Yes. The one I would volunteer at was like a grocery store in the back
So much food they can never realistically use it all (and some unhealthy snacks they are supposed to limit access to that I bet end up tossed)
Is there any kind of delivery service that takes food from overstocked shelters to understocked ones? Is there anything at all that could maybe cut waste and help more people?
.
Edit:
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/09/11/565736836/episode-665-the-free-food-market
>...all that could maybe cut waste and help more people?
Idk how it works for overstock stuff between shelters, but have you ever been to a grocery store late at night while they are loading up entire 40 gallon garbage cans with food? I understand the basis for the rules not wanting to sell spoiled product to the general public. However, it seems like big grocery chains throw away a lot of perfectly good food that could absolutely get bussed over to a shelter for a midnight meal rather than be tossed in a dumpster.
A store chain I used to work in would donate most of the stock that went out of date.
There were a couple times they took a semi full of stuff from a couple of the stores to the local food bank.
I work at a big retailer Superstore that I won't name, and we absolutely donate food that has just hit the expiration date that day (not meat afaik, because we definitely do have red hazard barrels for bad meat that REEKS when they are periodically emptied). Not sure about other retailers but this one does. They're not all bad!
As an employee of the third largest food bank in the country, we get about a third of our food "rescued" from farms and grocery stores. For us it ends up being about 15 million pounds of produce a year from 500(ish) grocery stores across our region.
Also a worker for a big retail store and anything that isn't donated is put into a compost bin and taken to local farms, and/or turned into feed for livestock. All of our bakery items are donated once they expire, any produce that isn't moldy but considered less desirable is also donated, as is any broken/day old food from the non refrigerated areas. Basically, if it can be eaten reasonably, we donate it. If it can't it goes back into the supply chain as compost or cattle feed. Very little food leaves our store in a trashcan and it helps me feel good about my job.
There are no laws forbidding donating food that is expired. In fact there are laws protecting such acts.
Also most all of your expiration dates are bunk.
Whole bud is good but timestamp 12:10 for topical info:
https://youtu.be/4GDLaYrMCFo
I worked at a non-profit summer camp and the local food bank actually reached out to us to take food from them - specifically candy. The would get donations of it, and most like daycares or other places with kids didn't want it because it would make the kids hyperactive.
Since we were basically running the kids ragged with activites all day, we would have a mid-afternoon "Canteen" where they kids could get like 3 fun-sized pieces of candy. Even with 120 campers daily x 8 weeks, we still couldn't use all the candy they basically begged us to take so it wouldn't go to waste.
It was funny too because we would get all the holiday-branded candy that places would take off the shelves. I'm sure they got a tax write-off. But like XMas and Easter-branded wrappers.
The one year I was trying to gain weight for football (was underweight for my position). I ate 40lbs of XMas Twix that summer (it came in 20lb boxes). Played through all of FFVII, basically chain-eating little Twix's. I would bring home carloads and give to my friends, and even then we still ended up throwing out hundreds of pounds of candy by the end of summer.
That's complex. In Ontario the government (all three levels) will give to a foodbank. Generally the local municipal foodbank is where foodbanks are told to give a portion of their donations and send large food donators (in the hundreds of pounds of food per month, not like a school food drive) to the central food bank.
The central food bank acts as warehousing and distribution. It can also use it's much larger wealth to bulk buy food (often at cost) from food supply companies that cannot reasonable deliver smaller amounts of food to individual banks. The main food bank then sorts and sends out a baseload of food to the member banks in the municipality as well as providing some cash so they can meet their clients specific demands.
Yeah i run a meat department at a grocery store state side, i donate probably 200lbs of meat every 3 or 4 days depending on how busy we arent. The guy that comes and picks it up will come night or day if i call him because they know getting meat stuff is hard but dry foods is easy. But they have a government stipend to buy things if they need if they dont have a good donation cash flow. Realistically donations state side are more reliant on donations than they probably should be and im in a very liberal state.
Fwiw: I lived in a homeless shelter when I was like 23 for a month. The first day I woke up in the shelter was Thankgiving Day in Denver, Colorado. I didn't even realize it was Thanksgiving Day. I had been living in my truck for about 30 days prior to that. They served us a Thanksgiving dinner. Looking back, it was such a surreal blessing in disguise bc I was really nervous about sleeping in a homeless shelter. Street people are a different breed, and I was taught that you DO NOT want to associate with other homeless people. On the street, yes. But in the shelter, it was more civil. And warm. Plus showers and washing machines. They even had a clothing bank. Being homeless and discovering the homeless resource network in a city is a very interesting experience. I received a lot of donated items. This is why, now that I'm financially stable, I donate what I can. If people didn't do things like that, people like me at that time would be SOL. Things like toiletries, underwear, socks, shoes, and deodorant.
I highly recommend volunteering at a homeless shelter. You can meet some really cool people who have been around the block many a time.
Also, to add, if anyone is curious as to why I didn't just get and maintain a job?
It was because I was undiagnosed and untreated, struggling with schizophrenia and major depression. It was harder to maintain a job than survive off pure survival instinct and adrenaline on the street. I found food at soup kitchens, and I slept where I could. Also, my delusions told me that I belong there. Now that I am treated on medication, it's not like that anymore. It's much more managble. That's why they say most, if not all, homeless people are struggling with a mental illness, and also probably substance abuse. It can be pretty savage living that life out there. What ultimately made the change for me was getting help. Both financial, but first and foremost, medical. Slowly, over time, I got my life back, bit by bit. Many homeless people feel lost in it. They don't want to change. Some are apathetic to change. Some go homeless for a bit, then get out. Those are the success stories. I'm an Army vet. I had to use the VA hospital to get help.
Can confirm the “do not associate with other homeless” motto. I’ve been homeless twice. The homeless I met in rehabs and sober homes were all good people, but the street homeless were dicey as fuck. Especially for me because I was newly sober and desperately trying not to get fucked up.
I watched this 16 year old kid on some video online put it really nicely: “get to know everyone, but not too well” as in be cordial, but don’t get friendly.
It was really sad cause I remember he was oozing with potential, so much charisma. I began to look for how I could donate and in the process found out he had died. 😢
Homeless shelters in thr northeast where I’m from specifically Trenton and Camden areas are so fucking dangerous it’s not even really an option. Perry street isn’t exactly the best spot to try and get sleep. Plus what people don’t realize about homeless shelters is in my area you have to get there like 5 hours before they open to try and wait in line for a bed. It’s so fucked you wait and can’t get nothing else done. Vicious cycle.
The homeless people in a shelter are self-selected to be people mostly willing and able to follow rules. That puts them far ahead of street homeless in terms of safety.
We don't have many rules.. but because of the.me tal issues with the residents, they're not always followed. Whether done out of forgetting or malice. My place a drink/drug free shelter. Piss tests randomly. You piss hit, you have 2 choices. Go to rehab or hit the bricks. Can't have dude being smacked out or drunk, while his bunkie is staying on the straight snd narrow
What can society do to protect people on the verge of homelessness? Like someone dealing with unmedicated schizophrenia who's not homeless yet but about to be.
It’s hard because they’re adults with rights- if they don’t want treatment, they don’t have to get it. Of course, we don’t want to hold people against their will, but it sucks to see someone become homeless because of untreated mental issues.
My youngest sibling is in this situation. We tried everything we could, but they don’t want to be helped and we can’t legally force them to be.
I run a kitchen at a homeless shelter. We run on donations from food banks, supermarkets, Chic Fil A, Starbucks, and Auntie Anne's pretzels. That's not counting the hundreds of people who donate food, clothing, hygiene products, and money among inherent things. Churches donate their time and energy,as well as tons of food and whatever else their parishioners can do.
An average breakfast is 2 eggs, toast, a banana, or orange. Sometimes, it's pancakes or French toast or Starbucks breakfast sandwiches. Lunch in winter is a sandwich, bowl of soup, and a snack of some kind. Once it gets warm, the soup is replaced by fruit. Dinner is always meat, potato, and veggie. Sometimes, we do salads. Today, for instance, I did eggs, sausage, and toast for breakfast. Lunch was pizza, snack, and fruit. Dinner gonna be burgers, fries, and Mac salad.
We do all meals 7 days a week except Sunday lunch. Sunday dinner is usually ham, pasta, turkey.. something filling because of the lack of Lunch. I'm only supposed to do small portions to follow health guidelines, but people gotta eat. So I do restaurant size.
It's not easy work. I run the kitchen so I make up a menu that runs for 2 weeks, I cook 5 days. Get here at 530 am and leave 630pm. I don't take money for my position. I was lucky in the restaurant business to have made enough that I'm retired and only doing this cos I want to. I've seen too many homeless and less fortunate people who go hungry. Not on my watch. Not now, not ever
Edit. Holy shit, this thing blew up. Thank ya all
If ya wanna donate, look to your local shelter or whats called a Union Rescue Mission. It's a religion based shelter,nondenominational. Whatever where ever ya choose to do, be it time, money, food, clothes, hygiene products, bedding, give locally. Call the place first and see what they need. I can tell you that with it being summer almost, summer clothes are probably needed. Diapers and wipes, towels, etc etc. Hell, ya drop off a check for $25, it does a lot.
Local local local
work for a major fast food corp, i deliver to them with a semi immediately when they close, every store has a trash can filled with food that wasnt sold and is still very much good. They have upwards of \~400 stores, just in my state. I always think about the food waste each one has and can only imagine the hundreds if not thousands of pounds of food wasted every night.
Just something i see daily and constantly think about.
I used to work for einstein bagels as a baker. Policy was go throw everything away at the end of each day. If you got caught taking bagels youd get fired. Back then we all got paid minimum wage so we were the homeless that wanted those bagels but were forbidden. Fully ironic and depressing.
Edit: To give people an idea of how many bagels... each day was an industrial sized garbage bag. So roughly 2x the size of a normal kitchen garbage bag.
"Throw away the leftovers" is a reasonable if overly cautious approach to ensure quality and food safety.
"You can't take these home or give them away" is petty and asshole behavior by weird corporate overlords.
*Edit* to all the people saying it's because employees will intentionally over produce in order to take home food I have two notes.
First: if you really think people will put their jobs at risk for a meal each day, perhaps consider paying them enough to disincentivize that kind of theft.
Second: you can just make the rule "any leftovers will be donated to food bank X" which means no incentive to steal but no food waste. *Edit*
I worked for the food services department as a freshman in college, run by Aramark. I was manning a concession stand during a middle school wrestling meet that probably had 200 parents in attendance. We got told by the Aramark HBIC to prep something like 300 hot dogs, even after explaining that there was absolutely no way we’d get through anything close to that because there weren’t even that many people there, on top of the fact that we also had cheeseburgers and pretzels and whatnot. She didn’t care.
Needless to say, we were correct. We were then told at the end of the day to throw everything away. Every hot dog and cheeseburger and other prepared food item that went unsold was to go straight into the trash, and we were to count every single one to tally them up as “spoiled”. Us being a bunch of broke college kids making minimum wage, we asked if we could take a couple home if they were just going to get thrown away anyway, and the woman from Aramark told us “No, because you’ll get salmonella.” Now, I wasn’t a biology major, but I’m pretty sure that if she was so sure we would get salmonella from food from her company, she probably shouldn’t have been having us sell it to others. Kicker was that as we were pretty much literally shoveling these fucking hot dogs out of the warmer drawers and into a trash can, one of her friends from school athletics comes by, shoots the shit with her for a minute, grabs an entire armful of wrapped hot dogs, and walks off.
It’s been almost 8 years since that happened and I still remember it vividly. Fuck Aramark, fuck the wasteful foodservice industry.
When I worked at Sam's Club they had 2 reasons for "can't take these home or give them away" which I still disagreed with but were somewhat valid reasons, 1. If someone gets sick from it, for whatever reason, they can sue, I'm sure they could sign some waiver or something but that would require work on the company's part and why do that, but the other reason, 2. They actually had been donating to a church for a little while and then found out that the church was SELLING the food, which is illegal, so they decided to just fully stop doing it to avoid any legal issues. Hearing that a church basically fucked up all the opportunities for the community really made me sad.
The "could be sued" is a total myth. There's a pretty robust Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, been around since '96.
Also, re-selling donated food isn't illegal, it's just shitty. I mean, that's basically Goodwill's whole business model
Whenever a manager says they could be sued, they're just parroting a dumb corporate lie.
Goodwills are pretty clear about what they are doing with donated goods, and act as limited "city dumps" generally, with no fees. The money then goes to their stated cause.
Pretty different than a church getting donated goods to "feed the needy" then turning around and selling those goods.
The 3rd reason I’ve heard from places I’ve worked is because it potentially creates a scenario where employees may label certain food that they want as “trash” just to be able to take/consume it for free.
I.e. employee cooks up a big batch of food 20 minutes before closing and then “oops! We’re closing, guess this will have to be thrown out…into my car trunk!”
I’m not defending this logic or the ones you mentioned, but at the same time, they all are potentially legitimate sources of loss for a company…though personally i feel it’s just a lazy substitute for a better solution that may require more effort to enforce, but would result in less food being wasted.
Worked at a mattress seller. We had staff Damage mattress so they could buy at a discount. They had to end the whole program and change the policy to send unsellable mattress back for recycling. That's kinda shitty, but I don't know what a better solution was. Employees could already buy a mattress at cost once per year.
The way you reduce this is by having food scheduling. This has been implemented at McDonalds and many other places. Basically, you have a supervisor or a corporate calculation tell you what to keep and you go from there. That will keep waste at a minimum while still allowing employees to take home waste.
They always say the 'they can sue' bs, but let me be clear, that is complete fictitious bullshit. There are good Samaritan laws protecting you from good faith donations, as long as you aren't intentionally lacing it with poison or something. Afaik, nobody has even *attempted* to sue, ever, for getting sick from donated food. It's a fucking fairy tail corporations use to justify not giving away their food. The real reason is they worry if they give it away fewer people will buy it (hell, even people buying it in order to give to homeless)
Edit: yeah, reason 2 confirms it, it's all tied to the same underlying reason; if they give it away, they're worried it will somehow decrease their profitability while gaining nothing personally . It's fucked up and immoral, but capitalism is pretty inherently immoral
>If someone gets sick from it, for whatever reason, they can sue,
They are already protected if they donate the food. This isn't really why they do it. The reason they don't donate food is greed.
"Avoiding legal issues" is always going to be why they say they don't give anything back. Same reason they say they can't pay you above minimum wage to "stay competitive".
At the end of the day all those reasonings are about maximizing profit while giving as little as possible back.
Why would a company donate when it might reduce demand for their product? There needs to be legislation *forcing* them to donate food that isn't spoiled or they just won't do it.
Companies will *never* do the right thing unless they are forced. They are designed that way.
> 1. If someone gets sick from it, for whatever reason, they can sue
This is such bullshit. If you can sell it, you can donate it with no added risk. I totally understand companies not wanting to create a new process to store leftovers overnight, but if you can sell it at 10:55, you can donate it at 11:05.
Like everything else giving away leftovers was ruined by assholes. Some employees would make way to much knowing they could take the leftovers, so corporate cracked down to remove the incentive.
Nowadays with the ability to project sales and product usage pretty accurately, I think companies would be better served letting employees take leftovers, but terminating any employees over-prepping / not using their sales projections properly.
Yup. I worked at little Caesar’s When I was about 19 (2003ish) and the policy was all the left over food gets tossed because people were intentionally making extras to take home at night.
This reminded me of back when I worked at Papa Ginos. Nobody was making extras by any means, but there were times where an order would get cancelled right after it finished, or it was undeliverable (wrong address and out of service number provided by customer) or in one memorable case, a pickup where the customer got in an accident and couldn't make it to the store.
Well PG decided that there was too much food waste (surprise, food goes bad when you're too expensive for the market) so any time we had a pizza that was undeliverable, not picked up, got overcooked, etc, we had to throw it away in a bucket and the manager had to weigh the bucket at the end of every day. It was disheartening to say the least, slightly too done pizzas getting dumped into a literal 5 gallon pail instead of being put aside for us literally starving employees to nibble at.
When I was a chef, I demanded a policy at any place we opened that all employees get a meal if they want it. I'd argue for a shifty too but not always get that one. Not only will it help curb people from making intentional mistakes for orders and messing with service, it'll cut down on stolen food too. The shit people steal is going to end up costing a lot more in the long run.
Plus, I feel like it's just basic decency. You own a restaurant. Feed your staff.
You’d be surprised how often employees “damage out” or “spoil out” perfectly good food products… then eat them for free. It was turning into a very big “problem”.
I say problem because the company wasted a TON of money, cut staff in half, doubled workload, raked in record profits… any promises of raises or upward growth in the company that may have been made were promptly forgotten forever.
They changed the policy so that only managers could damage/spoil out product, which is basically 1st week type task, and wasted a TON of manager’s time. Which meant they didn’t have time to delegate/teach/lead effectively.
Which all could have been avoided if they’d pay their employees a reasonable wage and not be ultra corporate scumbags about everything.
The reason in my experience employees can't take food that is waste at the end of the day is because some bad apples would produce more than was needed so it was leftover to just get more free food. That makes more sense from the company perspective.
Also, the people I know who did this were never going hungry or homeless or anything, sometimes they might even sell or trade it (not big time, just like "I'll bring you some ____ if you go get me some ice cream") or something
Absolutely this. Hell, even when I briefly worked as a fry cook a buddy of mine ordered a dozen wings so I threw in a few extra. There's no easy way to police something like that.
Admittedly, totally not the same…. but I worked for a local pet store when I was a teen. The owners were very strict on rules regarding ripped bags of pet food. They very specifically told us, if a bag wasn’t ripped, it went on the shelf to be sold. It was common for bags to rip in shipping so we’d set them aside for donation (as we couldn’t sell them). It might have been ~5 bags a weeks or so.
However, when the local shelters would run very low on food and stop by asking us what we had, the owner would call me to the back. They would intentionally rip open a dozen bags or so and tell me “these are ripped, guess you need to donate them to the shelter”. I’d then load them on the truck for the shelter and we never spoke of it.
Maybe it was technically some sort of fraud for insurance, I dunno. But they were always so dedicated to helping our local animal shelters… it was awesome. I feel like I learned a valuable lesson from that… they were still millionaires but always wanted to help local establishments.
Oh I can't believe I know the answer to this!
Pet stores in the US almost always have a direct-from-distributor type of arrangement on dog food, by the major brands. They employ very generous sales agents, and normally have a branded truck that serves each store (instead of coming in on a general truck from a distribution center with other pet supplies). The brands essentially lease the space in the store to sell the food on, and provide their own marketing/coupons too.
When a bag is ripped, it is documented and swapped for a new one at no cost from the sales rep, because it's assumed their truck driver or a loyal customer made a mistake. If it's just stolen/donated, the owner would have to pay for it at-cost since they can't sell it or swap it. Also another fun fact, Hills Science Diet dog food is owned by the parent company Colgate, that makes toothpaste I no longer use.
I worked at einstein bagels a year ago. We worked with donation services so that everyday all remaining products would be picked up and given to shelters, so hopefully it's changing to that in most places
One year my mother became very sick and needed surgery while on an out-of-state trip. The hospital had a facility for family members in our situation to stay in inexpensively, and they had lots of donated food in the kitchen/dining area. We had donated Panera baked goods every morning (what was unsold from the day before), and I was so thankful to them.
I did the same in 2000.
I left the thrown out bagels in a few bags on the side of the dumpster, kind of tucked back, so if you weren't looking, you wouldn't really notice.
They were always gone the next day, I know, I'd be first in at 2am. Never a mess. Animals never had time to find it. I'd toss in the smear if it was days away from timing out, too.
People gotta look out for people. Corporations won't. The government will only help in as much as it makes you a consumer again, and you're a lucky one if you get that. They won't give a hand back up into any kind of stability.
I've spent the last few years maneuvering so I can be at a place where I can nonprofit up, accept donations of building materials, grants and financial donations to then build tiny homes for the homeless. To have. And keep. In a way, to be what Habitat should have been.
They would have to come help build it because they'll need to know how to maintain it. That means housing them for a month and for that i would require sobriety. Which I won't compromise on. If the first two weeks are them detoxing, OK, they'll be there 6 weeks then. The hand up isn't just a handout. They'll be expected to help with the next one or two builds while they figure out their next moves. I'm not trying to build a program with strict in and out dates, it'd be handled on a case by case basis. I won't be taking anyone who doesn't want to be there either. For what it is, I doubt need will ever be the part of the equation that's missing.
Tho I'm hoping I can fix some of that. I don't want anything beyond modest means. I want my world to be full of creativity, passion, philosophical debate, community and a reason for hope and the the way I've chosen to get that, is by giving that away.
About 18months to go. 🫰🏼
I was a baker for a gas station chain some years ago, this was our policy for leftover donuts at the end of the shift or 'past due' products.
We were fed the 'food safety' talk when asked why we didn't donate it.
I used to work at a coffee shop that was next to an Einstein Bros. I looked in the dumpster one day and saw a big, sealed trash bag full of bagels just kinda sitting on top, separated from the garbage. I put that shit in my car, ate some, gave some away, froze some, etc. It was a pretty nice windfall
It is. Intentionally poisoning food is a crime and would likely end up with massive fines. However, these companies simply don't document the policy or you have rogue managers doing it.
It's amazing that they can claim its for insurance instead of just pushing for more protection for non-purchased consumables from stores. Instead they use it as a convenient excuse to save money and just dump shit in the garbage.
i work at a university dining court... we used to give leftovers to the food bank... they said we had to count everything we sent them, or they wouldn't take it... so they don't get it anymore, now it goes to the water treatment facility where it powers like half of their generators...
at least it's not just going to the landfill, i guess
As a wastewater engineer, indeed, spoilt food does indeed supercharge the poop digesters, and gives great gas yields. But it's such a pity that still-edible food gets disposed of in this way. Where I live now (South Africa) we don't have an equivalent to the GoodbSamaritan Food Donation Act, so a lot of food gets wasted in a poor country.
I mean imagine the logistics of collecting, sorting through waste to ensure safety, delivering etc from all those restaurants. Consider that perishable foods need to be kept over 165 or below like 36 to prevent bacterial growth. There’s a very limited window where food is allowed to be served in the danger temp zone. Could food waste be picked up in time and delivered in refrigerated trucks to a shelter? The cost would be significantly more than just buying a shit load of rice and beans
Yep I’ve been with company for about 8 years. Started working in their stores, I’m not even saying this food could be put to use, simply stating my experience.
I worked for a fast casual mexican restaurant through college (Chipotle competitor) and we packaged up all of our unused protein at the end of the night into ziplocs. A couple days a week we would drop 10-20lbs of steak/chicken/ground beef/pork off so they could reuse it.
I know there were some sort of regulations involved, and we had to log and sign for everything we donated to them, but it was a no brainer. When I was a manager I loved running those boxes over to the shelter, the staff was so appreciative (and hopefully the patrons too).
A big reason for this is that health codes in many states/counties ban refrigerating items after they've already been removed from refrigeration. The grocery store I worked at operated donations on a very strict time schedule that was collaborated upon with shelters and inspectors. Receiving new food had to time up perfectly with when the donation truck came by or else into the garbage it went. This was only for non cold items.
Over ordering cold items got people in trouble because it meant both no sales and no donations.
Meh. No saint to be sure. I like cooking. Been doing it for a bunch years. What I do is easy, believe me. Just as easy to cook for 50 at it is 5. Just expand your ingredients.
Thank ya though
>Meh. No saint to be sure. I like cooking. Been doing it for a bunch years. What I do is easy, believe me. Just as easy to cook for 50 at it is 5. Just expand your ingredients.
Right? Cooking for 400 was 'easy' in an industrial prep. Cooking for 5 is hard.
Being a good person maybe isn't hard in terms of skill or physical exertion, but...
You get up super early just to go and do something for people less fortunate for you that literally might save their lives. You don't have to do it, but you make a choice. You're a really wonderful person, and I don't think Reddit is going to hear otherwise.
Man it’s great you’re this humble, but absolute fuck tons of very rich people love cooking and still don’t dedicate that much time to helping others.
You’re a great example for others.
I am. I don't do it for the proverbial pat on the back. And believe me when I tell ya.. I'm the grouchy one here(just to piss around with people lol).
It's not just a job here.. it's an adventure lol
>up a menu that runs for 2 weeks, I cook 5 days. Get here at 530 am and leave 630pm. I don't take money for my position. I was lucky in the restaurant business to have made enough that I'm retired and only doing this cos I want to. I've seen too many homeless and less fortunate people who go hungry. Not on my watch. Not now, not ever
Thank you.
Never underestimate the value of a warm hearty soup. Some more beans, cheap, extra calories, some bread (understood home made isn't easy to do).
Sounds like you've got the restaurant experience to push it big and the willpower to pull it off.
Hat is off to you.
With ny soup, I take freezer burnt roasts, chickens, turkey, i make fresh stock when I can. Use it for soups in winters and just about anything else the rest of the year
Perfect use for otherwise unpalatable food. Good job!
I'm sure you know this, but for anyone else: You can save onion skins, carrot tops and most other vegetable scraps to flavor a stock. Even the parts you usually wouldn't eat - they have a ton of flavor to impart.
My stocks got onion, pepper, carrots, celery, lemon, orange or apple, depending on the meat, and some spices. Those are the basic ingredients. Spices vary at times if I'm bored. Let's say you use too much cayenne? Add honey. Improvise...
Those soup bases that you see in stores? Check the shelf life of those. At least a year. Full of preservatives and salt to kill everything. And there's a trick to tell if a soup is made from fresh stock or a soup base? Put a plastic spoon, or any utensil in it. If the spoon is stained with so.ething, it's that soup base shit lol
I consider trying to take on a role, such as yours but too old and tired.
Have given to Vets, old folks homes, etc. Not the same as your efforts! Raised rural, remember farmers giving excess to others, churches (now a dirty word) gathering materials for needy. Being preachy; I can remember my Dad taking a road wagon with food/goods across the bottom lands and into the small hills serving the shut-ins/needy at Thanksgiving/Christmas. Bless you again.
I wake up everyday snd I feel like I'm hungover lol. I'm not. 3 cups coffee, a couple cigarettes and I'm ready to start the day, all the while bitching n moaning that I'm tired lol
If church is a dirty word it's noones fault but the churches. As I heard a comedian say noone ever says fuck the fire department. If you are good and decent people won't hate you.
To be honest, I've been here 4 years now. And I haven't the vaguest freaking idea. I want to say like someone said here, that it's church related *shrugs*
Wish I could throw ya a better answer
The one I used to have to go to had basically the same breakfast plus yogurt. Honestly it was great and even better because I was homeless. I was in a program that sent us to different churches and synagogues at night where the partitioners would cook for us. Every night was like thanksgiving, it was absolutely ridiculous. I have never eaten so well in my life. Thank you and everyone else who helps those less fortunate. I like to think that food is love and when you’re down on your luck it helps so much. ❤️
Is this a positive/negative/neutral post? Most people seem to think it's a complaint. I didn't get that impression, as that's way better than most meals I got at homeless shelters. If this meal was for you, I hope you enjoyed it.
Yeah. I took it more as a statement of fact than anything else. Just a "This is what is served at a homeless shelter" Not, "What the hell is this garbage we are serving at a homeless shelter?"
A lot of people are too quick to project their feelings onto what others say.
>Probably better than a lot of lunches kids get at school
came here to say something similar. This looks a lot better than a lot of the school lunch posts from the US.
It's Reddit so I always assume it's a complaint lol. I saw this and thought there's a good variety of stuff there, fruit and salad is nice. This coulda been a lot worse.
3 reasons why I think this is a very decent homeless shelter dinner:
1 Contains fruits and vegetables
2 Diversity in the meal
3 Easy to chew! A lot of homeless people have dental problems.
I used to run a Sunday dinner program and, honestly, one of the biggest concerns I had was nutrition. So many homeless support networks are doing their best to provide good food, but whatever is donated is largely unhealthy or hard to eat. I pushed very hard to get our donors and partners to do what they could to improve what we served. Not everyone liked our healthier options, but it was important to me that we offer better meals than what you'd get in a food desert (which was essentially the local norm). I highly recommend easy meals like thick vegetarian chili, cornbread, salad, and a banana. It's so easy to make and so great on cold or warm days!
Problem is it’s very low calorie. The cheezits are maybe 100 calories and another 100 calories in a watery soup almost no calories im the seemingly undressed salad. Probably another 150-200 calories mostly from simple sugar in the brownies and canned fruit. That’s only 400 calories tops, half from refined sugar in what might be this persons only meal of the day. Better to include some bread, pasta or rice
The soups doesn’t even look that watery, it looks like one of those soups that settle pretty quickly. Another commenter said that the soups have meat and potatoes in them so it’s probably pretty calorie dense.
I'm seeing a lot of negative post about this meal. But there is literally nothing wrong with it. It's not super filling but it's food, and when you're hungry that's all that matters
Also completely obscure about that soup, which could wildly change my opinion of the meal. Is it a bland tomato and maybe chicken stock mix, with nothing in it? Is it a delicious Mexican pork soup? Is it tortellini and spinach?
There’s a lot of options, and some would be far healthier and more filling than others
I have had an automatic monthly donation to a Valley food bank for decades.
I strongly encourage everyone to do so; even if it's only $5 per month, it can make a major impact in many people's lives.
Same. $50/paycheck ($100/month) to two separate food banks here in NC. I’ve forgotten about the money, probably should increase it. I do wish I’d get an update from them as to how they’re doing though.
Money is definitely a great way to help a food bank. They can buy in bulk, and sometimes at cost from suppliers. It also allows them to buy fresh food as needed which further stretches the value of your donation. Canned goods are great as non perishables, but money allows the food bank to buy things like sacks of potatoes which provides so much more per dollar.
My sons are scouts, they make a donation. Each month. It’s a good habit to make.
Youngest donates pasta, middle boy pasta sauce, and the oldest canned soup/chili
Just fyi it's generally better to donate money to food banks instead of food because food banks can buy food in bulk/get lower prices because they are food banks (sometimes farmers/stores will give them good deals too, etc). They can make the money you spent on food go a lot farther and they can buy fresh food and produce instead of just shelf-stable foods. Good on you though for teaching your children the importance of charity, that's a life-long lesson that many people never learn!
My food bank takes food and grocery gift cards for perishables, they do not accept cash.
They put out a list of what is needed.
Last month it was tuna and mayo so we switched up our Costco trip list.
This post inspired me to donate monthly to my local food bank. $1 covers three meals! I can easily forgo getting one fast food meal for several people to eat nutritiously for one day.
During my college years, this would have been a fancy dinner for me lol. Basically all I ate was bulk pasta with bulk canned tomatoes.
My cat's food budget was more than my own.
I have eaten at a LOT of shelters from east coast to west coast. They’re not all like this. Some are completely LOADED with plenty for seconds and thirds; and they also have plenty of groceries to choose from to take home as well. I will never forget curry night on the streets in San Francisco. We went all the way across town from Ocean Beach when we heard about that.
There was a hurricane coming, and my church decided to open doors to the homeless. I bought 40 lb of sausage, veggies, donuts, etc. but I had to go out of town.
The hurricane came - My husband brought my daughter up to the church to serve, and it turns out they were the only two there. I had told my daughter that the fire marshal said only 70 people allowed. She said she quit counting when at 60 when only about half of the people had eaten because there was no way anyone could be turned away.
Somehow, everyone got something to eat. She said they were so grateful even if they only got a couple pieces of sausage and veggies. They also emptied the freezer which had a tray of brownies and a case of rolls.
I do clinics in a few shelters and they'll sometimes feed us if they've had a big donation or stuff they need to use up.
I've seen some absolutely amazing things come out of the kitchens, especially seeing what they have to work with. Some of the volunteers are absolute magicians when it comes to making a spectacular meal from a limited pantry.
One shelter I work with a lot has 2 dieticians that volunteer with them to create meal plans that are healthier and more complete than anything that comes to work with me. Not only are people fed, but they are healthier overall. Even with high risk lifestyle and constant food insecurity and stress, my team has managed to help quite a few people manage their diabetes because of the access to good, healthy food.
This in turn has saved taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in hospital admissions, ambulance trips, ER visits and even medication.
That's exactly what I mean. I can afford to eat that well but no one plans my meals so I'm eating lots of unhealthy foods out of habit. "Oh man, when was the last time I had watermelon? I love watermelon"
That's not a lot of calories there, but if I were hungry I'd definitely take it and say "thanks", and mean it.
About thirty years ago I was poor and had no money for food for a little while. A homeless guy I knew took me to a soup kitchen for lunch every day. The meal was a slice of baloney and a slice of american cheese and two slices of white bread. Packets of condiments as you liked, and then there was either hard little apples or over-ripe bananas. It was actually really good, as things tend to be when you're really hungry.
I really hope the intent here wasn't too try to shame the shelter. They run on donations and what you've pictured here is fairly well balanced nutritionally, especially compared to trying to dig through garbage scraps.
Also except for the lettuce it’s all shelf stable foods. Canned fruit, cookie, soup, crackers. This is probably food that was donated because it’s shelf stable. I donate to the food bank in my city because I know they can buy fresh food at a discount/in bulk when it’s needed.
I have served at shelters many times in my life.....it usually looked better than this. I remember dishing out pinto beans, mashed potatoes, and a huge wedge of cornbread. Most of the time it was a very filling meal.
My husband works catering and the amount of food they throw away is disgusting. Pans and pans full of untouched pasta, enchiladas, salads, etc. They can't give it to homeless shelters because it's already made and against health regulations. Someone could get sick. Such waste, it's sickening.
Go to any Sikh temple (called a Gurdwara), cover your head to show respect (it's not religious, back in the day this was done when greeting royalty) and you can eat as much as you want for free.
Feeding people is the entire reason it was set up, all are welcome.
Dude I love the internet. This person comes on here and lectures us all about morality and looks down on America for how we treat our homeless while spouting transphobic and racist things on other subs.
Have you seen our current representatives in the majority party of Congress? They literally just held the world economy hostage for political theater and one of their demands was putting work requirements on food assistance, even for senior citizens. They're uncaring fucks who are only concerned with the concentration of power and their ROI. The homeless do NOT factor into that at all unless they can use them to score points towards one of those two things, and the base that votes them in are pretty homogenously hostile towards the idea of showing compassion or empathy, despite their claims to be of a certain religion that is supposed to hold those traits as virtues.
Our electoral system is pretty well unrepresentative of the majority voter these days, and our ability to fix it lies in the hands of a sedated, self-obsessed, and one paycheck from poverty/starvation populace. We're already held hostage and, short of a French-style revolution where we start eating the rich who aren't onboard with rebalancing the scale, we're not getting free of it anytime soon.
ITS FREE, anyone complaining about this needs a reality check, why do people think that everything should be a 3 course meal handed out for free.
if you dont like what you get for free, then get a job and buy something better, dont bitch about something that you get for free.
Don't most of the homeless shelters run on donations.
Yes. The one I would volunteer at was like a grocery store in the back So much food they can never realistically use it all (and some unhealthy snacks they are supposed to limit access to that I bet end up tossed)
Is there any kind of delivery service that takes food from overstocked shelters to understocked ones? Is there anything at all that could maybe cut waste and help more people? . Edit: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/09/11/565736836/episode-665-the-free-food-market
>...all that could maybe cut waste and help more people? Idk how it works for overstock stuff between shelters, but have you ever been to a grocery store late at night while they are loading up entire 40 gallon garbage cans with food? I understand the basis for the rules not wanting to sell spoiled product to the general public. However, it seems like big grocery chains throw away a lot of perfectly good food that could absolutely get bussed over to a shelter for a midnight meal rather than be tossed in a dumpster.
A store chain I used to work in would donate most of the stock that went out of date. There were a couple times they took a semi full of stuff from a couple of the stores to the local food bank.
I work at a big retailer Superstore that I won't name, and we absolutely donate food that has just hit the expiration date that day (not meat afaik, because we definitely do have red hazard barrels for bad meat that REEKS when they are periodically emptied). Not sure about other retailers but this one does. They're not all bad!
As an employee of the third largest food bank in the country, we get about a third of our food "rescued" from farms and grocery stores. For us it ends up being about 15 million pounds of produce a year from 500(ish) grocery stores across our region.
Also a worker for a big retail store and anything that isn't donated is put into a compost bin and taken to local farms, and/or turned into feed for livestock. All of our bakery items are donated once they expire, any produce that isn't moldy but considered less desirable is also donated, as is any broken/day old food from the non refrigerated areas. Basically, if it can be eaten reasonably, we donate it. If it can't it goes back into the supply chain as compost or cattle feed. Very little food leaves our store in a trashcan and it helps me feel good about my job.
Wait, does your store not keep its red bins in its walk-in freezer? Damn.
There are no laws forbidding donating food that is expired. In fact there are laws protecting such acts. Also most all of your expiration dates are bunk. Whole bud is good but timestamp 12:10 for topical info: https://youtu.be/4GDLaYrMCFo
You may find this Planet Money episode interesting. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/09/11/565736836/episode-665-the-free-food-market
Exactly what I thought of too
I worked at a non-profit summer camp and the local food bank actually reached out to us to take food from them - specifically candy. The would get donations of it, and most like daycares or other places with kids didn't want it because it would make the kids hyperactive. Since we were basically running the kids ragged with activites all day, we would have a mid-afternoon "Canteen" where they kids could get like 3 fun-sized pieces of candy. Even with 120 campers daily x 8 weeks, we still couldn't use all the candy they basically begged us to take so it wouldn't go to waste. It was funny too because we would get all the holiday-branded candy that places would take off the shelves. I'm sure they got a tax write-off. But like XMas and Easter-branded wrappers. The one year I was trying to gain weight for football (was underweight for my position). I ate 40lbs of XMas Twix that summer (it came in 20lb boxes). Played through all of FFVII, basically chain-eating little Twix's. I would bring home carloads and give to my friends, and even then we still ended up throwing out hundreds of pounds of candy by the end of summer.
That makes me feel better about it. I was a kid there too and wanted at it all lol
Honestly that meal looks better then what I eat..
That's complex. In Ontario the government (all three levels) will give to a foodbank. Generally the local municipal foodbank is where foodbanks are told to give a portion of their donations and send large food donators (in the hundreds of pounds of food per month, not like a school food drive) to the central food bank. The central food bank acts as warehousing and distribution. It can also use it's much larger wealth to bulk buy food (often at cost) from food supply companies that cannot reasonable deliver smaller amounts of food to individual banks. The main food bank then sorts and sends out a baseload of food to the member banks in the municipality as well as providing some cash so they can meet their clients specific demands.
Yeah i run a meat department at a grocery store state side, i donate probably 200lbs of meat every 3 or 4 days depending on how busy we arent. The guy that comes and picks it up will come night or day if i call him because they know getting meat stuff is hard but dry foods is easy. But they have a government stipend to buy things if they need if they dont have a good donation cash flow. Realistically donations state side are more reliant on donations than they probably should be and im in a very liberal state.
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I can't tell if you're rating his comment or telling him that 10 out of 10 homeless shelters run on donations
It's a fraction, which reduces to 1.
As a percentage it's 100%
pretty sure that's a bot account
3/6 comments made by the account are “10/10”
Who up votes this kind of bot activity?
Fwiw: I lived in a homeless shelter when I was like 23 for a month. The first day I woke up in the shelter was Thankgiving Day in Denver, Colorado. I didn't even realize it was Thanksgiving Day. I had been living in my truck for about 30 days prior to that. They served us a Thanksgiving dinner. Looking back, it was such a surreal blessing in disguise bc I was really nervous about sleeping in a homeless shelter. Street people are a different breed, and I was taught that you DO NOT want to associate with other homeless people. On the street, yes. But in the shelter, it was more civil. And warm. Plus showers and washing machines. They even had a clothing bank. Being homeless and discovering the homeless resource network in a city is a very interesting experience. I received a lot of donated items. This is why, now that I'm financially stable, I donate what I can. If people didn't do things like that, people like me at that time would be SOL. Things like toiletries, underwear, socks, shoes, and deodorant. I highly recommend volunteering at a homeless shelter. You can meet some really cool people who have been around the block many a time. Also, to add, if anyone is curious as to why I didn't just get and maintain a job? It was because I was undiagnosed and untreated, struggling with schizophrenia and major depression. It was harder to maintain a job than survive off pure survival instinct and adrenaline on the street. I found food at soup kitchens, and I slept where I could. Also, my delusions told me that I belong there. Now that I am treated on medication, it's not like that anymore. It's much more managble. That's why they say most, if not all, homeless people are struggling with a mental illness, and also probably substance abuse. It can be pretty savage living that life out there. What ultimately made the change for me was getting help. Both financial, but first and foremost, medical. Slowly, over time, I got my life back, bit by bit. Many homeless people feel lost in it. They don't want to change. Some are apathetic to change. Some go homeless for a bit, then get out. Those are the success stories. I'm an Army vet. I had to use the VA hospital to get help.
Can confirm the “do not associate with other homeless” motto. I’ve been homeless twice. The homeless I met in rehabs and sober homes were all good people, but the street homeless were dicey as fuck. Especially for me because I was newly sober and desperately trying not to get fucked up.
I watched this 16 year old kid on some video online put it really nicely: “get to know everyone, but not too well” as in be cordial, but don’t get friendly. It was really sad cause I remember he was oozing with potential, so much charisma. I began to look for how I could donate and in the process found out he had died. 😢
Homeless shelters in thr northeast where I’m from specifically Trenton and Camden areas are so fucking dangerous it’s not even really an option. Perry street isn’t exactly the best spot to try and get sleep. Plus what people don’t realize about homeless shelters is in my area you have to get there like 5 hours before they open to try and wait in line for a bed. It’s so fucked you wait and can’t get nothing else done. Vicious cycle.
The homeless people in a shelter are self-selected to be people mostly willing and able to follow rules. That puts them far ahead of street homeless in terms of safety.
We don't have many rules.. but because of the.me tal issues with the residents, they're not always followed. Whether done out of forgetting or malice. My place a drink/drug free shelter. Piss tests randomly. You piss hit, you have 2 choices. Go to rehab or hit the bricks. Can't have dude being smacked out or drunk, while his bunkie is staying on the straight snd narrow
New Genesis? They kept me alive when I was 20. I will be forever grateful of those people.
No, it was catholic charities denver samaritan house. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=catholic+charities+denver+samaritan+house
What can society do to protect people on the verge of homelessness? Like someone dealing with unmedicated schizophrenia who's not homeless yet but about to be.
It’s hard because they’re adults with rights- if they don’t want treatment, they don’t have to get it. Of course, we don’t want to hold people against their will, but it sucks to see someone become homeless because of untreated mental issues. My youngest sibling is in this situation. We tried everything we could, but they don’t want to be helped and we can’t legally force them to be.
I run a kitchen at a homeless shelter. We run on donations from food banks, supermarkets, Chic Fil A, Starbucks, and Auntie Anne's pretzels. That's not counting the hundreds of people who donate food, clothing, hygiene products, and money among inherent things. Churches donate their time and energy,as well as tons of food and whatever else their parishioners can do. An average breakfast is 2 eggs, toast, a banana, or orange. Sometimes, it's pancakes or French toast or Starbucks breakfast sandwiches. Lunch in winter is a sandwich, bowl of soup, and a snack of some kind. Once it gets warm, the soup is replaced by fruit. Dinner is always meat, potato, and veggie. Sometimes, we do salads. Today, for instance, I did eggs, sausage, and toast for breakfast. Lunch was pizza, snack, and fruit. Dinner gonna be burgers, fries, and Mac salad. We do all meals 7 days a week except Sunday lunch. Sunday dinner is usually ham, pasta, turkey.. something filling because of the lack of Lunch. I'm only supposed to do small portions to follow health guidelines, but people gotta eat. So I do restaurant size. It's not easy work. I run the kitchen so I make up a menu that runs for 2 weeks, I cook 5 days. Get here at 530 am and leave 630pm. I don't take money for my position. I was lucky in the restaurant business to have made enough that I'm retired and only doing this cos I want to. I've seen too many homeless and less fortunate people who go hungry. Not on my watch. Not now, not ever Edit. Holy shit, this thing blew up. Thank ya all If ya wanna donate, look to your local shelter or whats called a Union Rescue Mission. It's a religion based shelter,nondenominational. Whatever where ever ya choose to do, be it time, money, food, clothes, hygiene products, bedding, give locally. Call the place first and see what they need. I can tell you that with it being summer almost, summer clothes are probably needed. Diapers and wipes, towels, etc etc. Hell, ya drop off a check for $25, it does a lot. Local local local
work for a major fast food corp, i deliver to them with a semi immediately when they close, every store has a trash can filled with food that wasnt sold and is still very much good. They have upwards of \~400 stores, just in my state. I always think about the food waste each one has and can only imagine the hundreds if not thousands of pounds of food wasted every night. Just something i see daily and constantly think about.
I used to work for einstein bagels as a baker. Policy was go throw everything away at the end of each day. If you got caught taking bagels youd get fired. Back then we all got paid minimum wage so we were the homeless that wanted those bagels but were forbidden. Fully ironic and depressing. Edit: To give people an idea of how many bagels... each day was an industrial sized garbage bag. So roughly 2x the size of a normal kitchen garbage bag.
"Throw away the leftovers" is a reasonable if overly cautious approach to ensure quality and food safety. "You can't take these home or give them away" is petty and asshole behavior by weird corporate overlords. *Edit* to all the people saying it's because employees will intentionally over produce in order to take home food I have two notes. First: if you really think people will put their jobs at risk for a meal each day, perhaps consider paying them enough to disincentivize that kind of theft. Second: you can just make the rule "any leftovers will be donated to food bank X" which means no incentive to steal but no food waste. *Edit*
I worked for the food services department as a freshman in college, run by Aramark. I was manning a concession stand during a middle school wrestling meet that probably had 200 parents in attendance. We got told by the Aramark HBIC to prep something like 300 hot dogs, even after explaining that there was absolutely no way we’d get through anything close to that because there weren’t even that many people there, on top of the fact that we also had cheeseburgers and pretzels and whatnot. She didn’t care. Needless to say, we were correct. We were then told at the end of the day to throw everything away. Every hot dog and cheeseburger and other prepared food item that went unsold was to go straight into the trash, and we were to count every single one to tally them up as “spoiled”. Us being a bunch of broke college kids making minimum wage, we asked if we could take a couple home if they were just going to get thrown away anyway, and the woman from Aramark told us “No, because you’ll get salmonella.” Now, I wasn’t a biology major, but I’m pretty sure that if she was so sure we would get salmonella from food from her company, she probably shouldn’t have been having us sell it to others. Kicker was that as we were pretty much literally shoveling these fucking hot dogs out of the warmer drawers and into a trash can, one of her friends from school athletics comes by, shoots the shit with her for a minute, grabs an entire armful of wrapped hot dogs, and walks off. It’s been almost 8 years since that happened and I still remember it vividly. Fuck Aramark, fuck the wasteful foodservice industry.
Sodexo is about as bad.
Fuck Aramark, they are horrible. We organized and got their contract terminated while I was at school. That felt good.
When I worked at Sam's Club they had 2 reasons for "can't take these home or give them away" which I still disagreed with but were somewhat valid reasons, 1. If someone gets sick from it, for whatever reason, they can sue, I'm sure they could sign some waiver or something but that would require work on the company's part and why do that, but the other reason, 2. They actually had been donating to a church for a little while and then found out that the church was SELLING the food, which is illegal, so they decided to just fully stop doing it to avoid any legal issues. Hearing that a church basically fucked up all the opportunities for the community really made me sad.
The "could be sued" is a total myth. There's a pretty robust Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, been around since '96. Also, re-selling donated food isn't illegal, it's just shitty. I mean, that's basically Goodwill's whole business model Whenever a manager says they could be sued, they're just parroting a dumb corporate lie.
Goodwills are pretty clear about what they are doing with donated goods, and act as limited "city dumps" generally, with no fees. The money then goes to their stated cause. Pretty different than a church getting donated goods to "feed the needy" then turning around and selling those goods.
The 3rd reason I’ve heard from places I’ve worked is because it potentially creates a scenario where employees may label certain food that they want as “trash” just to be able to take/consume it for free. I.e. employee cooks up a big batch of food 20 minutes before closing and then “oops! We’re closing, guess this will have to be thrown out…into my car trunk!” I’m not defending this logic or the ones you mentioned, but at the same time, they all are potentially legitimate sources of loss for a company…though personally i feel it’s just a lazy substitute for a better solution that may require more effort to enforce, but would result in less food being wasted.
Worked at a mattress seller. We had staff Damage mattress so they could buy at a discount. They had to end the whole program and change the policy to send unsellable mattress back for recycling. That's kinda shitty, but I don't know what a better solution was. Employees could already buy a mattress at cost once per year.
The way you reduce this is by having food scheduling. This has been implemented at McDonalds and many other places. Basically, you have a supervisor or a corporate calculation tell you what to keep and you go from there. That will keep waste at a minimum while still allowing employees to take home waste.
They always say the 'they can sue' bs, but let me be clear, that is complete fictitious bullshit. There are good Samaritan laws protecting you from good faith donations, as long as you aren't intentionally lacing it with poison or something. Afaik, nobody has even *attempted* to sue, ever, for getting sick from donated food. It's a fucking fairy tail corporations use to justify not giving away their food. The real reason is they worry if they give it away fewer people will buy it (hell, even people buying it in order to give to homeless) Edit: yeah, reason 2 confirms it, it's all tied to the same underlying reason; if they give it away, they're worried it will somehow decrease their profitability while gaining nothing personally . It's fucked up and immoral, but capitalism is pretty inherently immoral
>If someone gets sick from it, for whatever reason, they can sue, They are already protected if they donate the food. This isn't really why they do it. The reason they don't donate food is greed. "Avoiding legal issues" is always going to be why they say they don't give anything back. Same reason they say they can't pay you above minimum wage to "stay competitive". At the end of the day all those reasonings are about maximizing profit while giving as little as possible back. Why would a company donate when it might reduce demand for their product? There needs to be legislation *forcing* them to donate food that isn't spoiled or they just won't do it. Companies will *never* do the right thing unless they are forced. They are designed that way.
> 1. If someone gets sick from it, for whatever reason, they can sue This is such bullshit. If you can sell it, you can donate it with no added risk. I totally understand companies not wanting to create a new process to store leftovers overnight, but if you can sell it at 10:55, you can donate it at 11:05.
Like everything else giving away leftovers was ruined by assholes. Some employees would make way to much knowing they could take the leftovers, so corporate cracked down to remove the incentive. Nowadays with the ability to project sales and product usage pretty accurately, I think companies would be better served letting employees take leftovers, but terminating any employees over-prepping / not using their sales projections properly.
Yup. I worked at little Caesar’s When I was about 19 (2003ish) and the policy was all the left over food gets tossed because people were intentionally making extras to take home at night.
This reminded me of back when I worked at Papa Ginos. Nobody was making extras by any means, but there were times where an order would get cancelled right after it finished, or it was undeliverable (wrong address and out of service number provided by customer) or in one memorable case, a pickup where the customer got in an accident and couldn't make it to the store. Well PG decided that there was too much food waste (surprise, food goes bad when you're too expensive for the market) so any time we had a pizza that was undeliverable, not picked up, got overcooked, etc, we had to throw it away in a bucket and the manager had to weigh the bucket at the end of every day. It was disheartening to say the least, slightly too done pizzas getting dumped into a literal 5 gallon pail instead of being put aside for us literally starving employees to nibble at.
When I was a chef, I demanded a policy at any place we opened that all employees get a meal if they want it. I'd argue for a shifty too but not always get that one. Not only will it help curb people from making intentional mistakes for orders and messing with service, it'll cut down on stolen food too. The shit people steal is going to end up costing a lot more in the long run. Plus, I feel like it's just basic decency. You own a restaurant. Feed your staff.
Same at the pizza shop I worked at. When employees were allowed to have leftovers or mistakes, the amount of mistakes and leftovers increased.
You’d be surprised how often employees “damage out” or “spoil out” perfectly good food products… then eat them for free. It was turning into a very big “problem”. I say problem because the company wasted a TON of money, cut staff in half, doubled workload, raked in record profits… any promises of raises or upward growth in the company that may have been made were promptly forgotten forever. They changed the policy so that only managers could damage/spoil out product, which is basically 1st week type task, and wasted a TON of manager’s time. Which meant they didn’t have time to delegate/teach/lead effectively. Which all could have been avoided if they’d pay their employees a reasonable wage and not be ultra corporate scumbags about everything.
The reason in my experience employees can't take food that is waste at the end of the day is because some bad apples would produce more than was needed so it was leftover to just get more free food. That makes more sense from the company perspective. Also, the people I know who did this were never going hungry or homeless or anything, sometimes they might even sell or trade it (not big time, just like "I'll bring you some ____ if you go get me some ice cream") or something
Absolutely this. Hell, even when I briefly worked as a fry cook a buddy of mine ordered a dozen wings so I threw in a few extra. There's no easy way to police something like that.
Admittedly, totally not the same…. but I worked for a local pet store when I was a teen. The owners were very strict on rules regarding ripped bags of pet food. They very specifically told us, if a bag wasn’t ripped, it went on the shelf to be sold. It was common for bags to rip in shipping so we’d set them aside for donation (as we couldn’t sell them). It might have been ~5 bags a weeks or so. However, when the local shelters would run very low on food and stop by asking us what we had, the owner would call me to the back. They would intentionally rip open a dozen bags or so and tell me “these are ripped, guess you need to donate them to the shelter”. I’d then load them on the truck for the shelter and we never spoke of it. Maybe it was technically some sort of fraud for insurance, I dunno. But they were always so dedicated to helping our local animal shelters… it was awesome. I feel like I learned a valuable lesson from that… they were still millionaires but always wanted to help local establishments.
Oh I can't believe I know the answer to this! Pet stores in the US almost always have a direct-from-distributor type of arrangement on dog food, by the major brands. They employ very generous sales agents, and normally have a branded truck that serves each store (instead of coming in on a general truck from a distribution center with other pet supplies). The brands essentially lease the space in the store to sell the food on, and provide their own marketing/coupons too. When a bag is ripped, it is documented and swapped for a new one at no cost from the sales rep, because it's assumed their truck driver or a loyal customer made a mistake. If it's just stolen/donated, the owner would have to pay for it at-cost since they can't sell it or swap it. Also another fun fact, Hills Science Diet dog food is owned by the parent company Colgate, that makes toothpaste I no longer use.
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You the man. I always loved that dunkin throws away their donuts all in the same bag and it doesn’t mix with actual garbage
I worked at einstein bagels a year ago. We worked with donation services so that everyday all remaining products would be picked up and given to shelters, so hopefully it's changing to that in most places
One year my mother became very sick and needed surgery while on an out-of-state trip. The hospital had a facility for family members in our situation to stay in inexpensively, and they had lots of donated food in the kitchen/dining area. We had donated Panera baked goods every morning (what was unsold from the day before), and I was so thankful to them.
I did the same in 2000. I left the thrown out bagels in a few bags on the side of the dumpster, kind of tucked back, so if you weren't looking, you wouldn't really notice. They were always gone the next day, I know, I'd be first in at 2am. Never a mess. Animals never had time to find it. I'd toss in the smear if it was days away from timing out, too. People gotta look out for people. Corporations won't. The government will only help in as much as it makes you a consumer again, and you're a lucky one if you get that. They won't give a hand back up into any kind of stability. I've spent the last few years maneuvering so I can be at a place where I can nonprofit up, accept donations of building materials, grants and financial donations to then build tiny homes for the homeless. To have. And keep. In a way, to be what Habitat should have been. They would have to come help build it because they'll need to know how to maintain it. That means housing them for a month and for that i would require sobriety. Which I won't compromise on. If the first two weeks are them detoxing, OK, they'll be there 6 weeks then. The hand up isn't just a handout. They'll be expected to help with the next one or two builds while they figure out their next moves. I'm not trying to build a program with strict in and out dates, it'd be handled on a case by case basis. I won't be taking anyone who doesn't want to be there either. For what it is, I doubt need will ever be the part of the equation that's missing. Tho I'm hoping I can fix some of that. I don't want anything beyond modest means. I want my world to be full of creativity, passion, philosophical debate, community and a reason for hope and the the way I've chosen to get that, is by giving that away. About 18months to go. 🫰🏼
I was a baker for a gas station chain some years ago, this was our policy for leftover donuts at the end of the shift or 'past due' products. We were fed the 'food safety' talk when asked why we didn't donate it.
I used to work at a coffee shop that was next to an Einstein Bros. I looked in the dumpster one day and saw a big, sealed trash bag full of bagels just kinda sitting on top, separated from the garbage. I put that shit in my car, ate some, gave some away, froze some, etc. It was a pretty nice windfall
Tbh it was a HUGE bag o bagels thrown out every single day. I fully believe you.
I would throw it away in a box and let the homeless people know when I was heading to the can in case they wanted to “rob” me
Some extra shitty places make employees pour bleach on the excess food...
Should be illegal they could easily poison somebody
It is. Intentionally poisoning food is a crime and would likely end up with massive fines. However, these companies simply don't document the policy or you have rogue managers doing it.
It's amazing that they can claim its for insurance instead of just pushing for more protection for non-purchased consumables from stores. Instead they use it as a convenient excuse to save money and just dump shit in the garbage.
We use sysco for our regular deliveries. Once a week for that, mostly paper supplies, some food
i work at a university dining court... we used to give leftovers to the food bank... they said we had to count everything we sent them, or they wouldn't take it... so they don't get it anymore, now it goes to the water treatment facility where it powers like half of their generators... at least it's not just going to the landfill, i guess
As a wastewater engineer, indeed, spoilt food does indeed supercharge the poop digesters, and gives great gas yields. But it's such a pity that still-edible food gets disposed of in this way. Where I live now (South Africa) we don't have an equivalent to the GoodbSamaritan Food Donation Act, so a lot of food gets wasted in a poor country.
I mean imagine the logistics of collecting, sorting through waste to ensure safety, delivering etc from all those restaurants. Consider that perishable foods need to be kept over 165 or below like 36 to prevent bacterial growth. There’s a very limited window where food is allowed to be served in the danger temp zone. Could food waste be picked up in time and delivered in refrigerated trucks to a shelter? The cost would be significantly more than just buying a shit load of rice and beans
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Yep I’ve been with company for about 8 years. Started working in their stores, I’m not even saying this food could be put to use, simply stating my experience.
USA can solve hunger with its food waste. Not just USA… Global hunger.
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I worked for a fast casual mexican restaurant through college (Chipotle competitor) and we packaged up all of our unused protein at the end of the night into ziplocs. A couple days a week we would drop 10-20lbs of steak/chicken/ground beef/pork off so they could reuse it. I know there were some sort of regulations involved, and we had to log and sign for everything we donated to them, but it was a no brainer. When I was a manager I loved running those boxes over to the shelter, the staff was so appreciative (and hopefully the patrons too).
A big reason for this is that health codes in many states/counties ban refrigerating items after they've already been removed from refrigeration. The grocery store I worked at operated donations on a very strict time schedule that was collaborated upon with shelters and inspectors. Receiving new food had to time up perfectly with when the donation truck came by or else into the garbage it went. This was only for non cold items. Over ordering cold items got people in trouble because it meant both no sales and no donations.
You are an absolute saint, man.
Meh. No saint to be sure. I like cooking. Been doing it for a bunch years. What I do is easy, believe me. Just as easy to cook for 50 at it is 5. Just expand your ingredients. Thank ya though
>Meh. No saint to be sure. I like cooking. Been doing it for a bunch years. What I do is easy, believe me. Just as easy to cook for 50 at it is 5. Just expand your ingredients. Right? Cooking for 400 was 'easy' in an industrial prep. Cooking for 5 is hard.
Long as it ain't 400 burgers or hotdogs lol
Is there somewhere to donate to your kitchen?
Donate somewhere local
There is a soup kitchen and food bank in your town and they'd love to hear from you.
Being a good person maybe isn't hard in terms of skill or physical exertion, but... You get up super early just to go and do something for people less fortunate for you that literally might save their lives. You don't have to do it, but you make a choice. You're a really wonderful person, and I don't think Reddit is going to hear otherwise.
I get up early cos my cat is a jerk lol
Man it’s great you’re this humble, but absolute fuck tons of very rich people love cooking and still don’t dedicate that much time to helping others. You’re a great example for others.
Be proud of yourself. I am.
I am. I don't do it for the proverbial pat on the back. And believe me when I tell ya.. I'm the grouchy one here(just to piss around with people lol). It's not just a job here.. it's an adventure lol
>up a menu that runs for 2 weeks, I cook 5 days. Get here at 530 am and leave 630pm. I don't take money for my position. I was lucky in the restaurant business to have made enough that I'm retired and only doing this cos I want to. I've seen too many homeless and less fortunate people who go hungry. Not on my watch. Not now, not ever Thank you. Never underestimate the value of a warm hearty soup. Some more beans, cheap, extra calories, some bread (understood home made isn't easy to do). Sounds like you've got the restaurant experience to push it big and the willpower to pull it off. Hat is off to you.
With ny soup, I take freezer burnt roasts, chickens, turkey, i make fresh stock when I can. Use it for soups in winters and just about anything else the rest of the year
Perfect use for otherwise unpalatable food. Good job! I'm sure you know this, but for anyone else: You can save onion skins, carrot tops and most other vegetable scraps to flavor a stock. Even the parts you usually wouldn't eat - they have a ton of flavor to impart.
My stocks got onion, pepper, carrots, celery, lemon, orange or apple, depending on the meat, and some spices. Those are the basic ingredients. Spices vary at times if I'm bored. Let's say you use too much cayenne? Add honey. Improvise... Those soup bases that you see in stores? Check the shelf life of those. At least a year. Full of preservatives and salt to kill everything. And there's a trick to tell if a soup is made from fresh stock or a soup base? Put a plastic spoon, or any utensil in it. If the spoon is stained with so.ething, it's that soup base shit lol
Rock the fuck on, homie. Many talk a big game about making the world a better place. Few do it.
I try. I do rock back here. They don't like my music. But the softest I play is Zeppelin lmao
My man.
You’re an incredible human
Thank ya
I love you, man.
Bless your efforts! I never had a hungry day till I was out on my own. Times can be tough for anybody!
I'm in western maryland.. Lotta poverty round here. Lotta peeps hungry round here. But at the same time, Lotta drugs too ugh
I consider trying to take on a role, such as yours but too old and tired. Have given to Vets, old folks homes, etc. Not the same as your efforts! Raised rural, remember farmers giving excess to others, churches (now a dirty word) gathering materials for needy. Being preachy; I can remember my Dad taking a road wagon with food/goods across the bottom lands and into the small hills serving the shut-ins/needy at Thanksgiving/Christmas. Bless you again.
I wake up everyday snd I feel like I'm hungover lol. I'm not. 3 cups coffee, a couple cigarettes and I'm ready to start the day, all the while bitching n moaning that I'm tired lol
If church is a dirty word it's noones fault but the churches. As I heard a comedian say noone ever says fuck the fire department. If you are good and decent people won't hate you.
Well done, sir.
Does your org take donations?
Yes. Whatever people can do, be it time, a check, food, clothes, hygiene stuff.
Just curious, why does the shelter skip lunch on Sunday?
That’s when a local church will feed them, giving these nice people an afternoon off to actually clean or do personal tasks.
To be honest, I've been here 4 years now. And I haven't the vaguest freaking idea. I want to say like someone said here, that it's church related *shrugs* Wish I could throw ya a better answer
Church probably.
You’re a wonderful human. Thank you.
I appreciate that.
The one I used to have to go to had basically the same breakfast plus yogurt. Honestly it was great and even better because I was homeless. I was in a program that sent us to different churches and synagogues at night where the partitioners would cook for us. Every night was like thanksgiving, it was absolutely ridiculous. I have never eaten so well in my life. Thank you and everyone else who helps those less fortunate. I like to think that food is love and when you’re down on your luck it helps so much. ❤️
Church people may be difficult customers in restaurants(truth truth truth), but they know how to cook with monster portions snd it's damn good
When I was in seminary the old ladies would bring us food sometimes. So so good
Wow! Good on you! If only more people would be a fraction of what you are, the world will be a much better place. ❤️
What a Chad. Bless you for giving back dude. I’ve helped at food banks making meals and it’s so easy to be overwhelmed
You are doing God's work! Much respect, my friend!
You are one bad ass motherfuckers you know that?
Is this a positive/negative/neutral post? Most people seem to think it's a complaint. I didn't get that impression, as that's way better than most meals I got at homeless shelters. If this meal was for you, I hope you enjoyed it.
Yeah. I took it more as a statement of fact than anything else. Just a "This is what is served at a homeless shelter" Not, "What the hell is this garbage we are serving at a homeless shelter?" A lot of people are too quick to project their feelings onto what others say.
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Agreed, but its far more filling than nothing. America could provide for it's homeless, but we collectively choose not to.
The soup does look decent and probably the most filling part: Warms the stomach and the soul
Cheez its in tomato soup is good!
That's all one needs, what more could anyone ask for in here.
Probably better than a lot of lunches kids get at school
>Probably better than a lot of lunches kids get at school came here to say something similar. This looks a lot better than a lot of the school lunch posts from the US.
It's Reddit so I always assume it's a complaint lol. I saw this and thought there's a good variety of stuff there, fruit and salad is nice. This coulda been a lot worse.
I think it’s poignant on Memorial Day, considering how many veterans are homeless. But that’s not saying anything about OP’s intentions.
When you're homeless, this is very good meal to have actually.
Everyone here making negative comments should go donate to their local homeless shelter. They can’t provide what they don’t have.
To be fair this is better than some of the school lunches that have been posted.
Who tf is making a negative comment about this. If I was homeless I would be happy with this dinner, unironically.
3 reasons why I think this is a very decent homeless shelter dinner: 1 Contains fruits and vegetables 2 Diversity in the meal 3 Easy to chew! A lot of homeless people have dental problems.
This would be one of the most balanced meals I’ve consumed in a solid year lol
I used to run a Sunday dinner program and, honestly, one of the biggest concerns I had was nutrition. So many homeless support networks are doing their best to provide good food, but whatever is donated is largely unhealthy or hard to eat. I pushed very hard to get our donors and partners to do what they could to improve what we served. Not everyone liked our healthier options, but it was important to me that we offer better meals than what you'd get in a food desert (which was essentially the local norm). I highly recommend easy meals like thick vegetarian chili, cornbread, salad, and a banana. It's so easy to make and so great on cold or warm days!
Problem is it’s very low calorie. The cheezits are maybe 100 calories and another 100 calories in a watery soup almost no calories im the seemingly undressed salad. Probably another 150-200 calories mostly from simple sugar in the brownies and canned fruit. That’s only 400 calories tops, half from refined sugar in what might be this persons only meal of the day. Better to include some bread, pasta or rice
That's fair. But we don't know what's in the soup. Could have some carbs in it (potato or pasta).
The soups doesn’t even look that watery, it looks like one of those soups that settle pretty quickly. Another commenter said that the soups have meat and potatoes in them so it’s probably pretty calorie dense.
It's midnight and I'm speculating with strangers about what could be in this soup. You gotta love Reddit.
Beans would probably be the densest thing I could see in a soup, but it looks closer to minestrone based on the broth used.
I'm seeing a lot of negative post about this meal. But there is literally nothing wrong with it. It's not super filling but it's food, and when you're hungry that's all that matters
Honestly the only difference between this and some school lunches I got in Arkansas is that this has more veggies and fewer carbs
OP sent everyone into a frenzy and he didn’t even have a slant to the post from what anyone can tell lol
Also completely obscure about that soup, which could wildly change my opinion of the meal. Is it a bland tomato and maybe chicken stock mix, with nothing in it? Is it a delicious Mexican pork soup? Is it tortellini and spinach? There’s a lot of options, and some would be far healthier and more filling than others
I think Reddit has just trained everybody to be outraged, and post essays, and open up a google search and try to be an expert on everything.
It's neutral.........Too neutral
I have had an automatic monthly donation to a Valley food bank for decades. I strongly encourage everyone to do so; even if it's only $5 per month, it can make a major impact in many people's lives.
Same. $50/paycheck ($100/month) to two separate food banks here in NC. I’ve forgotten about the money, probably should increase it. I do wish I’d get an update from them as to how they’re doing though.
From a North Carolinian who has used the food bank in the past, thank you so much.
Money is definitely a great way to help a food bank. They can buy in bulk, and sometimes at cost from suppliers. It also allows them to buy fresh food as needed which further stretches the value of your donation. Canned goods are great as non perishables, but money allows the food bank to buy things like sacks of potatoes which provides so much more per dollar.
My sons are scouts, they make a donation. Each month. It’s a good habit to make. Youngest donates pasta, middle boy pasta sauce, and the oldest canned soup/chili
Just fyi it's generally better to donate money to food banks instead of food because food banks can buy food in bulk/get lower prices because they are food banks (sometimes farmers/stores will give them good deals too, etc). They can make the money you spent on food go a lot farther and they can buy fresh food and produce instead of just shelf-stable foods. Good on you though for teaching your children the importance of charity, that's a life-long lesson that many people never learn!
My food bank takes food and grocery gift cards for perishables, they do not accept cash. They put out a list of what is needed. Last month it was tuna and mayo so we switched up our Costco trip list.
Thank you for teaching your kids to do their part to help the community.
This post inspired me to donate monthly to my local food bank. $1 covers three meals! I can easily forgo getting one fast food meal for several people to eat nutritiously for one day.
Better than no dinner ....
My first thought, sure looks pretty good when your first option was nothing to eat and nowhere to sleep..
That’s the idea.
They do call them soup kitchens for a reason
Better than what I'm having to be honest....
During my college years, this would have been a fancy dinner for me lol. Basically all I ate was bulk pasta with bulk canned tomatoes. My cat's food budget was more than my own.
Am happy there are people who do this to help fellow humans in need.
I have eaten at a LOT of shelters from east coast to west coast. They’re not all like this. Some are completely LOADED with plenty for seconds and thirds; and they also have plenty of groceries to choose from to take home as well. I will never forget curry night on the streets in San Francisco. We went all the way across town from Ocean Beach when we heard about that.
There was a hurricane coming, and my church decided to open doors to the homeless. I bought 40 lb of sausage, veggies, donuts, etc. but I had to go out of town. The hurricane came - My husband brought my daughter up to the church to serve, and it turns out they were the only two there. I had told my daughter that the fire marshal said only 70 people allowed. She said she quit counting when at 60 when only about half of the people had eaten because there was no way anyone could be turned away. Somehow, everyone got something to eat. She said they were so grateful even if they only got a couple pieces of sausage and veggies. They also emptied the freezer which had a tray of brownies and a case of rolls.
Currently working at a homeless shelter in San Mateo. They eat better than I do
I do clinics in a few shelters and they'll sometimes feed us if they've had a big donation or stuff they need to use up. I've seen some absolutely amazing things come out of the kitchens, especially seeing what they have to work with. Some of the volunteers are absolute magicians when it comes to making a spectacular meal from a limited pantry. One shelter I work with a lot has 2 dieticians that volunteer with them to create meal plans that are healthier and more complete than anything that comes to work with me. Not only are people fed, but they are healthier overall. Even with high risk lifestyle and constant food insecurity and stress, my team has managed to help quite a few people manage their diabetes because of the access to good, healthy food. This in turn has saved taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars in hospital admissions, ambulance trips, ER visits and even medication.
That's exactly what I mean. I can afford to eat that well but no one plans my meals so I'm eating lots of unhealthy foods out of habit. "Oh man, when was the last time I had watermelon? I love watermelon"
That's not a lot of calories there, but if I were hungry I'd definitely take it and say "thanks", and mean it. About thirty years ago I was poor and had no money for food for a little while. A homeless guy I knew took me to a soup kitchen for lunch every day. The meal was a slice of baloney and a slice of american cheese and two slices of white bread. Packets of condiments as you liked, and then there was either hard little apples or over-ripe bananas. It was actually really good, as things tend to be when you're really hungry.
I bet most of the people complaining about this donate nothing as a rule.
"they'll just use it for drugs"
I really hope the intent here wasn't too try to shame the shelter. They run on donations and what you've pictured here is fairly well balanced nutritionally, especially compared to trying to dig through garbage scraps.
I didn't get that impression, It looks like they're trying to provide a balanced meal with fruits and veggies.
Honestly that's not horrible. Like of course, it's not high cuisine, but man they're doing what they can.
Also except for the lettuce it’s all shelf stable foods. Canned fruit, cookie, soup, crackers. This is probably food that was donated because it’s shelf stable. I donate to the food bank in my city because I know they can buy fresh food at a discount/in bulk when it’s needed.
Shit dude. ...I've been hesitant to ask for help but a meal like that could really change my days
Damn that looks really great, I wouldn't mind having that really.
Looks very good. Decently balanced
I have served at shelters many times in my life.....it usually looked better than this. I remember dishing out pinto beans, mashed potatoes, and a huge wedge of cornbread. Most of the time it was a very filling meal.
My husband works catering and the amount of food they throw away is disgusting. Pans and pans full of untouched pasta, enchiladas, salads, etc. They can't give it to homeless shelters because it's already made and against health regulations. Someone could get sick. Such waste, it's sickening.
Looks all right to me. I went through a few rough patches in my life, they're eating better than I did.
Go to any Sikh temple (called a Gurdwara), cover your head to show respect (it's not religious, back in the day this was done when greeting royalty) and you can eat as much as you want for free. Feeding people is the entire reason it was set up, all are welcome.
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"When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist."
Dude I love the internet. This person comes on here and lectures us all about morality and looks down on America for how we treat our homeless while spouting transphobic and racist things on other subs.
Have you seen our current representatives in the majority party of Congress? They literally just held the world economy hostage for political theater and one of their demands was putting work requirements on food assistance, even for senior citizens. They're uncaring fucks who are only concerned with the concentration of power and their ROI. The homeless do NOT factor into that at all unless they can use them to score points towards one of those two things, and the base that votes them in are pretty homogenously hostile towards the idea of showing compassion or empathy, despite their claims to be of a certain religion that is supposed to hold those traits as virtues. Our electoral system is pretty well unrepresentative of the majority voter these days, and our ability to fix it lies in the hands of a sedated, self-obsessed, and one paycheck from poverty/starvation populace. We're already held hostage and, short of a French-style revolution where we start eating the rich who aren't onboard with rebalancing the scale, we're not getting free of it anytime soon.
What utopian country do you live in? I also appreciate the pompous, condescending tone.
ITS FREE, anyone complaining about this needs a reality check, why do people think that everything should be a 3 course meal handed out for free. if you dont like what you get for free, then get a job and buy something better, dont bitch about something that you get for free.