FILLING YOUR BELLY
There are plenty of ways to get food if you need it. This is especially true in the United States and other ‘Western’ countries. The following are a few ways to fill your belly in the USA.
The food bank is a free service, privately funded in most communities to provide food to those who need it. Most of the food comes from grocery stores which would throw it away if the food bank didn’t take it or from farms who have damaged produce they can’t sell. Produce which isn’t beautiful enough to buy, dented canned goods, dairy products which reach their expiration date but are still good for a week or so, and stuff donated by local people, farms, and business.
The corporate stores rarely participate. Once a month the government provides “commodities,” usually sub-par, unhealthy foods like powdered milk, canned beef, and surplus applesauce. Food banks are a great way to eat if you don’t have money. The best thing about them is if people don’t use them, the food goes to waste, so you’re doing a good thing by taking free food. On most trips I’ve taken to the food bank, people are bitching about the wait for free food. I can never understand that. Don’t be one of those people.
Food Not Bombs is a group born at the height of the Nuclear Protest Movement in 1980. It is organized collectively and relies on consensus decision-making. Food is donated or saved from dumpsters is prepared into healthy vegan (no animal products) meals.
Howard Zinn, the noted historian and author, gave this description in the forward to the Food Not Bombs Handbook by C.T. Lawrence Butler and Keith McHenry.
The message of Food Not Bombs is simple and powerfuclass="underline" no one should be without food in a world so richly provided with land, sun, and human ingenuity. No consideration of money, no demand for profit, should stand in the way of any hungry or malnourished child or any adult in need. Here are people who will not be bamboozled by “the laws of the market” which say only people who can afford to buy something can have it.
Zinn goes on… They point unerringly to the double challenge: to feed immediately people who are without adequate food, and to replace a system whose priorities are power and profit with one meeting the needs of all human beings.
I remember a plate of food at a Food Not Bombs event I went to in Seattle. It was served in a white plastic tofu container. I had salad and vegetable soup. There was guacamole made from ‘spoiled’ avocados and day old sourdough bread from a local bakery. Forty or fifty people were fed. Lots of hands helped the FNB folks unload and then pack back up. A couple of bags of clothing were handed around and shared throughout the meal. It was inspiring. Most of the people eating were the homeless people you don’t really notice when you’re downtown during business hours. There were also crackheads, bag ladies, and spare changers. They picked through the clothing occasionally making an exclamation of delight as they found something which would keep them warm or appealed to them.
People sat and ate while having discussions with the people they knew, meeting new people, and overall behaving like normal people at a picnic or barbecue. It was an atmosphere of respect and human dignity.
Many churches and missions have regularly scheduled free meals. People who volunteer their time to make the world a better place cook most of these meals. Most meals I’ve had at churches or missions were cooked and served with love. If you have one of these meals, please take the time to thank the people who serve you.
Food stamps are as simple to get as having valid identification and an address and phone number in most states. To get food stamps, go to the office, jump through some administrative hoops, and claim to be homeless (whether you are or not). I’ve heard numerous stories of people taking advantage of the generousness of food stamp programs. I’m all for it. I would rather see the money go there than to building new prisons or supporting the wars on drugs or terror (or anything else we’ve had a war against in my lifetime.)
A lot of people don’t like using food stamps. I’m one of them. I prefer to struggle a bit rather than have the state provide for me. After all, I’m a healthy, somewhat intelligent man, and it feels good to earn my keep. Don’t get me wrong though, I’ve used food stamps to get me through tough times. I’ll do it again if I need to.
Americans throw away enough material goods every day to feed, clothe, house, and educate everyone in this country. Most grocery stores throw away produce which is perfectly edible but not visibly appealing enough to sell. Dairy products are usually good well beyond the ‘sell by’ date on them but are thrown away to comply with safety rules.
If you get to know the restaurants in a certain area you can pull unsold hamburgers, donuts, or fried chicken out of the trash with the wrappers still on. I’ve had burgers from the dumpster which were completely wrapped and still hot. It’s all about knowing your dumpsters.
Successful dumpster divers usually have rounds and sometimes if you hit a dumpster which is on someone’s established rounds they can react as if you are robbing them. If this happens to you, my advice is to simply apologize and offer to give back what you’ve taken from that dumpster.
You never know, that diver might end up a friend that can show you where the best dumpsters for clothes, food, and other things are.
I’ve done this a few times when I was desperate. It works if you’re hungry and have no other option. If you go to a self-cleanup kind of restaurant, the kind of place where you put your dishes in a bin before you leave, you can usually find large uneaten portions sitting on plates. It’s unsavory, to say the least, but if you hang out for a bit and watch you can usually find someone who eats nearly nothing from their plate and looks clean enough to alleviate any fears of catching a rare disease. You might even catch them when they are getting up and say “I’ll take care of that for you, Sir,” as if you work there. Cleanliness and good hygiene are essential to pull that particular stunt off, but it means you can sit down and enjoy the meal
As a youngster I shoplifted. I don’t recommend it. The risks are too high. If you’re going to shoplift there are a few ways to minimize the risk involved, though. One method is to have a baggy coat with big pockets and to slyly slip a few items in while you shop. I used to buy something trivial with my pockets loaded to alleviate any suspicion. Another method is to buy a few items you use regularly and then go back for more with the receipt in your pocket. If you get caught, you can say you were coming to return the item (s). The problem with shoplifting goes beyond morality to the fact that in all likelihood, you will get caught.
My good friend George Hush was an expert shoplifter for years. He had taken literally thousands of dollars in food and clothing without ever getting caught. One day he was in the grocery store and saw a 99-cent package of fresh herbs that he thought would go well with some pasta he was going to cook. With a casualness born from years of lifting he dropped them in his pocket.
Seconds later a hand clamped down on his shoulder and he was escorted to the managers office where he was made to wait until a police officer arrived before being told anything. He was charged with theft, banned from that store for a year, (it was the store with the best deals on beer too!) and had to pay a hefty fine. All in all, it would have been a lot better for George if he had bought those herbs.