Freeganism: saving money by eating food from the trash

A new trend on college campuses becoming increasingly popular is freeganism; the practice of eating food that has been discarded, most commonly from trash as opposed to purchasing it or visiting a food pantry in order to save money.

Freeganism is a combination of the words ‘free’ and ‘vegan’ to connote a sense of lifestyle in a similar manner as vegans who voluntarily consume an all-natural diet, except the difference is that it is free, not all-natural. The spike in it is only partially due to economic factors, such as the lack of jobs caused by long-term economic stagnation, the increasing price of a college education and the decreasing availability of loans or scholarships.

Freeganism primarily attributes its rise in popularity to the increase in individuals who’ve adopting it as part of an “anti- consumerist”, “anti-capitalist” or “environmentalist” lifestyle to demonstrate their perception that individuals need not rely upon monetary means to subsist and draw frequent comparisons to how animals forage for food in the wild. Though this begs the obvious question of how the food was secured to be able to discard it in the first place, a large number of students have aligned themselves with freeganism.

It is unknown what percentage of students nationwide have identified themselves as freegans considering the differentiation between how each individual defines their affiliation as need-based or a result of their philosophical orientation.

Like vegetarianism or veganism, there are many types offreeganism. On one end of the spectrum, some students consider dumpster-diving a key component of freeganism while some students interpret freeganism as a synonym for being frugal by taking advantage of free events and merchandise commonly offered to students.

For those at WSU who have resorted to freeganism as a last resort rather than as a lifestyle choice, there is a food pantry on the first floor of Millet Hall available to students.

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