Breakfast: ½ organic peach, Kashi cereal with soy milk, tea with soy milk, 7 potato chips

Lunch: Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwich, chickenless noodle soup, wasabi peas, Luna bar

Dinner: Whatever I find at the Greenmarket tonight - husband is out of town so I’m thinking a salad, a baked potato, some of those mini potatoes (boiled) and mixed local berries.

Cravings: Buffalo Wings and ice cream

Mood: Excellent

I went with the Freegans on one of their Dumpster dives last night (they call it a Trash Tour.) Those of you who have seen the video on this blog (that wasn't my tour) will know what I'm talking about. Older and wiser Freegans show the newbies where they can get food and how. So, it was about twenty people walking around, occasionally stopping to poke through refuse; kid don't try this at home. But let me tell you, I think you would eat garbage. Wait, before you accuse me of drinking the Kool-Aid, let me say that I saw unbelievable amounts of seemingly perfect food tossed out all over New York’s East Side. No joke, it was not to be believed. All the fruits and vegetables you’d expect; but also weird stuff like bags of dog food or a ½ dozen cans of whole potatoes, even toilet paper, still in its packaging. It was unreal. In front of a bakery, they found four or five garbage bags full of bagels and bialys and loaves and loaves of bread. When they opened the bags, the air filled with the aroma of freshly baked bread. I am not kidding you. I am clearly prone to exaggeration but the aroma thing really happened. In front of another grocery store, they found 2 big bags of slightly dented cookies. Can you imagine? And it wasn’t the cheap generic stuff - there were name brands in there! And no, the bags weren’t ripped or slimy. From what I can see, it all looked fine. Except for the seven packages of shrink-wrapped artificial crab legs I saw - they didn’t look right. And those bags of pre-washed lettuce? You could raise 432,000 rabbits on all the baby greens that were in that trash. But, in all fairness, I will also admit that no one there could give me a definitive answer as to why this waste was allowed to happen. "The corporations build this waste into the cost of doing business." "Americans have been made to expect the illusion of a never-ending and always perfect food supply." "It’s cheaper to throw it out then paying someone to save it." I don’t know; maybe it’s all true. Maybe, but maybe Americans have grown too litigious and stores are afraid of the inevitable lawsuits when someone get sick from donated food. Maybe this method of insuring fresh inventory in grocery stores is simply a relic. And it, with the advent of ever faster and bigger computers, will simply go extinct. I want to know if this is just New York's problem. Are we throwing out more then we ever have or is this what has always happened in order to meet consumer's constantly fluctuating demands? I don’t know, but I will investigate and get back to you.