the thing is there is no need to go diggin through dumpsters. my dad is a proudce manager and he has a big box of bruised/semi rotten fruit that he keeps inthe store until the end of the day and if someone asks for it they get it, if not then it goes to garbage. he doesn't throw alot of it out, someone almost always wants it. the other departments in the store would do the same thing if someone asked them for the stuff. digging through the dumpsters isn't really neccessary or sanitary.

I guess I am a little prejudice. Almost 10 years ago, I spent a winter in Santa Rosa, CA where my husband ran a store at the Santa Rosa Plaza. We spent a lot of time at the Plaze and in the food court (where I still am probably packing around the 10 pounds that I gained that winter). And at that time there were a group of younger people (some teens, some adults) and it was a pretty large size group of people, that would hang around the food court and wait until someone finished whatever they were eating and if that person left their plate on the table, this group of people would move in on it. There were even a few that were bold enough to go through the trash cans. It was disgusting and the mall security soon removed these people from the mall but it left quite the impression on my mind.

Maybe that was the only way those people could eat. My understanding is that freegans don't eat food that has been eaten by others. They take things like the produce that isn't perfect that gets thrown out, bakery breads that get thrown out at the end of the day, packaged food that gets thrown out for whatever reason, etc.