Philosophical Vegan Forum

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Freeganism - Activism - In Summary

Actions you can take as an individual or group:

• Buy vegan food from relatively cheap, efficient and ecological local food schemes.
• Buy vegan food staples with long shelf longevity and rare plant foods for your own impact and also to make it more efficient to produce, therefore cheaper for others.
• Buy vegan food reaching peak ripeness that has been over-stocked and you’re sure you can plan to use it in a meal that day or the next.
• Buy/sell second hand, recycled or ecological supporting items. Plus give away/collect items for free to friends and on sites like freecycle, freeshops or really free markets.
• Forage and glean food on public paths or where there will be no perceptible difference to farmers (keep in mind safety advice in the section on foraging).
• Compost or feed to animals the organic waste you can’t avoid and build a compost toilet.
• For the adventurous, go dumpster diving, table surf or prepare roadkill (keep in mind the safety advice in each section).

Ways to get organized:

• Advocate to family, friends and acquaintances in your day to day and online. Watch street advocacy and epistemology videos for tips and tricks.
• Help organize a food not bombs stall for serving free delicious freegan food in public squares, gives a strong statement while inoffensively feeding food to the hungry, making for a perfect opportunity to advocate to the public.
• Take direct action that directly prevents animal cruelty like hunt sabbing, that at least gives the larger public a clear image of what we want to move away from and is a bonding experience for activists.
• Help organize a housing or workers co-op like a social centre, hotel, shop or gym with ecological commitments and incentives for people to be vegan or freegan.
• Petition/run for your local school board, council or party representative to fund and legislate to help remedy all these environmental issues.
• Help organize a veg box or field to street local food distribution network.
• Help organize/donate/fundraise to restore shrub land for use again e.g. overgrown apple orchards and hazel coppices. As well as manage land to encourage edible plants, reintroduce animal species and maintain diverse forests that would encourage tourism and local artisan industry.
• Talk to food sellers to put aside food they would otherwise throw away for yourself and others to collect on bin day.
• Map foraging and gleaning locations, plus organize events to go out and for example help each other shake apple trees and catch in nets.
• Guerrilla garden public spaces and abandon plots of land.
• Petition shops to use better stocking and shelving practices.
• Petition farmers to sow seeds once a year, but not to till or spray pesticide at the edge of their fields, to allow wildlife corridors in hedgerows. Build a relationship by organizing with the farmer to glean fields that could not be sold that year or paying for the right to pick grown or wild food at the edges of the field by hand.
• Petition/donate/fundraise for land to be opened up for allotment clubs.
• Document your experiences and create video, podcasts, articles, artwork, zines & books. Reach out to larger media outlets and/or have a way you can be contacted that's searchable online.

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NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2019 7:06 pm • Forage and glean food on public paths or where there will be no perceptible difference to farmers (keep in mind safety advice in the section on foraging).

Wait, stealing? That doesn't sound right.

Even if the farmer doesn't notice, there could be a statistical negative effect. Same issue as here:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4699&p=42330#p42307

That said, there are areas of a farm that are not practical to harvest, usually near the road or on a slope if some seed has spilled there. I think you'd have to really be in the know, though, to be able to figure out what is and isn't stealing from the farmer in practice.

Is Table surfing a thing? Seems gross and off-putting.

I like the section on reducing household waste. I’ve made an effort to properly store & repurpose produce that spoils fast. My mother loves to buy bunches of bananas that sit in the kitchen for days (sometimes weeks).

I’ve taken to freezing and stashing her leftover fruit for smoothies.

@NonZeroSum What do you think of this?
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/1/18 ... its-market

Table Surfing is another great thing to mention, and very accessible for people who aren't turned off by it.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 5:14 am

NonZeroSum wrote: ↑Tue Mar 05, 2019 7:06 pm • Forage and glean food on public paths or where there will be no perceptible difference to farmers (keep in mind safety advice in the section on foraging).

Wait, stealing? That doesn't sound right.

Gleaning refers to taking the leftover food after the harvest like corn cobs that didn't get picked up by the tractor. The no perceptible difference part was meant to mean don't cut a big muddy trail on and off someone's farm that they won't take kindly to, like tread lightly and yea don't be seen, or ask beforehand. Probably a civil offence in most places, so can take it off the wiki if you want, in France I think it's legal.

Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 10:22 pm Is Table surfing a thing? Seems gross and off-putting.

Aye, I kind of ordered the list to leave least practical and most squeamish towards the end aha. It's mostly a survival tactic for runaways and the homeless, but think for example a bunch of only a quarter eaten popcorn boxes left behind at the end of a film, you can pour out some of the top ones and you've got a bunch of untouched half boxes of popcorn.

What do you think of this?
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/1/18 ... its-market

Looks good, definitely people need to not avoid the ugly veg on the shelf for staff to have to throw it out later. Veg box schemes for ugly veg also sounds great. Some supermarkets have sections for 1st and 2nd class veg, so if you just want apples to cook with you can buy the cheaper ones with apple scabs that you're going to cut off anyway.

Ah, you meant forage/glean respectively. Don't need to remove, but maybe clarify and mention caution about legality.

The ugly fruit/veg box thing is kind of a myth. From the farm those typically get canned. BUT buying uglier ones at the store cold be beneficial to reducing waste, and buying loose bananas.

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Sat Mar 16, 2019 5:09 am The ugly fruit/veg box thing is kind of a myth. From the farm those typically get canned.

Not sure what you mean there.

Misfits Market drives directly to small farms to collect and sell that produce at a discount price. It’s perfectly healthy food that would otherwise be trashed. Better yet, they target small commercial farms who lack the infrastructure to donate their waste to food banks.

My only concern is the impact of carbon emissions in transporting produce from remote farms to people living in cities. But trashed food also emits GHG's so....

Edit: Did you mean "canned" as in diced up and jammed into steel cylinders? Or canned as in tossed out?

Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:21 am Misfits Market drives directly to small farms to collect and sell that produce at a discount price. It’s perfectly healthy food that would otherwise be trashed.

The idea that it would otherwise just be trashed is dubious.

Lay Vegan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 1:21 amEdit: Did you mean "canned" as in diced up and jammed into steel cylinders? Or canned as in tossed out?

The former.
Ugly fruit becomes jam. Ugly veggies become soup and stuff.

I can all but guarantee you that the carrots and celery in your veggie bouillon weren't all that pretty or well formed before they were processed.