Trendsurfing: Freeganism (The Times)
By David Rowan
Worried about those rising grocery bills? Maybe it's time to give the freegan lifestyle a try. Freeganism, the hip anti-capitalist's alternative to Ocado, has been attracting growing interest lately among the right-on No Logo set in America. Formed from the words "free" and "vegan", the movement aims - as you may have guessed - to feed its followers wholesome animal-free food rescued, typically, from restaurant tables or supermarket rubbish skips. Freegans in New York and Seattle claim to have subsisted for years by dining out surreptitiously at their neighbourhood dumpsters, undermining meal by meal the evil corporations' irresponsible pursuit of profit. So I decided to conduct my own ethically sound gastronomic experiment. How would your columnist fare as a freegan amid the consumerist excesses of Hampstead?
First, a little background philosophy. Freeganism is not so much a cheapskate's excuse to avoid buying dinner as a deadly serious attempt to challenge society's boundless consumerism. The ideology is spelt out, in all its radical austerity, on websites such as freegan.info: rather than condone our "wasteful, profit-driven, mass-production society", freegans pledge "a total boycott of the economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations". In other words, instead of singling out individual businesses as "ethical", they seek to avoid buying anything at all "to the greatest degree we are able".
With the American Express bill glowering from the Rowan in-tray, the notion has an undeniable attraction. But while the more extreme freegans promote squatting and shoplifting as potential techniques, I restricted my quest to less controversial forms of urban foraging. It is one thing finding excuses to avoid using the Tesco Clubcard, quite another minimising accommodation costs at Her Majesty's pleasure.
The experiment began well, with the last of Hampstead Heath's late-summer blackberries providing a gratifyingly sweet amuse bouche. A nearby apple tree suggested a couple of bruised ground fruit to follow, but vegan codes of ethics would presumably have frowned at making a worm homeless. On to the main course, there was a surprisingly enticing choice of three or four filled bagels left in a café's waste pile in a passageway just off Hampstead High Street. And as for dessert, wasn't that black binlier outside Starbucks where they dumped all the day's unsold chocolate brownies?
At this point, the limits of freeganism became awkwardly clear. Even on professional assignment, it just didn't look right for a Times journalist to be seen rummaging about in bin-bags. The intense embarrassment, not to mention the hygiene risks, encouraged your reporter to make his excuses and leave for a latte in Carluccio's. Which he paid for in cash, in case the manager is wondering.
Your columnist is clearly no match for Adam Weissman, a New Jersey freegan who claims to have subsisted on a largely dumpster-based diet for a decade. It is not that he cannot afford to buy "new" - simply that he wants to avoid further perpetuating the waste pile. "Every single night, restaurants, bakeries, groceries and delis discard massive amounts of healthy, clean, fresh food," says Weissman, something of a spokesman for the movement. Foraging, he insists, has "common sense appeal".
Perhaps, but the queue at the local bagel shop suggests that the cash nexus still holds the upper hand. And the last time I looked, there weren't too many Hampstead types rummaging about in the nearby dumpster.
(The Times Magazine, September 17 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
Worried about those rising grocery bills? Maybe it's time to give the freegan lifestyle a try. Freeganism, the hip anti-capitalist's alternative to Ocado, has been attracting growing interest lately among the right-on No Logo set in America. Formed from the words "free" and "vegan", the movement aims - as you may have guessed - to feed its followers wholesome animal-free food rescued, typically, from restaurant tables or supermarket rubbish skips. Freegans in New York and Seattle claim to have subsisted for years by dining out surreptitiously at their neighbourhood dumpsters, undermining meal by meal the evil corporations' irresponsible pursuit of profit. So I decided to conduct my own ethically sound gastronomic experiment. How would your columnist fare as a freegan amid the consumerist excesses of Hampstead?
First, a little background philosophy. Freeganism is not so much a cheapskate's excuse to avoid buying dinner as a deadly serious attempt to challenge society's boundless consumerism. The ideology is spelt out, in all its radical austerity, on websites such as freegan.info: rather than condone our "wasteful, profit-driven, mass-production society", freegans pledge "a total boycott of the economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations". In other words, instead of singling out individual businesses as "ethical", they seek to avoid buying anything at all "to the greatest degree we are able".
With the American Express bill glowering from the Rowan in-tray, the notion has an undeniable attraction. But while the more extreme freegans promote squatting and shoplifting as potential techniques, I restricted my quest to less controversial forms of urban foraging. It is one thing finding excuses to avoid using the Tesco Clubcard, quite another minimising accommodation costs at Her Majesty's pleasure.
The experiment began well, with the last of Hampstead Heath's late-summer blackberries providing a gratifyingly sweet amuse bouche. A nearby apple tree suggested a couple of bruised ground fruit to follow, but vegan codes of ethics would presumably have frowned at making a worm homeless. On to the main course, there was a surprisingly enticing choice of three or four filled bagels left in a café's waste pile in a passageway just off Hampstead High Street. And as for dessert, wasn't that black binlier outside Starbucks where they dumped all the day's unsold chocolate brownies?
At this point, the limits of freeganism became awkwardly clear. Even on professional assignment, it just didn't look right for a Times journalist to be seen rummaging about in bin-bags. The intense embarrassment, not to mention the hygiene risks, encouraged your reporter to make his excuses and leave for a latte in Carluccio's. Which he paid for in cash, in case the manager is wondering.
Your columnist is clearly no match for Adam Weissman, a New Jersey freegan who claims to have subsisted on a largely dumpster-based diet for a decade. It is not that he cannot afford to buy "new" - simply that he wants to avoid further perpetuating the waste pile. "Every single night, restaurants, bakeries, groceries and delis discard massive amounts of healthy, clean, fresh food," says Weissman, something of a spokesman for the movement. Foraging, he insists, has "common sense appeal".
Perhaps, but the queue at the local bagel shop suggests that the cash nexus still holds the upper hand. And the last time I looked, there weren't too many Hampstead types rummaging about in the nearby dumpster.
(The Times Magazine, September 17 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE TRENDSURFING COLUMNS HERE . . .
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