[300bps]

My hunch is dumpster diving works well when food is plentiful and people are throwing perfectly edible items away willy-nilly.

Get a depression-style food shortage and suddenly what you find in the dumpster won’t be as appetizing as the donuts that Dunkin just didn’t sell that day.

[chantelles]

That's true. I mean, I mean the best dumpster diving is in rich neighbourhoods. Food banks also dry up in hard times. I lived in Nelson BC for a time when most people there were on welfare (it was at about 80%) and the food bank only had apples from the harvest and those decorative gourds so I got them and tried to cook them ( I was house sitting a Doukabor cabin for a Buddhist couple ) and even ate a few bowls of what was THE MOST BITTER thing I ever had even with a zillion sugar packets. But lets be real, what happens when the dumpsters dry out is folks steal. That's why it's safer to have a social net, for everyone.