This is me dumpster diving to find food for tomorrow's dinner.
Look what I found!
This is a beautiful strawberry.
Why would someone throw this away?
And this is my face after finding some unexpired steak in the trash.
Why am I doing this?
Because we in America have a crisis:
We throw out way too much perfectly good food.
This is like a pristine cookie.
Forty percent of all food in the U.S. goes to waste. That's 400 pounds of wasted food per American per year.
And this is fully edible food we're talking about.
Wowww.
In developing countries, most food waste happens either on the farm or before the
food even makes it to the supermarket. In the U.S., it's a different story.
Not only do supermarkets and restaurants waste a ton of food,
but consumers like you and me waste a lot more.
We're actually the single biggest source of that waste.
Hi, my name's Yara. And I'm also part of the problem.
I buy a lot of groceries and sometimes I just don't eat them all in time.
You know, life just kinda gets in the way.
But here's what's really messed up.
While we waste all of this food,
one in eight Americans is going hungry. That's over 41 million people.
So all this got me thinking: why do we waste so much perfectly good food?
How can we rescue it for those of us who don't have much to eat?
And what can you and I do to cut back on waste in our own homes?
To fully grasp just how much food we actually waste ...
Hi Janet! This is Yara.
I tracked down a group of expert dumpster divers ...
I see them. They're right there.
... who live off what they find in the garbage
Wait, oh my God, I think we found them.
So I joined them to go rummaging through New York City's trash.
They call themselves "freegans,"
And their lifestyle philosophy of "freegan-ism" is completely opposed to what they call ...
This wasteful, destructive, violent, unsustainable ...
That supposes that we have infinite resources when the opposite is clearly true.
That's Janet.
She's one of their organizers.
The main feature of "freeganism" is to encourage people to buy as little as possible ...
and instead rely on salvaging, scavenging and foraging through the trash
to find what you need while cutting down on waste
– which is what we did.
We've found a pile of trash.
The amount of perfectly edible food we found was unbelievable, especially baked goods.
This is my favorite health loaf.
From bagel shops ...
It's not a goldmine, it's a typical night.
cafes ...
Whoa, this is a scone.
And purveyors of expensive cookies.
It tastes really good.
Yeah!
Bread doesn't go bad on the same day that it's baked, but places that bake goods throw them all out
because people don't want yesterday's bread.
Everywhere we looked.
Oh my God it's kale!
This was a fruit salad.
There were mountains of food ...
Remember, they were in the store just an hour ago.
... upon mountains of food.
And they're best before November 2020.
And even unopened toiletries.
Toilet paper never expires!
I am blown away by how much food we just recovered.
Before I was actually working, I survived off of it quite easily – that and food stamps.
But nothing prepared me for what I'd find right outside a local grocery store.
Across the street is our supermarket.
There was cheese,
onions,
kale,
lettuce,
watermelon
and the steak and strawberries you saw earlier.
But was it all safe to eat?
I mean, most of it was, but that's not to say dumpster diving doesn't carry any risks.
You can get sick from bad food or hurt yourself if you're not careful.
Last week I did something and I cut myself.
Certain foods like eggs, dairy, and meat are riskier to eat, especially if they haven't been refrigerated.
I'm thinking of actually maybe eating this sushi.
I'm having doubts about eating this sushi.
But a lot of what we did was pretty controlled.
We dropped by businesses that freegans had scouted out before,
shortly after fresh food was thrown out in batches.
We made sure things weren't contaminated, rotten, or a half-eaten.
We wore gloves if we had to,
and took care of the food we recovered.
And, we just used common sense.
I've been diving [for] food for five years, and I've never gotten sick.
You just have to be very practical. Take the food home, look at it under good light,
smell it, taste a little bit, feel it, wash it, cook it if you have any doubts. You can't go wrong.
But what shocked me the most about our supermarket discoveries was the amount of
completely unexpired packaged food we found.
That's not even expired.
It's not expired.
Wait, it's not even expired.
So things don't only get thrown out because they're expired.
They get thrown out because of the ridiculous rate at which
we have to keep stocking our shelves.
Altogether, supermarkets are responsible for over 10 percent of all food that goes to waste in the U.S.
And Janet's right. Overstocking store shelves has a lot to do with it
supermarkets think projecting an image of abundance helps increase sales.
And large case sizes for produce means some stores are forced to order more than they can actually sell.
Stores also pull products off the shelves earlier than their sell-by dates,
worried that customers won't buy them.
And sometimes, they just dump produce that isn't pretty enough.
Compare this to France, which in 2016 made it illegal for supermarkets to throw away food they haven't sold,
meaning they have to donate it to charities.
They couldn't give this to someone who doesn't have something to eat?
Well, they could if they lived in a system where compassion was the feature of our economy.
There are people who are malnourished and there is perfectly good kale right on the curb.
It doesn't make sense to say that we are a caring society and we're doing that.
Dumpster diving was more shocking than I thought it would be. It wasn't that I was finding rotten meat
and moldy vegetables. I was finding perfectly good unexpired food that
supermarkets, bakeries, cafes and restaurants were throwing away in
massive quantities at a time when many can't afford to feed themselves.
Janet had invited us over to cook a meal with all the food we recovered.
I'm excited for you to visit.
But before we did that, there was something else I wanted to know:
is there a way to save this food from making it to the trash in the first place
and instead feed it to those who don't have enough to eat?
We're heading over to a place called
These folks pick up food from a bunch of different places around the city ...
Food that isn't eaten, that's gonna be thrown out.
They reclaim it and then
And Robert Lee
runs the whole operation ...
Wanna wave and smile?
... which is also known as RLC
So we grabbed one of their signature carts ...
... joined forces with another RLC staffer ...
And set out to stop food from getting anywhere near a dumpster.
Ok, so first we went to a start-up.
Can we see what's in it?
And then we went to a school.
We're picking up food that was packed by first graders.
Let's make sure they're all closed properly.
Look at all this food we have.
And then ... we dropped everything off at a homeless shelter.
It's empty.
What's cool about RLC is that anyone can sign up online to rescue food whenever they have free time.
Can you guys say hi for the camera?
Hello!
Robert, you've created change!
Yeah!
Here's the thing with rescuing food: pickups and drop-offs have to be really fast.
because bacteria multiplies rapidly at certain temperatures.
Any potentially hazardous food can't be left out in a temperature danger zone,
which is 40 degrees to 140 degrees, for more than two hours.
Every food business, every cafeteria like we were just in, can be donating their excess food
instead of throwing it away.
Now, it's true. A lot of businesses won't donate food because they're afraid
of getting sued if someone gets sick. But that fear is sort of misplaced.
There are actually laws in the U.S. that fully protect businesses that donate food to
the needy, so long as the food is donated "in good faith."
And, there's no public record of anyone ever being sued for donating food.
And there's a personal story here?
Yeah, definitely. My parents were immigrants here
and they struggled. My brother and I remember times when ...
... we would not know where our next meal was coming from.
It's heartbreaking to see your parents just skip meals ...
They would skip meals?
Just watch us eat, basically.
Wow.
But we weren't done rescuing food yet. There was one final pickup spot we had to check off.
Where are we going now?
We are going to the Stephen Colbert studio to pick up their excess food.
Have you met Stephen Colbert before?
I have not.
You have not.
But hopefully one day.
We're actually gonna go in through an entrance on the side.
That's Margarita!
Can I ask you – where's the food from?
We get catering for the staff every Thursday.
So this is what we got left!
Thank you!
Alright, yeah – no, thank you guys for taking it all.
That's Stephen Colbert ...
... on a screen, of course, much like he would be at your home.
From there, we set out to take it all to one final drop-off location.
If you take just one third of the food that's being wasted right now
and brought it to the people who are food insecure
we could eliminate hunger. We literally produce enough food in this country to feed everyone.
We just need to get it to the right people.
So far, RLC has rescued over two million pounds of food, enough for 1.7 million meals.
But who are the actual recipients of this food? I wanted to meet them.
Margarita guided us to a shelter for men run by the Community Church of New York.
Yes. Yes.
All this time I've been holding the camera it strengthened my arms.
That's where we met Bruce.
I'm Yara. Hi, I'm Bruce.
He's a volunteer with the shelter.
So we unloaded the food we brought for them.
This is from Stephen Colbert's studio.
Oh, ok.
Spinach is our friend.
Stack bread in a refrigerator. I know that will be breathlessly entertaining for your viewers.
You come here, we give you food, we give you an opportunity to clean yourself up literally.
You can watch some TV, you can get some sleep.
People eventually started to trickle in,
but no one was willing to talk to us unless we agreed to blur their faces.
I've seen cases of people who ask for a plate of food or something to eat
when a store – when a restaurant – was closing
and the manager will tell them to go
to get out of here, we don't have anything for you.
and then you'll watch them come out through the back door
throwing, just, garbage, throwing bags and bags of food away.
This is what businesses are doing in New York City. They are wasting tons and tons of food.
I have two jobs, and working two jobs still doesn't add up to the amount to survive in here.
How would I be able to get groceries, how would I be able to feed myself?
I can't understand how the richest country in the world, would have people starving and living on the street.
When we see food thrown out by supermarkets or when we throw it away ourselves
so thoughtlessly, we forget that it can actually change someone's life.
People who don't have anything to eat, much less a place to sleep.
According to the EPA, donating extra food to feed hungry people is the second most
effective way of reducing food waste.
But what's even more effective?
Preventing the food from becoming waste ourselves.
So what can you and I do to cut down on waste?
The amount of food that we waste in our homes is
That's Margaret Brown.
A family of four throws out about $1500 a year worth of food.
She works for the National Resources Defense Council, which is basically one of the biggest
environmental advocacy groups out there.
So we are the single largest contributor
to food waste here in the U.S., more than restaurants and grocery stores combined
And why is that? Well, one major reason is we just don't seem to know when our food goes bad.
As many as 90% of Americans have thrown away perfectly good food
because we misinterpret the date labels on that food.
A lot of times, we find something with an expired date, and then we just throw it out.
Those dates are not regulated on almost any product except a baby formula.
Just to reiterate, there are basically no federal standards on food expiration dates in the U.S.
meaning, for the most part, companies decide when food is best on their own.
So we recommend that you just use your nose and your eyes ...
... to see how it looks and that's usually your best bet.
Can we do that, I guess, in your kitchen? Let's go through and see some of these dates ...
I've never seen honey go bad.
– Honey never goes bad, ever. Like, thousands of years.
One that I think is really misunderstood is yogurt. If yogurt is kept in your refrigerator,
you could be well past your expiration date and still be fine.
With milk, I just smell it. If it smells a little off, you can use it to make pancakes.
Eggs will stay good much longer than your expiration date
and there's a very easy way to test it. – Can we do that?
Yeah.
If it's at the bottom, that means it's perfectly safe? –Yeah, absolutely.
My freezer is my biggest food waste avoidance tool.
So we actually keep almost all of our bread in the freezer.
Yeah, my grandma also puts bread in the freezer.
If you're okay with toast, then you're all set.
If I couldn't eat that right away, I would wash them, I'd probably take the tops off
and I'd just freeze them.
Keep a couple things that you can make with
whatever leftovers you have. So these I use to make quiches with like older eggs,
whatever vegetables I have.
This cream cheese is gonna look pretty bad.
You know who does not care about that?
Sit, bud.
I guess dogs aren't lactose intolerant – that's good.
And the most important tip of all?
I would smell it, and I would look at it and see if there's anything growing on it,
And then I would probably taste one bean. And then I'd say it's pretty good.
Alright, back to the freegans.
Hey!
We all got together at Janet's house to cook up all the food we recovered the night before.
Good to see you again.
Good to see you.
May I put my shoes over here?
Everything we're cooking with tonight, right, is ...
Yeah, everything is salvaged.
Cool, I'm ready to help you in any way I can.
That doesn't look so good.
So what is in this again?
Papaya, kale ...
As we drank smoothies made with the fruit we found and froze the night before
and ate a fully vegan meal made with ingredients straight from the trash,
it was hard not to think about how this perfectly good, perfectly edible food
almost ended up in a landfill. Now, I'm not trying to say everybody should just
go and live off what they find in the garbage. But I do think we can all be a
little more mindful about what we buy and what we throw away.
These potatoes are old, but they're still good.
I am freezing this bread.
Not just in our homes, but in our restaurants, businesses and supermarkets.
Because rescuing perfectly good food from ever making it to the trash won't just reduce waste,
it could also help feed our fellow humans.
Hey guys, thanks for watching!
Ok, two quick notes: if you ever hear about anyone who's afraid to donate food in the US,
make sure to tell them about the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act,
which protects food donations to those in need. Also, we never got to discussing the
environmental impact of food waste in this piece or generally food waste
around the world. Let us know if you'd like us to cover those topics in another video.
As always, like, comment, share subscribe – all the things –
if you want more videos like this.
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