For anyone who is hungry or eating poorly, I have a secret to share.

Here is some advice for those who are hungry:

My partner and I don't have enough money to eat well and neither do our friends. But we have a little secret I'd like to share with you--on one condition--you have to share the food you find with others and also use good judgment. This works best if you live in a suburb or a small city. (Those in NYC and LA might want to ignore this advice.) I live in a city of about a million people.

Find the area-wide warehouse distribution center for any of the national upscale grocery stores in your region. (I'd rather not name names, but I think you can figure out which ones I'm talking about). There will be an area where trucks are loading massive amounts of new food into the warehouse. Because these stores cater to upscale clientele, they will throw out pallets of food if some items have superficial packaging imperfections (i.e. dented but intact hard plastic, etc.) Because sales are low, they are also throwing out food that is 'less new' but perfectly edible. For example: if new produce arrives, unsold produce will be discarded en masse, even if it will stay good for another 10 days.)

Over the past few months, we have found boxes of whole wheat pizzas, boxes filled with organic frozen dinners (we took about 6 boxes containing 200+ dinners, left the rest), bananas, about 300 pounds of soy nuts, enough baby organic spinach to feed hundreds of people, cookie dough, dips and sauces of all sorts (hundreds of containers), hundreds of boxes filled with organic yogurt, expensive sparking water, pounds of nuts, organic baby mixed greens, etc. We feed many families with what we find.

Here are some tips:

1) Go after 10pm and before 3am.
2) Don't go to STORES themselves, they tend to throw garbage on top of their dumpsters and may even throw poisons on top to keep animals away. You're only likely to find a few busted yogurts with paper and coffee grinds thrown on top of them. Only hit the distribution centers.
3) You will be more successful at high-end stores with a picky clientele. At the regular store they can sell foods in dented packages at a discount. They won't do that at stores that have the aura of health and purity.
4) Use good judgment when dealing with unpackaged and unboxed food. Most of what I find is double and triple boxed food (food in plastic, in a box, in a larger box, inside a huge box all still sealed).
5) Use good judgment in dealing with expired foods. If it is straight out of deep freeze, we've found the "best if used by" dates to be pretty irrelevant. My entire community of friends has eaten on frozen food even 2 months past the "best if used by" date. If the crates of food are still hard-frozen, you're very likely to be AOK. Open one item and do a smell test. Throw away anything that doesn't pass your muster. Use common sense.
6) Always read up on massive recalls of a type of food. If the gov't is saying some tomatoes have salmonella, you might want to think twice about tomatoes.
7) Be careful with children, the elderly, and the immuno-compromised. Have the healthy people eat first as a precaution.
8) Wear comfortable shoes, protective clothing and bring a flashlight.
9) Be aware that your attempt to feed yourself may be trespassing or even illegal. Or it may not be a big deal. Our theory is that upscale 'holistic' stores are less likely to be brutal to foragers because it wouldn't be good advertising to refuse poor people your garbage (or advertise how much they waste.)
10) I'm personally most suspicious of dairy items. Toss anything that doesn't taste PERFECT. But don't worry, you'll find a hell of a lot of perfect tasting food.
11. Share.

If you're germ-o-phobic think of it this way: people touch your prepared foods at restaurants all the time.

Good luck. Please kick this if you think it will help someone.

They sound a lot like what was in The Steal Yourself Rich Book by Abbie Hoffman. I have a copy.

they throw away mounds of food and you can get it from the dumpster fresh. Also other spermarkets have plenty of overstocks or damaged in their dumpsters. Also colleges, hospital cafeterias throw out a lot of good food at receptions. Get to know the catering staff! Get friendly with the man in the meat section at local supermarkets or the vegetable person. They are always throwing out food that is a little damaged or is about to expire. Ring the bell by the door of the meat secton and speak to them. They will have meat that they are about to get rid off, if not go back the next day.

Try to eat "good" food. That is, food that is nutritional.

Grow you own food, if possible.

Food producers will sometimes give away soon to "expire" dated food - they find it cheaper than throwing it away.

When you do get fruits and vegetables, remove and wash the seed--no soap. Lay them flat on a towel and pat dry. Let them air dry for a while if so they don't get moldy if your not going to plant them right away.

Pick a window that has good light, get brackets and some boards, put the brackets on each side of the window and make shelves for rows of plants.

When your plants flower since most of us don't have a bee hive in our home and it's winter, gentlely shake the plant and it's branches with the flowers to help pollinate.

Learn to can food too.

If you scavenge for dandelion leaves for salad, know your area so it's not filled with lawn chemicals.
I don't think you can eat the flowers. You can eat rose petals, they are full of vitamin c. It's how the prairie Native Americans got vitamin c.

sweet potatoes if you have even a tiny patch of sunny ground. All it takes is a single potato to start.

http://www.thegardenhelper.com/potato.html

http://gardening.about.com/b/2008/11/19/its-sweet-potat...

I have grown both with success in the San Fernando Valley. Irish potatoes are a cooler weather/climate crop. Sweet potatoes love heat. And because they grow underground, they are not very prone to theft because most people won't recognize the plants or know how to harvest.

It has scarcely been above freezing all last month.......... today it is trying to break 32o at 2 pm.!
The red potatoes I grew last summer sprouted in the dark cabinet. ( red potatoes don't keep as long.)
On the waxing full moon in taurus, I cut them into pieces ( one for each sprouted spot) and planted them in a giant flower pot. A month later they have put up lovely green shoots with leaves. I dodn't think potatoes need pollination because the edible part is the root..............but some tomato plants are self pollinating, ( sorry don't remember the varieties,) and all are perennial. I have had fresh tomatoes in June by growing them in the house through the winter. I don't use a grow light just several southern & western windows!
Parsley is a better source of vitamin C than oranges...........and my stevia is booming along. I hear it is hard to grow from seed, but I bought a plant several years ago, it has almost died off twice, ( when I had to go away ) ANd both times it puts up new shoots.
Basically...food is FREE! Monsanto is trying to change that.

By the time there's a little light on my north-facing balcony, temps can get up to 119 and anything you put there dies. Right now temps are great but it's getting ZERO sun. I guess I could try spinach......

...from ANY produce you find in a supermarket.
They are generally from hybrid stocks that won't produce a good 2ng generation crop...
OR
they have been irradiated to increase the shelf life.

If you are going to grow your own, look for heirloom seeds from a local heirloom vendor. Your seeds will be localized to you soil and climate, and will have been bred for taste and nutrition, NOT thick skins and long shelf life
If you have a neighbor who grows organic produce, you may get free seeds for the asking.
It is worth the effort and the few extra pennies.

The produce you find in a supermarket is inferior, and so are the seeds.

I've tried to buy only heirlooms for years now. They want to make us all dependent on others for every thing... even seeds.

There are many good newer fruit varieties, bred the traditional way.

In apples, Honeycrisp, Braeburn, Macoun, Swiss Gourmet, are some examples of excellent modern varieties.

Deciduous fruit seeds will not produce true to type, either.

including bell peppers and tomatoes and winter squash from the supermarket. I'm aware that many of these are hybrids that may not come true from seed, but OTOH many are not hybrids. My tomato seeds for example are Romas, from a box of dead-ripe supermarket Romas I bought on sale a couple of years ago. That's an old open-pollinated variety.

as well. They're wonderfully delicious, but you have to have a rather good eye to find them. I'm in the country and they're much more available here. Prepare them the way you would cooked spinach or mustard greens.

Dandelion flowers are the parts you use for making dandelion wine, btw. I've not done it myself, but I can come up with the recipe if anyone cares.

I make a huge garden and my partner and I have started a community of produce-sharing and bartering. The economy in our very-rural county went in the toilet several years back. Rural people know how to pull together, though. We hunt, grow a lot of our own food, share, and pull together.

I feel for the city folks, though. Y'all are the ones who will have it the roughest. If you have patios, back yards, or even sunny windows, it's amazing what you can grow inside. My partner and I keep a greenhouse going inside all winter and keep a small amount of produce and tropical plants going all the time. We have neem, chaya, sage and herbs, and other edibles in a small space. You CAN subsist if you're smart and efficient.

On Edit: ALSO: keep a packet of small paint brushes for pollenating plants that have heavy pollen and shaking alone won't do. You can get them from the Dollar Store, or even Pearls or Michaels.

There are many, many, ahem, "weeds" that are very good for you and just there for the taking. Don't harvest from highly trafficked roadsides or yards heavily fertilized with chemicals.

Learn to weed walk and harvest what nature gives us, but no more than a third of any patch you find. Sorrels, dandelelions, clovers, chickweed, ferns, purslane, nettle, mushrooms, bamboo shoots, just to name a few. Know your plants, eat, be healthy and thrifty.

Unless you can 100% positively identify what you are picking, DONT. especially with the old mushrooms, it isnt worth dieing or poisoning your family. Also dont rely apon pictures of plants from books to identify 100%, just because it looks like the picture dosent mean that its not another plant that may do you harm. A Public Service Message from Les Stroud

(unless it's fennel).

Do YOU know how to identify water hemlock?

Don't go out like a chump. If you're not 110% certain, just leave it alone.

and medicinal plants really should leave one cautious -- even comfrey packets might contain a foxglove seed w/o awareness. better to grow it yourself from already purchased produce. they often have seeds, or eyes, or leavings that can be grown into another plant.

-- hemlock

-- Queen Anne's Lace, or Wild Carrot

Be careful out there.

I'd echo the safety warnings -- even experienced mushroom hunters have been known to die from mushroom poisoning.

However, any mushroom hunter should keep some milk thistle on hand. It is a specific first aid for mushroom poisoning (at least giving a chance to get to a hospital alive).

Run this phrase through your search engine: milk thistle mushroom poisoning

It works by protecting the liver.

Really.

you can buy it at Whole Foods or a vitamin store...that is what hospitals use for mushroom poisoning also, if I'm not mistaken.

This is SUPPOSED to be the "super" power. And yet this country owes money to China, Japan, U.K., and........Brazil! I wonder if the whole super power claim just nationalism propaganda?

I am sure it is quite serious

when people are hungry is an abomination but it happens.

I mean, we wouldn't need comfortable shoes or flashlights, or have to worry about expiration dates.

to do that yet. Maybe someday..

It wouldn't.

are struggling daily (I know this sounds disingenuous if I am online on my computer - the computer came a long time before the disability. We have been living on disability for almost two years now, savings long ago spent to make up shortfalls - going from almost 100K a year to about 18K (try that and see how you feel) and I can tell you that you don't know what you would do in this situation. I will tell you what I won't do (I never did though) is to be flip about the struggles of others.

I think the more poorer and dire a person's situation, the more important it is to be connected online

It's unfortunate, but probably the reason why this poster felt the need to say what he did.

I think there's simply some folk who have no idea what it really means to be poor

It's way too important to consider a luxury. We are disconnected enough as it is.

rather than watching the boob tube.

If you WORK HARD, you can get more food from the dumpster than your neighbor.

Bootstrap Dumpster Diving!

It's not like you turn up with 6 apples at a dumpster dive. There are times when we help feed our neighbors and times when our neighbors help feed us. The proletariat can overthrow capital better when they have food in their bellies. This is a good way to get large amounts of food for whatever purpose--including feeding picket lines and non-food related takeovers.

I hardly think any leftist movement would shy away from taking cast off food from the capitalists to feed their forces while they're organizing. It's a little ridiculous for socialists to fight about what tactics are more "socialist" on a board intended to promote the Democratic party (and hence capitalism).

If you really know anything about 'distribution centers' and commercial dumpsters, you know you're suggesting people put themselves at risk with law enforcement. I'm assuming that's why you share your little secret about flashlights and stealthiness.

I was being snarky when I suggested it might be easier to just take over the whole store.


Unless you prefer law enforcement slowly pick people off.

The OP is offering advice to people on how to eat, and you're denigrating that? You're on the wrong board pal.

Bush's economy obviously hasn't hit you square between the eyes yet. Just wait.

It's shocking how many people will pile-on a DU thread when they don't have the slightest idea what they're cheering about.

Guess the Super Bowl must be boring today.

Yeah. I also advocate that gay and lesbian couples don't break up in countries where their relationships are 'illegal'. If you think someone is going to starve to death as opposed to not eat some corporate 'property' in a garbage heap, you're a right wing disrupter. Period.

Hello!!

Not as exciting as the Super Bowl, but I think you can predict who will win.

More than just generalized theft or trespassing, local city ordinances are specifically designed to target the homeless and indigent: malicious mischief, vandalism, disorderly conduct, public endangerment, on and on and on.

Suggesting an at risk population put itself further at risk is WRONG.

But yeah...keep playing the law enforcement card. It's already making you incredibly popular around here.

Because after all, when you're starving and there are no jobs, eating out of dumpsters equates to robbing Fort Knox.

Enjoy your stay. It'll be short if any of us have anything to say about it.




Shithead.

Its to give the dumpster divers a chance to know that daddy is home and this is my sleeping spot, and if i dont see them in the dumpsters then i cant do anything about it.

Once something is thrown out, it's no longer considered theft; which is why the government can legally go through your garbage and take anything they want.

It "CAN" be considered trespassing however, and that is why the OP made those suggestions. Instead of bashing someone for trying to solve a problem, perhaps you could try to help yourself.

Go bad. Often there is an attitude of "If you had planned your life the way my spouse and I planned our lives, you'd be okay now."

And for many of us who have had lives turned upside down, Universal Single Payer Health Care would have made all the difference between keeping the savings intact for retirement, and spending it all long before retirement in order to secure the health needs required to stay alive.

It's often said by people who have never experienced ANY kind of setback. They cannot realize they are not immune to it either no matter how well they've planned. I don't wish it on anyone!

Why shouldn't poor people be online? They should. They need to! Nowadays, it's vital to be online.

you can have a continuous source of discards or a one time only siege.

... which may someday be a viable/necessary option, but I don't think people will start the revolution without much harder times.

and I'm wondering why the fuck you're on DU!

There are good, hard-working people in big financial trouble in this country and you're making fun of them! Shame on you!


And I suspect that you're one of those people who leaves loads of food when eating out, too 'prosperous' and vane to ask for a take-home box.

poor and working class folks.

Especially when the alternative is starvation, but even if not, it's an abomination that food is being thrown out. We are just being good eco elves (smart eco elves too)

It is a way to survive.

Also at upscale apartment complexes sometimes you can find nice furniture being thrown out stacked around the dumpsters, usually it is one or two things. Stay away from things with foam and fabric unless it is spotlessly clean. I found a nice hardwood dining table and it's antique a few years ago. Last week a friend of mine found stereo equipment that WORKS and it sounds fine,it even had a 5 disc CD changer,he found it while tossing out his trash!!So he climbed in the dumpster and took it all home. I once got a kick ass tiled coffee table with beautiful glass tile inlay work on it that was tossed out behind an antique store with a bunch of cardboard boxes tied up to get tossed out along with it.I only found it because I flipped it over to sit on it for a second,when I saw how nice it was I took it home dusted it off and I took that puppy to a friend's apartment warming as a gift.

There is a lot of unjustified stigma attached to dumpster diving. I learned to do it when I was a student living on a budget, and even though I can well afford things now, I still enjoy a good dive in a big metal bin. Only the foolish go into the front of a thrift store and pay retail (although a discounted, second-hand retail price) when they can shop in the fresh air without having to walk down miles of display aisles. With a dumpster, it's all in the same convenient place!

I don't limit myself to just food, either. Clothing, furniture, household goods, many items are available if you just take a look. In all my years, I have never been confronted or refused items that I find. Just given a weird look by people who look down their nose and would rather pay retail for something with 'undamaged' packaging.

Oh, and you CAN do it in Los Angeles, as that is where I learned the fine art while a student.

People would put things out in front of their apartment (lot of rowhouses in Center Square) all the time, knowing someone might very well beat the garbagemen to it. We practically had it down to a barter system.

Everyone checks out - and reuses - what everyone else puts out by the curb, haha.

... neighborhood, and we do the same thing. We've picked up all kinds of stuff over the years, mostly building materials but other discards as well.

America throws away way too much stuff as it is.

Once a year the City allows us to throw out everything from old appliances to scrap wood -- all to keep things from piling up in people's houses and yards as many people don't have the resources to take things to the City Dump themselves. I swear ALL cities should have this. What the scavengers don't get (count me as one of those scavengers), the City picks up and sends to the appropriate recycling center. I've found some UNBELIEVABLE things in the piles. Everything from firewood to a whole box of silk flower arranging material to perfectly good furniture and so much more. It's like having Christmas in June.

I can't imagine waiting a YEAR for bulky trash day!

I thought we were doing a good thing here, particularly since we've had a City recycle program since 1994. Oh, well. So much for good intentions.

mostly rugs, piles of wood, boxes, and various household stuff. Hey, even once a year is better than none at all, yes?

set out on the curb for trash collection. Bed fore i had a chance to fill it with one of my own paintings..I sold my house and moved. I had a sidewalk sale and someone bought that painting & frame for $%250.00.

city and arrange for bulky item pickup. If we are discarding anything even remotely useable, longstanding tradition is to put it out at the curb with a sign on it saying FREE and it will be gone by morning. There are folks who cruise around just looking for discarded good stuff. It's easier and more socially responsible than taking to a recycler or dumping.

you would put it out with a sign saying $25 and it would be gone in an hour - put "Free" on the sign and it would sit there a week.

special day for people to put their things out so others could find them. Saves the cost of disposal.

Dumpster diving has remained a fine sport/shopping trip long after I no longer worried about putting mac and cheese on the table. Other than one disastrous waffle iron that should've stayed in the dumpster, there is not a damned thing wrong with recycling great stuff this way. We once snagged a very high end laser printer this way (the full-office, high speed, duplexing, does everything but brush your teeth for you kind) and a magnificent pedestal sink for the rebuilt downstairs bathroom.

I don't get people who are all grossed out about dumpster goodies.

people move in and out all the time. i've dubbed my interior decoration "early 21st century dumpster dive." more than half of all the furniture in this place came from the dumpster, including a couch in virtually perfect condition.
here in raleigh before i found work we did go to the food bank. now i give back at the supermarket. we also checked out craigslist free list and my son's computer desk came from there for the price of the gas to go pick it up.
most people know about shopping for clothes at the salvation army. thumbs up. i work in a very professional environment and one of my favorite blouses came from there for $3.50. my sister, who can shop anywhere she wants, still buys much of her clothes there.

someone upthread mentioned that being poor might imply that one couldn't afford a computer. the computer and the internet is the best resource today for finding what you need - including a job (each of my last 4 jobs came from craigslist) - and is in my opinion the last thing to go (not counting rent, food, utilities). but when we moved to NC i gave up cable tv and i will not go back. better off without it by far.

sorry if i went off topic. sorrier still that the bush administration was allowed to steal two elections and put us all on this terrible slippery slope. not one of us is immune. peace.

super roomy and comfy) I found a few years ago at Goodwill. It was marked $2 but they were having a sale so I got it for $1. The steal of the century!!!! I wear it every single day in cooler weather, around the house, to and from work unless it's bitter cold or rainy. It's several sizes too big but that doesn't matter to me.

on Monday nights. Most get new shipments Monday AM. Some shops rotate stock better than others. If it's a cheapish store, they will sell almost dead flowers. So, find a good one. Busy shops will rotate faster, PLUS get a second shipment later in the week, like Thursday.

instead of taking them to the dump. Most people are nice enough to come to the door and ask first.

It's perfect for storing my cookbooks. I also found a telephone table on the curb once.

It's a crime that so much food gets thrown away instead of getting donated to Second Harvest.

A lot of that food could do much good for so many people. Instead, it just goes to waste.

so stores often have to throw out perfectly good food because laws prevent them from donating it. It's a shame.

from their kills. Sometimes they have too much to keep, and they want to help the hungry, but charities can't accept the meat.

My BIL donated two deer to a food pantry here. Not sure how it was managed. But, I can find out!

edit: Just saw a post upthread. I think it was Second Harvest.

And many food pantries will accept them otherwise. Through Wisconsin's program hunters donated over 400,000 pounds of venison to food pantries last year, 2.8 million pounds since 2000, and that's the weight of the processed meat. All they have to do is drop the deer off at a participating processor.

I'm reading through this thread and keep on thinking that I thought stores had started donating lightly damaged packages of food and so on to Second Harvest and the like.

Where I used to live in Kansas, at the end of the day, as they were getting to close, my local Panera (a bakery, soup, and sandwich chain) would bundle up all of the unsold baked goods and give them to the local food bank people that showed up right at closing time. I was always so pleased to see that.

And, quite frankly, it hardly matters that times are tougher now than before. There are always hungry people out there, for whatever reason. Perfectly good food should not be thrown away.

from a local upscale bakery. Sometimes we receive more bread than we can serve, and then we set it out in plastic bags and invite people to take it with them.

Check around the dumpsters near college dorms in the Spring. Many students choose to dump belongings rather than rent a U-haul to take them back home.

My son had an off campus apartment, and didn't have to buy a single piece of furniture. He was even able to "trade up" once...returning one couch to the dumpster, and picking up another he liked better.

Mostly, I unload stuff I don't want. I am amazed at the folks who can use my "junk".

For example, I am pulling up the ceramic tiles in my entryway. They are small, less than 2 inches in diameter each. By the time I am done (if I ever get done), there will be about 1,700 of them.

They are coming up one at a time. , but the good news is that I have five different people who want them.

and there's a lady nearby who collects stuff people give her and then she recycles it to supplement her income.

We cleaned out half a shed one time, gave this person a lot of really good stuff there was no room for and a lot of it hadn't seen the light of day in ten years or more.

I'd rather donate to someone than throw out...

Been down and out before, but this is very good.
Great stuff.

I can tell because almost everything is organic.

My advice is bring your video camera phone: they are less likely to rough you up if THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING.

Start making a stink and they will lock down the food and a lot of people will lose access.

Sometimes it is best when one or both parties look the other way.

Local laws vary. Know them. No one here is suggesting that we break the law.

I break stupid laws all the time. Nothing that puts me or anyone else in danger, but some laws....

Point being, recommending law breaking is against DU rules.

MAYBE. Not a good policy in any case. Yet, I know people talk about civil disobedience. Just trying to preserve our discourse.

on the one hand, you may be breaking some local city ORDINANCE, on the other hand, you and your family go hungry. Hmmmm . . . what should I choose?

for eating out of the dumpster. Just be prepared. That's all I'm saying.

eyeroll is really unnecessary.

Personally, I'd be at every City Hall meeting challenging this AND organizing formal protests. You? (Yes, eyeroll was extremely necessary for all too obvious reasons.)

you'd have to go to DC, then. When protesters were outside her home, Madam Speaker remarked it was too bad they weren't homeless. If that were the case she could call the cops and have them arrested. But, the city manager will take care of it right away, pronto.
Yes, Ms. Speaker!

My Inbox is full of messages from people who posted hateful stuff in haste and now regret it.
I'm not the enemy here. Catch up!

No one says you're the enemy, that was your deduction. All I'm saying is that people need to do what they need to do to keep eating and keep their family eating. To suggest that people should go hungry because they fear the big bad police is just not the message we should be sending. If anything we should be getting these ordinances off the books. Capiche?

I personally recommend eating. If you do get arrested, at least they'll give you an orange or something at the jailhouse.

If Bush were still in office, we could expect Marines surrounding the distribution center dumpsters.
Believe it?

All the Las Vegas city council is worried about is how to extort "donations" from developers. There's a reason it ranks in the top 5 of meanest cities to live in the U.S., besides thinking of new ways to give the homeless the bums' rush.

If you want to dumpster dive in Las Vegas, you HAVE to stay away from downtown and the ghetto parts of North Las Vegas. Too many Metro units on patrol for homeless people to victimize. Now if you go to one of the big strip malls, say the Wal-Mart at Rainbow and Cheyenne, you can collect enough out of the dumpsters there to open your own second-hand store.

Wrong time of year, but I wanted to mention this.

There is always a certain amount of produce left in the field. You don't have to sneak, just ask. Most farmers will let you glean. I got about 50 bushels of perfectly good fruit (often better because it has been hanging longer) to help myself and other struggling folks here last fall.

"Gleaning" is leaving some crop behind and allowing poor people access, and even the Bible mentions gleaning several times and says that farmers should always leave some for the poor and give them access to it, so there is a long tradition.

Forgot to mention seconds. I have worked in orchards for years, and I never ate a good looking piece of fruit in my life - none of the help does. The fruit gets sorted for appearance, and there is nothing wrong with the ugly fruit except that people won't buy it. There are often a lot of "sort outs" - actually "sort outs" is the better terminology to use with farmers than "seconds." I have known many farmers who will not let anyone in the county go hungry. They don't advertise that, because then people who are not really needy will show up in fancy cars all bejeweled and perfumed and bargain hunt, and then complain because the sort outs don't look good - I kid you not.

What you need to remember is that sort outs are not kept around, so they aren't available on demand or out of season. Keep aware of the season and harvest schedule, and watch for when sorting operations are going on. Or a polite call "are there any sorts out right now?" Remember that harvest time is hectic, and the work is hard and no one makes much money there and fruit is available in season, nit like in the grocery store, Don't demand cherries in November, for example.

Also, pick your own berries is happening more and more. Fruit and berries are a really good thing to seek out and work into your diet and need not cost a fortune. Wild fruit is out there, too. Blackberries and wild strawberries are safe. wild apples can be a flavor adventure, but are certainly safe and edible. Primitive man lived on this.

I have some photos I will post of some of the fruit I found left behind this past season.

But fruits are easy to identify and are safe.

I live in an area where blackberry bushes are considered invasive weeds but come the end of August I'm out there gathering, gathering, gathering. We eat blackberries throughout the winter. Weird thing is, I get funny looks while I'm picking, like that's not what one should do with pickable fruit. I give them odd looks back because why aren't they standing right beside me harvesting the sweetest fruit ever?

Nothing better, and they are everywhere.

There is a growing urban farming movement, and almost every urban area has orchards fairly close in - even LA, an hour or so out.

I made amazing peach fruit roll-ups for next to nothing last year. The sellers were thrilled to give the fruit to me. They got a few extra bucks and didn't have to see it go to waste. There were a ton of dehydrator threads in the gardening forum last summer if anyone is interested.

The Gleaners.
My g'ma had a copy in her home, which is how I know it.

Stinging nettles grow almost anywhere, and once cooked they no longer sting and are as healthy as spinach or more. They're basically weeds, so growing them is very easy. A field of nettles outside your windows can also serve as a security measure against break-ins.

and are an excellent tonic for stress!

Steamed, they are BETTER than spinach.

http://www.veggiegardeningtips.com/surprising-lambs-qua... /

for tea and soap. Nettle tea is one of my faves, and a Brit tradition for centuries. When i was travelling there (hitching and field camping) we even used it for shampoo. We would pluck a bunch of leaves, carefully of course, and wrap them in a washcloth with one drop of Dr Bronners on it. Squish abit in the cold stream nearby, it actually lathers a little. Of course, bathing in streams for months at a time can be tiresome. My head grew dreads as a reaction.

Lotsa good "weeds" out there...

I never knew that! And here I've been avoiding them all my life because they, well, sting! So when you say cooked, do you mean steamed (what I usually do with my greens) or boiled? Thanks SO MUCH for this information. Stinging nettles are everywhere in the foothills around here.