For lunch in her modest apartment, Madeline Nelson tossed a salad made with shaved carrots and lettuce she dug out of a Whole Foods dumpster.
She flavored the dressing with miso powder she found in a trash bag on a curb in Chinatown. She baked bread made with yeast plucked from the garbage of a Middle Eastern grocery.
Nelson, 51, is a former corporate executive who can afford to dine at upscale restaurants. But she prefers turning garbage into gourmet meals without spending a cent.
On this afternoon, she thawed a slab of pate that she found three days before its expiration date in a trash bin outside a health food store. She made buttery chicken soup from another health food store’s hot buffet leftovers, which she salvaged before they were tossed into the garbage.
Nelson once earned a six-figure income as director of communications at Barnes and Noble. Tired of representing a multimillion-dollar company, she quit in 2005 and became a “freegan” — the word combining “vegan” and “free.” It is a growing subculture of people who have reduced their spending habits and live off consumer waste.
Although many of its pioneers are vegans, people who neither eat nor use any animal-based products, the concept has caught on with Nelson and other meat-eaters who do not want to depend on businesses that they think waste resources, harm the environment or allow unfair labor practices.
“We’re doing something that is really socially unacceptable,” Nelson said. “Not everyone is going to do it, but we hope it leads people to push their own limits and quit spending.”
"Mom, what's for dinner?"
"Don't know yet, hon. I'll have to see what the Joneses tossed out."
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