The life of a gross food columnist is not always peachy. Every time I think I’ve found something gross, it ends up being delicious. The sense of failure, really, is unbearable. Well, this week I got serious. I literally (as in actually) ate Toronto garbage. Garbage, for God’s sake. And the stupidest part about it is that I enjoyed it. I feasted on it. Relished it.
This past weekend, I had a nighttime picnic with two new friends. We gorged on some of the tastiest baked goods in the city, sampling all manners of delicately layered pastries and cream-filled desserts. All of it was fresh. Our “mmms” were loud and frequent. We could have spent well over $100 on that stuff, but we spent nothing, because it all came from the garbage.
This wasn’t really garbage though. I mean, OK, we did take it from a green bin on the sidewalk. But we had loitered near the bakery for about an hour before it closed, and we watched the staff take unsold goods, place it into bags and set it outside. The food was simply moved from one spot to another. Not eating it would have been silly.
Dumpster desserts
My fellow picnickers were Dorian Douma — dumpster diver extraordinaire — and a friend of his who is “new to the scavenging scene in Toronto.” Douma is currently unemployed, but he’s a web designer by trade. His friend is a PhD student living off of $15,000 for the next year. We were all grateful for our free picnic, and we had scored way more food than we could have eaten in one sitting (I saved some for breakfast).
In between bites, Douma observed that this particular bakery is very responsible with its garbage. He would know, since he has spent the last year as a salvager, becoming well acquainted with Toronto’s waste. It turns out that many businesses across the city throw out near-pristine food for various reasons. The trick is finding the places that don’t wreck it all by throwing it out carelessly.
Earlier that day, I had been online trying to find a Toronto “freegan,” which is a simplistic but convenient label for those who philosophically support the idea of salvaging food from other people’s garbage. With help from Reddit, I came across Toronto’s chapter of Food Not Bombs, an organization that feeds people for free. On the group’s Facebook page I saw that Douma had led several food-salvaging missions, the bounty of which he shared with others. I knew right away that this was the guy I needed to speak to.
Douma was happy to take me scavenging with him. My first impressions of him were that he was polite, intelligent and articulate. He doesn’t self-identify as a freegan, but he is one. For him, scavenging is equal parts philosophy and necessity: he probably wouldn’t do it if he didn’t need to, but he also wouldn’t do it if he wasn’t actively against wastefulness.
I went on two food-scavenging adventures with him. The first was at the aforementioned Toronto bakery (Douma requested that I refrain from specifically naming any of the establishments we visited). We also went to Kensington Market, which on garbage day is an absolute treasure trove for freegans.
Edible produce in a Kensington Market green bin
Dumpster diving in Kensington was certainly more rustic than doing it at the bakery. Some of it required serious digging through garbage, and some of our finds were indeed gross, such as slimy beef patties and rock-hard pastries. But our bounty was plentiful, and much of it was good.
Our first round through the market yielded seven Trini doubles, three bags of banana bread and a carton of slightly overripe Ontario blue grapes, which were delicious. We brought our dinner to the perpetually strange Bellevue Square Park on Augusta, where curious denizens crowded around within minutes. Douma had no problem sharing the food. We sat down, the whole scraggly hodgepodge of us, and ate for free.
“Why would anyone throw these out?” someone indulging in the doubles asked, mystified.
Trini doubles from the trash
Our second pass through the market yielded some slightly blemished but easily edible produce from various green bins, including spaghetti squash, rutabaga and zucchini. Other bins offered oranges, mango, cabbage and kale. There was edible bread up the wazoo. All told, there was enough food to feed many people. The wastefulness of it all was overwhelming.
As we wandered around the market peering into bins, I was curious about how the cops would feel about what we were doing, because you never know. So I got in touch with Wendy Drummond, a media relations officer with the Toronto police.
“Only for malicious purposes is it a problem,” she says, referring to identity theft and that sort of thing. “If you’re scavenging for food, not so much.”
So, yeah, dumpster diving is just generally pretty awesome. Nobody loses. Everyone wins. How often does that happen? And when society finally collapses, having a little scavenging experience will probably come in handy.
Conclusion: the grossest thing about Toronto’s garbage is the sheer quantity of good food that goes to waste.
Jon Sufrin is the editor of PostCity.com. For his column, Eating Gross Things, he eats things that are widely considered to be gross and writes about it. He has no scientific method to determine what “gross” means. The article is just meant to be fun, so relax. For more of his thoughts on stuff, gross and not, follow him on Twitter. If you would like to suggest a gross food item for him to try, email him at jonsufrin@postcity.com.
