Food Salvaging

Dumpster diving has some pretty negative connotations for obvious reasons; you're going into what is essentially a garbage bin and retrieving food. But I have found that many food stores have dedicated dumpsters that they use only for food items. My guess is that they are participating in some sort of food composting program or something. 

I am a big salvager, if you have been on my blog you know that. Recently, I have recovered a nearly new splitting wedge from a scrap metal pile. I also picked up a brand new military camouflage net system worth over $400. It was thrown in a dumpster. My son and I will use it to built a duck and goose blind for hunting this coming season. I also retrieved a gated "Y" for a garden hose and a ratchet strap. All perfectly usable stuff someone threw out.

But food? I never looked for food items before. So this past week when I was out for an evening walk I checked out three dumpsters behind a big box food store just out of curiosity. One dumpster had store trash, from their trash cans. One dumpster had thrown out produce; just fruits and vegetables. And the third dumpster had boxed and canned items from the shelf. It was about one third full. I grabbed a few items just to see the sell by dates, to see how old the stuff was. Surprisingly, none of the items were actually expired. I wasn't about to crawl in but I did grab some items that I typically eat and took them home. See below:

About $25-30 of high nutrition food