mulch programs where you can bring a bucket or box and pick lots up for free.

Planting with others is a great way to learn together and also expand each other’s varieties. For example, right now I'm growing potatoes, carrots, and beets. My neighbor is growing potatoes, brussel sprouts, and collards. Come harvest time, we plan to swap and we’ll all have potatoes, carrots, beets, brussel sprouts, and collards.

Farming and Hunting

If farming is inaccessible and you’d like to have farm fresh meat, eggs, and / or fruits and vegetables, you have options. You could try signing up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) box from a farm or garden operation in your area. You can also call your area’s agricultural extension office to ask if there’s farmers in your area selling what you’re looking for. They’re a great help. I've also heard 4H programs, colleges agricultural programs or community gardens, and the agriculture section of your county's website are great places to look as well.

A commonplace option in rural areas is buying a 1/2 or a 1/4 of the meat of one cow and it lasts up to a year. If you or your family eat meat, try looking up some farms to see if you can go this route. While you do need a large freezer, it's much cheaper in the long term and you know exactly where your meat is coming from and how the animal was raised. Almost 90% of all meat raising cattle farms in the US are family farms. Even so, almost 90% of all cattle raised for meat in the US are raised on the biggest 4 corporate farms. These 4 corporate farms use debatable at best and terrible at worst practices on their animals, like feed lots. By buying meat from a small farmer, you're taking your year(s) of money away from these corporations. You're also supporting much better agricultural practices, and a family. Using the resources above, these farms are fairly straightforward to find.

Hunting and Butcher Programs

Personally I don’t support hunting for sport, though I do support hunting for sustenance, especially since this diminishes and sometimes replaces the reliance on store bought meat. With hunting, the animal lives its life the way an animal is supposed to up until its death. Deer meat has 3x the amount of protein as beef. I believe this is far more ethical than breeding animals in feedlots, and lets the animal live its best natural life.

Though there are many people who process their own meat, there are also deer processing shops. Some of these have a program where you can sign up to be called if somebody brings in a animal that passes in the wild, a "roadkilled" deer, etc. While some people are turned off by the idea of “roadkill”, it’s good to think about it in terms of the animal’s death not going to waste. Instead of the animal being left out to rot, it instead feeds somebody for up to a year.

Fishing

Fishing can be a lot of fun, especially with kids. The hours are long, often with great memories, good conversation, lovely views, and good eatin’ when a fish finally gets caught. As a kid, we fried halibut and cooked trout. As an adult, I still enjoy cooking fish that I catch. An ex-partner and I once went to the pier with a grill plate (from the free charcoal grill mentioned earlier), lighter fluid, wood bungee cord-ed to a backpack, oil, lots of seasoning, a filet knife from the discount store, and a fishing kit from Walmart. Hours and hours later, I caught a fish and the guy next to us gave us one as well. After fileting them, we built a fire on the beach and cooked the seasoned fish on the grill plate over the fire. Absolutely delicious.

When All's Said And Done...

What often gets in the way of exploring alternatives are the barriers of time and convenience. When you’re burnt out, stressed, or exhausted under the conditions we live in, it can be difficult to imagine alternatives, let alone find the energy to follow through. The grocery store is often the most convenient option, though it’s often one of the most expensive. Living under capitalism can seem like a balancing act of “affordable, quality, convenience: pick two”.

I hope this article has given you something useful, even if that’s simply a new knowledge of how some people do things. It is my hope that slowly, our actions can take us not just away from the current system, but into something new, and hopefully, beautiful.